The 10 Most Ridiculous Video Game Characters

This list began as "The 10 Worst Video Game Characters of All-Time" but I came to realize that the characters I had chosen weren't bad per-say.  Bad characters would make their games worse and I don't think these do.  They are just ridiculous.


#10: Johnny Cage (Mortal Kombat)

Why does he have a door-knocker on his crotch?

As one of the original fighters in the Mortal Kombat series, Johnny Cage is one of gaming's most cherished douche bags.  With his hair, apparent spray-on tan, flamboyant clothing, and 1% body fat, he looks like a reject from the Jersey Shore.  If you still doubt Cage's douchery, consider one of his trademark attacks, the Nut Breaker, in which he does the splits and punches his opponent in the groin (it only works on male opponents).

I wonder if this has something to do with the door knocker...

#9: The Cast of Bulletstorm

DICKS!

Honestly, I haven’t played Bulletstorm, but the characters spew the most ridiculous dialogue in the history of video games.  Actually, they may have the most ridiculous dialogue in the history of anything. Here are some highlights:

"I’m not interested in quantifying how much abuse your ass is built for"

"Ah dick-tits! this shit is happening!"

"Here comes Butterdick Jones"

Is it weird that video made me want to play Bulletstorm?

#8: Hard Man (Mega Man)

I'd be angry too if my name was Hard Man

Come on Capcom!! You are making this way too easy.  I realize thinking of new enemies is difficult, Clown Man is weird, Plant Man shoot flowers, and Dust Man is a… vacuum (I think), but Hard Man?!  His name makes fun of itself.  As the cherry on top, defeating Hard Man gives Mega Man the ability to fist people.  I hope this is intentional.

#7 Anthony and Benjamin Carmine (Gears of War)

Anthony makes an appearance in the first Gears of War while Benjamin shows up in the sequel.  They wear identical armor, have the same voice actor, and die unheroic deaths early in their respective games. So Anthony and Benjamin are essentially the same person.  I just can't figure out exactly what their purpose in the series is.  


In order to serve as comedic relief you have to be funny and if all you do is die it has to be an amusing death (Kenny).  Anthony is shot in the face with a sniper while Benjamin falls out of a helicopter, nothing funny or important to the plot.  Maybe the Carmines serve as a cautionary tale to those who don't use steroids or to any Italians fighting in a war against genocidal subterranean reptiles.  More likely, since  Anthony and Benjamin are two of the few characters in the series who wear helmets, they are there to inform gamers that bandanas, goggles, cowboy hats, and hair serve as better protection.

#6 Donkey Kong

What ultimately put DK on the list is the 'Donkey Kong Rap' from Donkey Kong 64 aka the most miserable collection of lyrics in the history of music.  My favorite line is, "His coconut gun can fire in spurts. If he shoots ya, it's gonna hurt!"  

On a side note, while reading the Donkey Kong franchise Wikipedia article I found an amusing passage:

" MCA Universal sued Nintendo over copyright violations, claiming that Donkey Kong was a copy of King Kong. Nintendo's lawyer, Howard Lincoln, who would go on to become a Senior Vice President of the company, discovered that Universal didn't own the copyright to King Kong either, and was able to not only win the lawsuit (as well as several court appeals), but get Universal to pay the legal costs. Ironically, it was MCA Universal that previously won a lawsuit declaring King Kong was in the public domain."

#5 Cait Sith (Final Fantasy VII)

Yep, that’s a cat riding on the back of a giant pink stuffed animal.  Oh, and Cait Sith is armed with a megaphone.  Compare that to Barret, another Final Fantasy VII character, he has a gun instead of a right arm.  I don’t know what else to say.

#4 Tingle (Zelda series)

Just looking at him makes me uncomfortable

No list of the most ridiculous video game characters would be complete without Tingle, who made his first appearance in 2000’s Majora’s Mask.  Tingle is described as a “short, pauncy 35-year old man who is obsessed with forest fairies and dresses up in a green costume.”   Tingle, “is also known for his catchphrase: “Tingle, Tingle, Kooloo-Limpah!”  For some inexplicable reason he is very popular in Japan and as a result he is the only Zelda character to appear in his own spin-off game: Freshly-Picked Tingle’s Rosy Rupeeland. 

Way more uncomfortable now

#3 Simon Belmont (Castlevania)

How long does it take you to get dressed in the morning?

The Belmonts are the most badass family in the history of gaming.  They are like the Mannings if Peyton, Eli, and Archie killed Dracula and other evil beings instead of throwing footballs.  Therefore, you would think as the first of the Belmont vampire hunters Simon would be some mind-blowingly awesome man who shoots lasers out of his eyes and eats nails for breakfast.  Instead, he looks like a drag queen who got into a fight with a lawnmower.  I hope Blade beats Simon up and takes his lunch money at vampire hunter conventions.

#2 Lester (Lester the Unlikely)

Lester is the protagonist from 1993’s Lester the Unlikely who is described as “kind of geeky” and “kind of sleepy.”  Here he is in action:

#1 Falco, Peppy, and Slippy (Star Fox)

It’s ridiculous that Falco, Peppy, and Slippy are the best pilots the planet Corneria has to offer. I have to assume they were competing against people who are blind, missing at least three limbs, or both.

Falco is the most ungrateful asshole ever.  When Fox destroys an enemy fighter on Falco’s tail, the douche doesn’t say “Thank you.”  Instead he says, “Gee, I’ve been saved by Fox.  How swell.”  WHAT?!  If that’s how Falco responds to someone who just saved his life I want to know what he would have said to whomever tried to kill him.  

So much attitude

Peppy is the king of useless comments.  His only pieces of advice in dangerous situations are to either “Do a barrel roll!” or “Use bombs wisely.”  Meanwhile, Peppy used to fly with Fox’s deceased father and likes to make comments like, “You’re becoming more like your father,” just to remind Fox that his father is dead.  Also, if Slippy is in trouble, instead of helping, Peppy just says, “Quit dinkin’ around, Slip!”  I’m assuming none of you know what “dinkin” means (I didn’t) so I took the liberty of looking it up on UrbanDctionary.com. Dinkin is the act of embodying all aspects of things gangsta.  Thanks Peppy.

Falco is an ass and Peppy is unhelpful but at least they can go more than ten second without needing help.  Slippy is so bad that he actually drags the rest of the team down.  If the Star Fox team recruited me I would be more helpful than Slippy because I would immediately crash my spaceship and rid the rest of the pilots of my constant calls for help.  

The 10 Dumbest Video Game Weapons

The history of gaming is full of really awesome weapons, but occasionally a video game will feature a weapon that is either completely useless or has some glaring flaw.  Here is a countdown of the ten most egregious examples:

#10: The Gnasher Shotgun (Gears of War)

I could probably make a countdown of stupid weapons just in the Gears of War series, almost every gun is incredibly stupid when you think about it.  But, I ended up choosing the shotgun because it’s so heavily used in the series. 

Shotguns are a staple of video games, they offer lots of power in close quarters.  However, the shotgun from Gears of War has an effective range of about five feet.  Anything much further than that and you might as well be throwing rocks.  Sure, the shotgun does tons of damage to anyone within five feet, but so does every weapon in the history of weapons.

#9: Every gun in Devil May Cry

Every time Dante fires his guns I'm reminded of this

The guns of Devil May Cry definitely look cool, but they are useless because they do almost no damage. To kill your average, run-of-the-mill enemy, it probably takes around 100 rounds from Dante's pistols.  Killing a boss probably takes a couple thousand.  Thousand?! Is he shooting Nerf darts?


#8: Deku Sticks (Ocarina of Time)

A Deku Stick!?!? We're saved!

The Ocarina of Time is one of the greatest games of all time and if you don’t think so, you’re wrong.  However, deku sticks are stupid and useless. You would think since they are called DEKU sticks they would be better than your average stick, but they’re not.  They catch fire like normal wood and break after one use.

#7: The Blitzball

Time to save the world

Here are some of the weapons from Final Fantasy X, a sword, a spear, and another sword.  Yep, while your friends get real weapons, Wakka gets stuck with a ball.  Don't be fooled by the "blitz" part of the name, it's not special. While giant monsters are trying to stab or eat you, Wakka is playing dodgeball.  That’s what he gets for being a giant douche (I wonder if that's his MySpace picture).

#6: Green Shells (Mario Kart)

Three Koopas had to die for this

Green shells make the list not only for being useless, but for being useless while its cousins (red and blue shells) are so awesome.  Hitting someone with a green shell is extremely hard because you're moving,  the other racer is moving, and the green shell is too.  That's a lot of variables to account for, so unless someone is directly in front of you, it's almost all luck.  You're probably just as likely to hit yourself.  Green shells are only somewhat useful because they can block incoming attacks, then again, so can banana peels.

#5: Pee snowball (South Park)

Just pretend it's yellow

Released in 1998, the South Park video game is long forgotten first-person shooter, but still deserves a spot on this countdown.  As expected, the game had almost exclusively stupid weapons, including a cow launcher, dodge balls, and a toilet plunger launcher. Ultimately, I had to give the spot to pee snowballs for turning one of the game's few normal(ish) weapons into something ridiculous.  In South Park, normal snowballs are the game's first weapons.  You can throw them quickly but they don't do much damage.  Pee snowballs are the secondary fire, they take a while to reload but deal out more damage to the bloodthirsty turkey, alien, or genocidal toy you are fighting.


#4: AT-AT/AT-ST (Star Wars)

I think they are going to make out

I’m cheating a little bit on this one because the AT-AT and AT-ST are A: originally from a movie and B: not strictly weapons, but both have appeared in numerous games and I couldn’t resist including them in the countdown.

In The Empire Strikes Back the AT-AT strikes fear into the hearts of the rebels.  They are heavily armored and blow through the rebel defenses like they are made out of paper machete.  Honestly, I can’t figure out why.  For starters, the AT-AT’s move slower than a pregnant cow, the rebels could have run in the opposite direction and been fine, even running sideways would have been fine because the AT-AT’s would take several hours just to turn.  Furthermore, AT-AT’s have a bigger blind spot than Helen Keller.

The AT-ST’s made appearances in both Empire and Return of the Jedi and are equally as useless.  The so-called “Chicken Walkers” move slightly quicker than the AT-AT’s and have a smaller blind spot but I think I stiff breeze would blow one over.  A group of mini bears manage to defeat a legion of stormtroopers and AT-ST’s by using bows and arrows, rocks, and a rope to trip one.

What makes the AT-AT and AT-ST even dumber is that they exist in a galaxy armed with lightsabers, planet-destroying spaceships, and Faster-Than-Light travel.

#3: The Needler (Halo)

If Lady Gaga were a space marine she would use something like this

The Halo series convinced me that The Convenant is probably the worst managed evil empire of all time.  They consistently fall for the same tricks, kick out their most effective race, and their rulers’ official policy is, “let’s blow ourselves, along with everything else in the galaxy to oblivion because we say so.”  Therefore, it’s no surprise that their government probably spent billions of alien dollars trying to develop the most useless gun they could think up.  Why use plasma rifle, energy swords, or giant spaceships when you can use a weapon that shoots pink needles at 25 mph and only does any real damage if at least ten hit someone?

#2: The Gunblade (Final Fantasy VIII)

I wonder if Japan's actual army uses these

Originally introduced in Final Fantasy VIII, the gunblade gets bonus points for combining two perfectly effective weapons, the sword and the gun, into one gigantic piece of crap.  If the Gunblade could actually shoot bullets it might have some redeeming qualities, but it can’t even do that. It holds rounds, but don’t be deceived, when the trigger is pulled a vibration travels throughout the gun and that somehow makes the sword do more damage. Imagine trying to hold onto that while having a sword fight. It’s no wonder that one of FFVIII’s characters decides to use his fists as a weapon.

#1: The Klobb (Goldeneye)

There was never any doubt what would top this list.  Originally from Goldeneye, the Klobb is the only weapon to become a cultural icon due to its shittiness.  Here are some of its definitions from Urbandictionary:

"Another way of saying something is worthless or bad"

"Can also be used in place of skank or other derogatory word"

"A Soviet gun specifically designed to miss its target"

"A punk-ass gun"

While the shotgun from Gears of War may have been shitty for having a five-foot effective range, the Klobb beats that by having a zero-foot effective range.  But if you ever manage to actually shoot someone with a Klobb, don’t worry, it does about as much damage as an airsoft gun.