Wednesday, February 6, 2008

Top 10 Most Annoying Game Enemies

Let me start this blog off with this: I game, therefore I am. Every gamer is different, I respect this, and I don't expect anyone to agree 100% with anything I have to say here, that said, it goes both ways. I recently found a list of 7 of the most annoying video game enemies written by a fellow gamer, which was mostly niche-type games anyway and I thought they could do a bit better. But it was a good idea, and I'm bored so here's my own personal take on some of the most annoying little #%$@ out there in the virtual world:

#10 - Thief Bot (Descent II)
Image Hosted by ImageShack.us
If you know what I'm talking about here, I'm impressed. These little devils known as 'Thief Bots" prowl the mines of Descent II and once they manage to find you it's a neverending, relentless struggle to keep the coward from stealing your guns, weapons and power-ups. It will always run from you if you shoot at him, is extremely fast and has more armor than is even remotely fair. I swear I can almost hear it laugh when it steals my quad laser and barrels off down the mine with uncanny AI ahead of it's time. Once you manage to finally kill this little bastard breathe a sigh of relief and continue about your business. I certainly made sure I blew it to bits before I tackled the endless mineshafts and tunnels of Descent. Nothing quite like getting your SmartBomb ganked while in a firefight with heavier bot.

#9 - Fetishes/Flayers (Act 3 - Diablo II)
Image Hosted by ImageShack.us
Yeah I know the Lightning Scarabs are tough, but this isn't about toughness. It's about pure annoyances. Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you the Natives of the jungles of Act III. These little speed-heads were the bane of my existence as a Sorceress struggling through the game. I had little armor and life as a caster and these cracked up maniacs storm you like flies on a fresh steamy pile of dog dung and stab/spit/flame the living crap out of you. I cussed and wiped spittle off my screen for hours wading knee-deep through these gibbering midgets and had a celebratory shot of whiskey when I finally stepped out of Hell and into the Kurast Bazaar. Best just teleport around these guys unless you pack some serious Area of Effect spells...and don't even get me started on their skeletal Bone brethren...

#8 - Headless Bomb Guy (Serious Sam)
Image Hosted by ImageShack.us
Running, screaming, (somehow without a head attached), bare-chested, maniacal suicide bomb holding madmen. Hundreds of them. Coming at you at once. 'Nuff said.

#7 - Abominable Snow Monster (SkiFree)
Image Hosted by ImageShack.us
Who hasn't played SkiFree? Who hasn't been skiing gracefully and skillfully dodging tree's and children minding their own business and out of nowhere get tackled and eaten alive by a grey snow monster running at 250mph? This is a joke. The real enemy here is the developer. What a sadist. I hope HE gets eaten alive by a giant snow monster...

#6 - Octobrain (Duke Nukem 3D)
Image Hosted by ImageShack.us
From the land of babes and witty one-liners, we have the OctoBrain. You know, 3 shotgun blasts kill this thing but I can't count how many times I've been underwater searching for something or trying to NOT drown only to have 4 of these ugly, pulsing brains swarm me with their horrible speaker-cracking echoing growl and painful telekinetic projectiles. I don't know what pisses me off more, the sound they make or themselves. In a game that's otherwise just plain fun to play, these guys are real annoyances.

#5 - Fiend (Quake)
Image Hosted by ImageShack.us
Throughout my Quake 1 experience, I've never quite taken an ass-beating like I did with these guys. These monstrosities lurk around nearly everywhere in Quake's hellish environment and every single bloody time I get the crap kicked out of me before I can react. They are fast, painful and can lunge at you effectively gouging out your eyeballs from across the room in .2 seconds flat. These guys annoy me so much I hesitated to play Quake alone in the dark by myself and was forced to overreact to every door that I opened blasting at nothing most of the time and getting viciously impaled the time or two I forgot. I think I'd rather play chicken with a Shambler than mess with these guys.

#4 - Pain Elemental (DooM)
Image Hosted by ImageShack.us
What gaming list of any kind is complete without Doom? I had a hard time with this decision. Doom isn't so much annoying in any way as it is (was) just scary. But out of all the hellish minions, the Pain Elemental would be the most annoying. Anything that belches out flaming skulls at me will get on my nerves. Your basically forced to take out 4 or 5 dumber-than-a-brick Lost Souls, then, as a nice little reward for putting the thing out of it's misery, you get one last flaming skull eating your face off *every single* time you blow this bastage up. You can't ignore them either, because you'll have about 20 Lost Souls clogging the hallways so you're pretty much forced to deal with these guys every time you see em.

#3 - Keese (The Legend of Zelda, take your pick)
Image Hosted by ImageShack.us
These batshits just epitomize annoying. The easiest monsters to kill in any given Zelda game will end up knocking more hearts off and burning up more shields than anything you encounter, why is this? Well it really depends on what Zelda game you're playing. See, the geniuses at Nintendo go out of their way to make sure you don't ignore these flying little turds. In the first Zelda for instance, their random, hard to predict flying pattern frustrated the hell out of me, then it got worse when I moved into the 3rd dimension with the N64 version and they decided that they could flutter around 'on fire' and dive bomb the crap out of you when you can't even see the little SOB's. What the hell happened to my Deku Shield? Oh it got burned up by one out of nowhere bat hit and run. So you can go to hell Keese. Just go. I hate you.

#2 - Lakitu (Super Mario Bros.)
Image Hosted by ImageShack.us
Ahh Mario, few games ever held such an impact on my childhood as these industry defining series of Mario titles. There are many, many annoying monsters throughout Mushroom Kingdom and beyond, such as the Angry Sun, the BossBass, just to name a few...but go waaay back to the first time you got a Spiney thrown on you...repeatedly...without end. It was then that we learned to get through a level as fast as human thumbs possibly can. Oh they die, they do, but 3 seconds later he's zooming back onto the scene, bobbing up and down, tossing those nightmarish eggs. Mommymakeitstop! *twitch*

#1 - Murlocs (World of Warcraft)
Image Hosted by ImageShack.us
Woe to any gamer who hasn't played World of Warcrack. We have here the most annoying monster ever to appear in any game at any time (In my humble opinion). And leave it to Blizzard to come up with the most played MMO of all time and within it, the bane of all online gaming existence. The Murloc. I can't help but love to hate these fishy little unpresumptuous, hateful shits. How many times have I died after hearing multiple "Aaarruhghibbrgubuhrgbuhrgrguhrburgle" at once? Every time! That's how many! How many times did I mean to pull 8 of them at once? NONE! Damn them, damn them all to hell!

Now I know there are many more out there. However, I've not had the chance to tackle 'The Flood' or 'Wretches' or any 'Zubats' etc. So my list here is based solely on my gaming knowledge. But I had to add these honorable mentions to the most annoying gaming enemies:

- Jack Thompson (aka - asshat)
- 12 year olds (aka - noobtards)
- Cheaters (douchebags who like to use aimbots and hacks to ruin others' experience)
- Last but not least, Uwe Boll