The 10th Hour 01.30.09: 10 Most Annoying Game Characters

Posted by Derek Robbins on 01.30.2009

A lot of characters get on our nerves, but which ones out right annoy us? 411's Derek Robbins tells us which 10 perturb him the most on this week's 10th Hour.

Hello and welcome to the 10th hour! As always, before we get this ball rolling, let's touch on a couple of tangents real quick.

-As much as I would love to convince myself that the Cardinals will beat the dreaded Pissburgh Steelers, I still don't think that's going to happen. It's a shame, because Kurt Warner winning another Super Bowl would be a pretty cool thing.

-The only thing I've really played this week is Luminous Arc. For whatever reason, I'm not in much of a gaming mood. My brother keeps playing Madden though, for some wacky reason. I guess Super Bowl season gets him in the mood to play horribly mediocre games. Whatever.

-Finished season 3 of The Office. I liked it a lot. We now own Season 4 and are ready for the apparent sucking to commence. A few of you in the comments section last week said that the fourth season sucked, so I'm kind of bracing for it. I've seen a couple of season 5 episodes and thought they were pretty funny, so I'm hoping that the season 4 suck-fest will just be a much feared rumor.

Reader Feedback

Last week I spoke about the most annoying WoW players. Let's see who you thought should have been on this list:

A Guest immediately corrects a mistake I make:

Nope. The number one annoying person in WoW: The Duel Me Guy. Always fucking challenging you to a duel and then when you decline he goes on to barrage you with annoying tells and shouts and whatnot, even calling you names as if your 'honor' is being threatened. They just plain suck.

Well, that guy is rather annoying and he does abuse the chicken emote, but he never really bothered me at all. You see, whenever someone challenges me to a duel, I just run away very quickly and do not pay attention to my chat log. I just have no desire to deal with that. Especially because as I was leveling up my characters, most of the times that I would get random duel invites was against characters who were way higher levels than my guy. Crazy shit.

All Around Wrestling Fan goes more in depth about Guitar Hero stuff:

I 100% agree on the track packs, but since I've had to deal with this for so long, I've gone one step further.

I wish that people like me could order a track pack and actually choose the specific songs I'd want on it. Then I pay for the making of it and shipping and that's taken care of. I'm sure licensing and rights and such wouldn't make that possible, but it would be amazing.

I do like the Volume 2 track pack though. I got Afterlife, Indestructible and Saints of Los Angeles! And those are just the really fun hard songs. I was also happy to have Call Me, Zero, You've Got Another Thing Comin', Why Do You Love Me, This Ain't a Scene, It's An Arms Race, Snow (Let's be honest, fuck that song and it's ridiculous hammer on/pull off verses) and Simple Man. It was definitely worth the 20 bucks. Only a dollar a song. But there's a lot of other DLC I only get to play at a friend's house and it hurts to not have it 24/7.

I like your idea a lot and I honestly don't see why something like that can't happen in the future. Honestly, I would gladly fork out money for select track packs because that way I choose the expansion songs I desire. This would be a smart move by the music game developers so they could capitalize on money from EVERYBODY and not just cable internet users. I'm glad we agree that track packs would be a superior alternative to brand new $50 games each year. Fabulous.

Liam brings to the forefront Know it all Guy:

What about the 'Know It All Jerk'? You know, the guy who will rip people to shreds in trade chat about your choice of gems/enchants/gear because they've ran 7 characters through the Sunwell and have been playing since the closed beta and know how to play your own character better than you do? Or he'll casually announce at the start of a Culling Of Stratholme Heroic run that your gear isn't up to doing the timed run for the bonus boss, whispers an apology and then promptly causes a wipe because he doesn't get his heals off in time on the tank?

I hate that guy.

Guys that act like they know everything about the game are pretty annoying. They want to make sure everyone knows every tiny detail about everything and what the "best" option is in their humble opinion. I think that "Takes it too serious guy" is very often this same guy, so I'll just leave it at that. An all-around jerk.

Finn really dislikes the World of Warcraft:

Man, fuck WoW. It's the epitome of all the bad things the world associates with video games (i.e. anti-socialism, extreme geekiness, obsession etc.) and it's not even a fun game. You spend more hours 'farming' and arguing with cyber trolls than actually having fun. Not to mention that it's insanely expensive and actively encourages people to exchange real money for virtual gold. It's insane. Fuck WoW and everything associated with it.

Well look, I'm not sure about that. The World of Warcraft can be an extremely social game. If you don't know how to communicate with others, odds are you won't be able to strive in an end-game environment. I agree that the other video game vices are present, but I wouldn't say anti-socialism is one of those. I also would not call WoW "insanely" expensive. People who play a lot of WoW only need to pay for one game enough while most people probably need to buy one. WoW costs 15 bucks a month, which isn't actually bad.

As for fun? Well, the more you put into it, the more you get out of it. Everyone has a different experience.

A different Guest has an idea on why guys play as girls:


Only reason a guy would do this is because he's looking for that exact attention. Why else would a guy use "a vaguely female name" if he wasn't looking for that attention from those kind of guys? What's with guys and female characters anyway? Do they play different or just curious of what it's like to be female?

I don't think that is the reason a lot of people create girl characters. My very first top-level character (60) was a male human Paladin. When the Burning Crusade expansion came out, I grew tired of looking at my male Pally and decided to make a female character because it was just different. I really don't have a preference in gender when I play the game, but for me…if I play one gender for so long, I want to look at something else for hours at a time.

Also, guys would use a female name (as a female avatar) because, you know, it's the character's name.

User Warcrack made a similar point and even suggested guy who plays a girl character to that list. Sure, there are some guys out there like that, but I think a lot of people out there just wanted to make something different. Maybe it's like in Knights of the Old Republic when someone wants to play the dark side because every game ever makes them play the good guys. Maybe those people want to play females because they're always male? I don't know.

Ben talks about one of the 10th Hour's favorite subjects: Valkyria Chronicles!

Derek, a big thank you for recommending Valkyria Chronicles. I was a little skeptical for the first few battles because I assumed it would be quite repetitive but when I got drafted to the army and got to choose my squad and customize my weapons...That's when things picked up for me. I love the amount of strategy involved and that each individual member of your squad has a unique personality, rather than just some nameless and faceless goon. Games like Call of Duty could take a page out of this book. My only real concern right now is that I have a bad feeling this game is going to be too short...How long does it last, roughly? And thanks again.

That's my favorite part about the game. I love the fact that my fellow warriors all have identities. When a character dies, they're just not a faceless soldier. They're one of you! There's something really cool to say about that. Sometimes I'll actually turn off the system to avoid a character's demise. Especially Vyse. If I lost him, I would be horrendously sad.

As for length, if you just do the course and play every mission and do all the optional stuff, you'll have an experience that will probably last twenty hours. If you do a replay of the game and try to get all A-rank missions and play the skirmishes on hard mode you'll probably be playing around forty total hours. It's not the longest game, but it's worth every penny.

RavenTazECW raps up the comments this week with his return:

It's been awhile. No clue why 411mania didn't load up for me for a couple months, but since it's back working I have a lot of reading to catch up on.

I've encountered #10-2 on countless occasions and was annoyed by them all. I especially love the DPS bastards that think they can tank because they do so much damage that they'll never be hurt, so they take half of the aggro away from the tanks and force the healers to split up their efforts. Then these DPS bums would get on healers cases for not healing them exclusively. I pretty much stopped running dungeons at all later on in my WoW life (Haven't played since last summer). I never really encountered a girl who would flaunt being a girl though, but I was mostly a horde player and we didn't seem to have as many females playing for us.

I still wish WoW could be single player with customizable AI bots so I wouldn't have to deal with people at all anymore, hahaha. The guild recruiting got so ridiculous with people spamming me with guild invites without actually asking first that I made my own guild and only had my 10 characters in it and no one else. It was good for that guild bank stuff but since I became tired of the horde in my battle group constantly losing BG's, I wound up stopping playing instead of switching to the alliance.

Now I've got about 6-7 more of your lists to catch up on.

From my experience with the horde, there seems to be less immature behavior on that side. Of course, it still exists, but I think as a whole it's the more socially acceptable faction. Maybe it's because all the losers hop on Night Elves? I dunno. Regarding jerk DPSes: I know there are a lot of people like that, and they just love hassling healers. My God, healers get it bad sometime. If you dare let someone die, they will let you hear about it, even if you were doing all you can to keep everyone alive.

In regards to that: Nah. Guild Wars has things like that I do believe. If I wanted to play an MMO without actual people, I'd probably play Final Fantasy XII. Don't get me wrong, it would be beneficial to play WoW by yourself, but it would totally lose its charm without the social element.

Glad that you're back on the site. I really appreciate you going back to read my old posts. I hope the site doesn't screw up for you again!



Top-10 most annoying game characters

Last week I talked about living, breathing people who annoyed me, but what about video game characters? Our industry is full of characters that will annoy the piss out of you, and this week I'm going to break down a few of those. Who do you think should be on the list? If you don't agree, feel free to supply your own list. I'm sure there are a lot of game characters out there that piss a variety of people off. These are just mine though. Sometimes I'll like the character, but in a particular game they were just unbearable.

Also, that dog from duck hunt didn't annoy me so he doesn't make this list. Sorry all of you who wanted him.

10-) Big the Cat - Sonic the Hedgehog has taken a pretty steep downfall over the years. This is no secret. Hell, every other week I am bemoaning the loss of my beloved blue blur. A character that was sort of the harbinger of said destruction was Shadow the Hedgehog. Everybody hates him. Is he really annoying though? No, he's just kind of a loser character. There was a prelude to Shadow though, the character that marked the beginning of the…err…beginning of the end.

Big the Fucking Cat. Oh my God. Everything about Big the Cat just rubs me the wrong way. Let's start with his voice. I wouldn't consider myself an overly politically correct guy. Actually, I'm quite the opposite of that. I think the way people go over-board with it is un-believably annoying but GOD DAMN, Big the Cat was without a doubt the most offensive portrayal of a mentally handicapped person in video game history. "DUHHHH, FWOGGY". I mean, god damn, how stereotypical can you get? The only thing that could have made it more obvious would be if he moved around not on his legs, but by a little tiny bus. Sonic Team, you should know better.

Seriously, if Eugene of WWE fame was made into a Sonic character, Big would be that character. It's just something that makes you scratch your head. Believe it or not though, his extremely dull, offensive personality isn't even the worst thing about him! Trust me, if that was the case, I'm sure someone like Cream the Rabbit would have taken his place here. He has got to have the worst playing levels in Sonic history. You think Shadow the Hedgehog was bad? You think Sonic 2006 was bad? You thought the werehog was bad? God damn, you've never played Big the Cat's levels.

Sonic Adventure 1 was full of fun playing adventures. Sonic levels were fun, Gamma levels were fun, Tails levels were fun, Amy's were okay, hell…even Knuckles levels weren't a huge hassle like they were in Adventure 2. Big's on the other hand, these levels were entirely predicated on your ability to fish a frog out of the water. You had to track down a frog, by the name of froggie, and reel him in. That was it! It was one of the most boring, tedious gaming moments in history.

I wish I was making this up. In a game where you want to run fast, you have a fat, slow cat who walks about the speed of Bubsy on a good day. His gameplay is based around the even SLOWER sport of fishing! Fishing. I loved Sonic Adventure 1, but that shit was pretty much ridiculous. You even fish on boss battles! You try to get froggie out of chaos! That's just…just weird! Some people liked the fact that it was different, but if that's the kind of different that people liked, I fear for humanity.

Every time Big has appeared in a game it has been made exponentially worse. You cannot prove me wrong.



9-) Mr. Resetti - Everyone liked that first time you reset Animal Crossing without knowledge of what would happen. An animal gets on screen and then berates you for not saving your game and turning it off like a normal guy? Honestly, the first couple of times I would do it on purpose to see what he would have to say. After a while though, it loses all of its charm. You say: "Okay, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to do it. Let's move on." He just won't shut up though.

Mr. Resetti is your motivation to turn off the game regularly. You don't want to run into him. He takes way too much time to read (or skip) and sometimes he does things to fuck with you. Like, he'll act like he'll reset the game on you and, according to one of my cousins, if you do it long enough he'll make you write him a letter of apology. It gets quite annoying after a while, especially if you just want to roam around your town doing chores for your little animal buddies.

Once my brother (David, not Drew) asked me if he could buy a gun in Animal Crossing to do Mr. Resetti in. I am dead serious. He did not want that little mole telling him off over and over and over again. That's how annoying Mr. Resetti could get. You didn't just want him off of your screen, you wanted him off of all screens permanently. I'm sure that would have made Tom Nook happy. I bet he resets all the time now.

As if his Animal Crossing antics weren't annoying enough, he was also brought on board by Sakurai to appear in Super Smash Brothers Brawl where he pisses everyone off who is playing by filling the screen with words. I mean, seriously, when he comes out it zooms up real close to him allowing you to read all of his words and it just gets super annoying. It's better than the Nintendog equivalent, mostly because I god damn hate Nintendogs, but it just becomes a pain after a while. Especially because he just drones on and on and on and on. The first time you see him, just like in Animal Crossing, everybody goes: "Oh cool! Mr. Resetti!" And they have a good laugh.

Trust me, the next few times you see him there will be no laughs. Just fear. Damn you Mr. Resetti.



8-) Sonic (SSBB) - Man, speaking of Brawl, who else was excited as hell when they heard Sonic was going to be in? I know I was. You're all probably super tired of hearing about this, but I grew up on the blue blur and it's one of the few characters that I am willing to give unlimited chances to. He could be in a bad game every year for the next ten and I would assume that his very next game would be a good one that would blow my pants off.

I love Brawl. Honestly, it's probably the best game featuring Sonic since the third Sonic the Hedgehog. That said, within the confines of Brawl, Sonic is one annoying character. What he lacks in physical strength and what he lacks in rank as far as tier lists are concerned he more than makes up in the annoyance department. Anybody who has played a Sonic player knows what I am about to mention. "YOU'RE TOO SLOOOOOOOW." That's right! Sonic players will go off into a corner and spam that taunt over and over again to drive you insane.

That's the thing though, Sonic is really fast. He can just zip around the screen and find an open area and taunt. Hell, he can probably finish off the taunt before you get there, zoom off to another area of the level, and do it again. If you play a multi man match, Sonic will always find himself off alone somewhere and you know damn well what he's going to do there. That's right, virtually stimulate himself by proclaiming how fast he is. Hell, he may even mix in a "COME ON, STEP IT UP" in there for good measure. If he had just said: "Step your game up" he would have evaded this list entirely. What a shame.

That's not the worst thing about Sonic though. When a smash ball appears on screen and Sonic is in the match, you know very well who is going to be getting it. The smash ball can spawn on the opposite side of the screen with Sonic off taunting all by himself and every other brawler right next to it and Sonic will STILL find a way to get it. He'll just zoom in there, get it, zoom back, taunt and then…then…"NYAOW EYE'LL SHEOW YEW" BAM! Super Sonic.

Super Sonic is normally a thing of beauty. When you see Sonic go super saiyan it usually symbolized that you've collected fifty rings and are ready to kick Robotnik's ass. In Brawl though, Super Sonic is death incarnate. He'll race around screen, be invincible, and be able to eliminate everybody without any issue. You can only hope to be able to flawlessly spot-dodge every single time if you want to survive. Good luck.

Darn you Brawl for making me dread the appearance of Super Sonic. I mean, COME ON, STEP IT UP!



7-) Sagat - You think Sonic is annoying spamming the same phrases over and over again? Well, I don't think you've ever fought Sagat before. Allow me to mimic your typical Sagat fight for you. This is the audio you will be hearing: "TIGER, TIGER, TIGER, TIGER, TIGER, TIGER, TIGER, TIGER, TIGER, TIGER, UPPERCUT!, TIGER." It's nerve-wracking. You see him sitting over there in the corner letting those beams fly and you can't do anything about it. You try to approach him and he'll uppercut you. It's just a pain of a situation to be in.

I wish I had a better reason for placing him on this list, but seriously. Plug in your SNES or Genesis and play your way to Sagat in Street Fighter II. Count how many times he shouts Tiger and then see how quick it is for you to get tired of it. I guarantee you it will just be a matter of seconds before you say: "OKAY, FUCK YOU BUDDY". Sagat may look like a badass but my God can he grate on you after a while. Particularly in SF II.

Still love the guy though. Just damn his fascination with tigers.



6-) John Madden - John Madden has got to be one of the most tiring personalities in an NFL broadcast booth. He not only oral serves Bret Favre every time he opens his mouth but he also feels the need to point out the most obvious things in a game just in case you've never seen a game before. Combine that with his BAM and you've got a losing combination.

Well, it's a no brainer for him to appear on this list as well then. After all, Madden is one of the most popular video game franchises of all time. There are people out there who only buy one game and that game is Madden. There are people who are normally pretty hardcore gamers but every now and then will break down and buy a Madden game simply because it is there. Everyone knows it exists and whether we like it or not is irrelevant.

It's a good thing that current Madden has taken Madden out of the broadcast booth and into a more restricted role. Now he only opens his mouth if you do the Madden IQ test or ask him for advice doing a play. You only have to suffer through the IQ test once, so maybe, juuuust maybe, you never have to suffer through him again. The thing is though, before that point, Madden and Michaels were the main play-callers of the series and they were just bad.

I mean, for goodness sakes, Michael Cole parroting the words VINTAGE and applying it to younger grapplers like CM Punk thinks that Madden is bad. I guess there is an upside to his putrid commentating. He'll occasionally say something horrendously awkward and if you're in a group full of like-minded individuals you can get a good laugh out of it. I mean, I'm sure everyone has laughed at Madden talking about how good it is to be able to penetrate the defense before haven't they? What about how James Thrasher is one of the best receivers in the NFL? Hilarious.

Other than being a ludicrously bad announcer, there really isn't a ton of reason to hate him. I mean, sure, Madden may be sort of a running joke by now but he's a likable guy outside of that. So, err, sorry about this John.



5-) Baby Mario - Super Mario World 2 was quite a shift from the first game. Honestly, to be quite honest, it was a bit of a risk for Nintendo. Instead of sticking by the tried-and-true Mario side-scrolling method they attempted to do something a little different with Yoshi's Island. It may not have been the perfect package, but it was a cute little game that took some risks and you have just got to respect that. It may have begat Yoshi's Story for the N64, but everyone makes mistakes.

Unfortunately, this game also gave birth to one of the worst Nintendo characters in history. This is coming from the company that gave us Baby Bowser, so you know it has to be bad. Baby Mario is, what we assume at least, the child of Mario and Peach. He is dropped mistakenly by the stork into Yoshi's Island, and I guess the various Yoshis are trying to find Mario or…something. I don't really know. Maybe they were just annoyed by Baby Mario and wanted to find a way to get him off the island.

Whatever the case, everything starts out well enough. Yoshi has the little baby on his back and you're motoring along, having fun, you know…all that good stuff. Then you get hit. All of a sudden you hear a sharp "WAAAH WAAAH WAAAH WAAAH", as if a baby was crying. You notice that baby Mario is no longer on your back and you begin frantically searching for him. You finally find him and he shuts up. Oh good! Unfortunately, this scenario happens a lot.

I understand why they do this the first time. What if you let Baby Mario off your back and you just didn't know he was gone? The koopas could get him and that would be that. Later on though, you know very well that if you get hit Baby Mario is going to be coming off, so why do you have to make him yelp like that? Honestly, the whole reason I was going back to find Mario was because I didn't want to be subjected to his incessant bellowing anymore. I wanted a respite. It seemed like it would take less work than getting up off of my couch and turning off the SNES at least.

I am a peaceful, normal individual. I wake up in the morning, I panic frantically trying to find my glasses, and bitch about my Playstation 3's trigger buttons like everyone else does. That said, I absolutely have an un-dieing hatred for babies. I do not like them, they do not like me. I think this hatred took root in Yoshi's Island. Every time I see one not strapped to a dinosaur's back, I just picture it floating around in a magic bubble going WAH WAH WAH WAH WAH WAH WAH WAH…and I just go a little crazier each time.

Seriously, some sadistic people have to be working at Nintendo to keep Baby Mario liking like that every time we lose him. Baby Mario's bellow could be used as an interrogation method against terrorists. You hear people talking about how inhumane waterboarding is, well, don't even TRY to fuck with activists when they hear Baby Mario whine. It will be an un-ending parade of misery.

Why do they keep bringing Baby Mario back? Why was he in Mario Golf? Why was he in Mario Tennis? Please, please, please just…go become Baby Back Ribs or something.



4-) Slippy - Star Fox is one of the best Nintendo properties out there. When they make a Star Fox game properly, it's one of the best games out there. It's really that simple. Every series has a character that drags it down, but not many have a character that drags down the over-all quality of the product down several notches. Slippy does just that by being, by far, the worst member of the Star Fox team.

Just play a level of Star Fox and you'll see what I mean. While Peppy and Falco will occasionally find themselves in a sticky situation, more often than not they will be busting heads alongside you. It just feels like every second, you'll hear Slippy scream for help. He'll go: "FOX! GET THIS GUY OFF ME!" If you dare not do so, because you know, you're busy fighting off guys that are on your tail, he'll berate you until you do so. The worst thing about it? You're not even sure if it's a boy or not. With his shrill voice, he sounds completely feminine. Though I guess at best he could pass off as Pat of Saturday Night Live fame.

That's not the only thing though! Slippy will also feel the need to let you know that he shot someone down whenever he does. The others will occasionally pipe in when they do something great or get onto your case when you take their kills, but Slippy never can seem to shut up. He wants you to know about how great he is, how awesome of a pilot he is, and why your life sucks because you're not him. I absolutely HATE that Slippy gets mad at me for taking his kills. Seriously Slippy? If I wasn't going after a medal or something, you'd probably be dead. Show a little gratitude!

Honestly, the only reason they keep him on the Star Fox team is because, apparently, he's a very good mechanic. So good that the very life of team Star Fox would be in doubt if the little frog wasn't there. This is kind of a shame because my dream is to start out a game of Star Fox and just blast him out of the sky right away. Unfortunately, that just doesn't seem like it would be a good idea. What a shame.

What I also don't get is how Slippy, of all the characters, manages to find a female mate in the DS version of the game. I really don't take much interest in the Star Fox characters and their personal relationships, but you'd have to figure that someone of Slippy's ilk would have problems finding any companionship. What is his pick-up line: "Hey baby, I'm pretty much useless and whenever I get into a tough situation by buddy Fox bails me out. I have a voice so shrill that it will make your ears bleed. So, uh, wanna have sex?"

…He'd probably shout: "GET THIS GUY OFF ME" during though. Honestly, I don't want to think about it.



3-) Raiden (MGS 2) - MGS 4 Raiden is the single greatest character turn-around in video game history. In MGS 4 he changes from the detestable character we all got to know in Metal Gear Solid 2 and he becomes someone that is actually quite cool. Someone that we are proud to fight alongside with. While he wasn't the coolest character in the game, he was cool enough that he almost redeemed himself for his performance in the second game.

You'll note that I said almost. Metal Gear Solid 2's Raiden had to have been one of the most annoying characters of all time. First of all, when we all saw trailers of MGS 2, we all saw Snake. We saw the incredible graphics and the awesome gameplay experience that the game promised to be. We wanted to control Snake and experience the battlefield once again through his eyes. We didn't want a new guy, we wanted to just play the old one. While that decision was insanely ballsy, it was ultimately a poor one and hurt MGS 2 in the end. So, simply by not being named Solid Snake, Raiden is already in the red.

He only gets worse from there though. Raiden seems to whine an awful lot for the lead in a game. He would complain about how he didn't want to be controlled and how he didn't really want to be on this mission and all sorts of junk that you didn't really care about. On one hand, I appreciated that the player was able to see Snake from a different point of view, but on the other hand…what we were getting with Raiden was something that was a bit polarizing. You go from the manly Solid Snake, a man dripping with testosterone…and from that you go to Raiden. A whiney guy on the battlefield who seemed to be more wrapped up in himself than the actual mission.

The focal point of all of this would be his relationship with Rose. The many, many cutscenes the two shared were elements in torture training. If Raiden had woke up after MGS 2 had ended and found himself to be in Ocelot's torture training thing from the original Metal Gear Solid, I would have honestly believed what I was seeing. It was getting ludicrously bad at points and I was wondering whether my Playstation 2 was intercepting transmissions from One Tree Hill or something. It was just…well, it was just weird.

I don't mind characters that are emotional. Honestly, it shows that you're more human than anything. My favorite Final Fantasy character is Vivi. He's not exactly the manliest of men, but he is in touch with his emotions and comes off as a very realistic character. Certainly, he's more of a human than someone like Sephiroth. Someone like Raiden though, by the end of MGS 2, sounded just plain emo and I feared that perhaps by the end of the game he would break a My Chemical Romance CD in half, wander into one of the Big Shell's restrooms and slit his wrists.

Perhaps Raiden wouldn't have been so high on this list if he hadn't taken the place of Solid Snake in Metal Gear Solid 2. After all, if he was just a support character, would people hate him as much? You're not really controlling him and his interactions are at least something you don't have to deal with every single time you save. The thing is though, he's not just a support character, he DID replace Solid Snake, and we won't know whether or not people would feel differently about him. I just thank Metal Gear Solid 4 for absolutely saving his character because if it wasn't for that game, Raiden could have went down in history as one of the worst characters ever.

Also, fucking Rose. Why didn't she call him Raiden? She knows it's a SECRET MISSION. You're not supposed to call him Jack. Ugh.

Remember the time we stayed up and watched King Kong movies all ni…
*Shuts off PS2*


2-) Neku at the beginning of TWEWY - I absolutely loved The World Ends With You, and by the end of the game, Neku in particular. He displayed real character growth and showed that there can indeed be quality writing in video games. That said, during the first chapter of the game, or I should say roughly over the first seven days, Neku is about as intolerable as they come. Honestly, I was THIS close to turning off my DS and never playing the game because he was just that damn annoying.

Now, you think Raiden is emo? You think Raiden is a whiner? Neku re-defined the term whine. He absolutely hated everything about the game and everyone that was in it. Your partner for instance. She would try to talk to him sweetly and preach the values of camaraderie. He would say: "What has anyone done for me? People suck. I'm going to go through this thing solo, I don't need your help." It would continue on like that.

Seriously, he says quotes like this: "Outta my face! You're blocking my view! Shut up! Stop talking...just go the hell away! All the world needs is me... I got my values, so you can keep yours, alright? I don't get people. Never have, never will." and "Who needs friends?!?" He just seems like an absolute jerk, an absolute waste of time, and you have to wonder why all of these dead people flock to him like he's the next best thing. I honestly thought through out the first seven days that his headsets were leaking out pheromone because there's no way that someone like Shiki would give him the time of day with all the venom he was spewing.

Neku is very lucky for his mid-game turn-around because, honestly, he was in danger of becoming the single worst lead character in gaming history. You see, you find out at a point that everyone playing "the game" is dead and trying to reclaim their lives. I had thought that Neku's cause of death was killing himself. I thought someone let loose to the cops that he stole music or something and he just couldn't bare life anymore, so he just ended it all. It was just ridiculously bad. He defined emo in gaming at the very beginning. Luckily by the end he was extremely good, but I'm shocked Square started out by making him so detestable. I was THIS close to quitting the game because of it.

I know I wasn't the only one either. As far as personalities go, early game Neku has the worst, bar none.



1-) Navi - A lot of people may look at this list with general confusion and question where Tingle was during the course of this listing process. I know a lot of people find him annoying as can be, but to be totally honest I find him down right hilarious and a credit to the Zelda universe. I encourage you to import Tingle's Rosy Red Rupee Land sometime and you'll understand why he is such an interesting, unique character. I really don't understand the hatred for him, I guess maybe some people out there are fearful that one day they could turn out like Tingle or something?

Well, whatever the case, number one for me was really a no-brainer. Ocarina of Time was an instant classic upon its release delivering an un-prettier to Mario 64 and was pretty much THE game to own on the N64. Really, it dripped cool. You could go to theaters and see awesome trailers for Zelda. HAVE YE THE STONES!? I know cinematic trailers for video games aren't a big deal these days, but seeing Link on the big screen was a huge deal for me. I really didn't think it could get much cooler than that.

When you actually play the game though, one character more than any other leaps off the screen at you and announces their presence. Years after playing it, the first character I think of when I think about OoT isn't Link. It's not Princess Zelda. It's not Sheik. It's not the amazingly badass Ganondorf. It's not Impa. It's Navi the fairy. Navi the fucking fairy, the fairy assigned to Link, the boy without a fairy.

Unlike the fairy in Majora's Mask, Tatl, Navi doesn't really have any story outside of being the fairy assigned to Link. She's not really an interesting character to have around, she doesn't really add anything to the game, she's just there to provide the player with hints…regardless of whether you want them or not. Throughout the course of the game she will shout: "HEY! LISTEN!" to try and garner your attention. You will then get a notice to press up on the C-button to see what she has to say.

This can be helpful at times, like…say you're running around Hyrule field and you don't have the foggiest idea about where to go next. If Navi pesters you into pressing C-Up, perhaps you can gain some insight on your next destination. Other times it can be just plain un-welcome. Like, if you're off doing a mini-game or something and you're ignoring the main storyline, she'll pop up and tell you to get cracking. It can get pretty damn annoying at times.

That's not even the worst of it though. Let's say that you actually need guidance on where to go. You're running around Hyrule and honest to God it's a hassle for you. Well, you have the ability to call Navi at any time by pressing the up-C button. Unfortunately, when you actually need her sage advice, she doesn't give it! She'll tell you something useless like "Oh, I miss Saria!" or something. It's kind of silly. And also, you've got the times when Navi interrupts you and forces you to answer her calls. Those are a pain in the butt too. And the worst of them all: When she pesters you time and time again and you keep checking what she has to say and she says the same shit she said last time over and over again. I DON'T WANT TO HEAR IT AGAIN NAVI.

Seriously, Navi's voice is engrained in my brain. When I think of Navi, I hear "HEY, LISTEN". When someone says those words, I think of the little fairy. So if Nintendo wanted to create a memorable character, I guess they did a pretty good job out of it. Unfortunately, said memorable character also happens to annoy the ever-loving piss out of me. It's interesting to note that every 3D Zelda has sort of a guide character. It's a damn good thing that they are all better than Navi.



Honorable Mentions: Pretty much any post S3&K Sonic character.

Well that's it for today. As always, if you wish to comment on what I say feel free to do so below or send me an e-mail at [e-mail]. Either way works. I sincerely appreciate every comment you give me, good or bad, as I feel it helps me become a better writer. Given the release date of Street Fighter IV, the next two 10th hours will be dedicated to that game in some regard. So, you best be ready!

Before I get going, let's see what's going on around our site, shall we?

Theo Fraser writes The Nintendophiles

Jordan "The Ogre" Williams writesWorking Title. His "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger" ends next week. I am requesting a steam game of L4D with you!

Vincent Chiucchi inducts various iterations of bad box art into the Hall of Shame

Chris Vicari writes The PC-Spotlight

Jacob Lopez moderates a Fact or Fiction between Rod Oracheski and James McGee.

Tommy Coloma writes The Release List

Rod Oracheski writes Achievement Unlocked

Trace Aber writes Living Live

Joe Roche writes the Full-Circle 360 News Report

Vincent Chiucchi writes The Select and Start News Report

AJ and Mike Minotti voice The Exploding Barrel Podcast. I now know what they feel like with the icy weather. It's been pretty…miserable this past week. Agh. Also, Tim Lincecum could pitch the pants off of Cliff Lee. I forgot to mention that last week.

Well, that's it. I'm out.

'til the crossroads

Screenshots
All 9 The 10th Hour Screenshots