Nerd rage is a potentially serious ailment facing many video game players. The most common effect is uncivilized spewing of incoherent expletives at an unsympathetic television screen or computer monitor. The average gamer suffering from nerd rage does so as a direct result of game characters so utterly annoying and useless that mentioning their names should be illegal.
Although every video game has its exasperating aspects, nothing is worse than an always-present personality who almost ruins the entire experience, especially if the game is otherwise excellent. The following five characters stand out as arguably the most frustrating and ineffective in video game history.
5. Natalya — “GoldenEye”: Having to acknowledge Natalia’s existence as an assisting component to the “GoldenEye” storyline is difficult enough. But this pitiful character, whose only purpose is to slow down progress and die, is a useless atrocity. It’s as if programmers added a suicide bug; she literally does little else. How difficult is it to fathom that walking in front of enemies who are shooting very painful and destructive weapons at your face isn’t a good idea? Natalya obviously missed that elementary school lesson. If persistently discovering new and idiotic ways of getting killed isn’t terrible enough, Natalya fussily denounces James Bond after he eliminates her despot of a computer programmer friend Boris.
4. Kat — “Halo: Reach”: It’s an impressive feat worthy of an award to create an insurmountably worthless artificial intelligence such as Kat. Without fail, she cowardly hides behind cover barking orders at you, all while rarely contributing. She may fire a stray round that naturally misses or on occasion kills you. Furthermore, if by some catastrophe Kat is allowed to drive a Warthog, be prepared to do donuts in the middle of a firefight, be driven off bridges and cliffs or randomly explode. Most embarrassingly of all is how she dies: One needle round to the neck eliminates her from the Noble Team. But by the time this occurs, you’ll be cheering at her absence.
3. Navi — “The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time: “Hey! Listen!” No, you unattractive floating ball of pixy dust, I refuse to listen to your annoyingly shrill voice pointing out painfully obvious facts every 30 seconds. “Ocarina of Time” is arguably the best Zelda game in Nintendo’s very expansive library. However, surviving the adventure with Navi’s perpetual annoyances is worse than sitting through an argument between devoted fan-boys about which “Star” film saga is better.
2. Slippy — “Star Fox 64”: When a character addresses himself in the third person throughout an entire game, it’s difficult to ignore. Combine that with Slippy’s knack for always having a bogie on his tail and his incapability of defeating any enemy without informing you. He instantly becomes an inadequate teammate, and is irrefutably one of the most despised personalities in gaming history. Sadly enough, although “Star Fox 64” is an epic adventure worthy of admiration, one of the most rewarding parts of it is shooting Slippy down yourself and ending his terrible reign of worthlessness.
1. Zubat — “Pokémon”: There is nothing, besides an appalling Internet connection, worse throughout the gaming world than Zubat. It’s impossible to traverse a cave system in any Pokémon game without encountering a swathe of Zubats. This pitiful creature is so terribly frustrating you don’t even want to defeat it. Alas, not even fleeing will eradicate the infestation plaguing the Pokémon realm. If you choose to run away from one, another will attack you after a couple of steps. Fighting a Zubat is almost more inane than fleeing from one, for nearly the only attack this cretin uses is supersonic. Everything considered, Zubat encounters ruin these otherwise fun titles. They must simply be a cruel joke by developers. Otherwise, it’s unfathomable why Zubats even exist.
Reach the reporter at tdmcknig@asu.edu
