Top Ten Unnecessary Characters

Video games, like movies, books and radio shows all share something in common. Characters. We all can look at Mario and instantly recognize who he is and where he’s from. We all know who Sonic is even if you’ve never played the game. Pac-Man had his own cereal! But just like Poochy the Dog sometimes game developers create a character so out of touch with what we originally fell in love with or just added a hint of “attitude” to the series that the character becomes unnecessary. This is the Top Ten Unnecessary Characters.

10.Funky Kong- Donkey Kong Universe

Now to be fair I was a Sega guy growing up. I played Donkey Kong with my friend’s SNES.I do really enjoy the series but there has always been one character that stood out and I think I figured out why. Funky Kong to me made his first appearance in my life on the Donkey Kong Country cartoon (remember that?! Banana-slamma? Anyone?) It was then that I played Donkey Kong Country 3 and noticed he’s in that game. There are a lot of Kongs in the DK universe but Funky was not needed. You have Cranky which is the original Donkey Kong, I assume. Then Donkey Kong, main character. Diddy, the lovable sidekick, Dixie, the female Kong but Funky was. Well He was the “hip” version. The one kid’s can look at and say “totally rad!!!” Because that’s what kids say right…”rad?”

9.Waluigi- Mario Series

Mario has a bunch of lovable and strange characters (Birdo), and we have grown to accept and love all of them. Except one. Waluigi. Like Wario, Waluigi is supposed to be Luigi’s doppelganger. Where Wario is the Scrooge McDuck of the Franchise Waluigi is the Jar Jar of the universe. OK he’s not a racist stereotype (unless you count him being a Racist Italian Stereotype…in which case I guess he is.) he’s just not interesting. Making his debut in Mario Tennis  just because Wario needed a partner. Thus we have Waluigi. He’s never had his own game, he’s had no character development and he’s only used as an extra character for the Mario Party games. His symbol isn’t clever. where Wario’s “W” makes sense since he’s like the anti-Mario (anti-Christ? Upside down cross? Upside down “M”?) but Waluigi’s hat is an upside down “L”? What the hell? That just looks like his clothes has a misprint. What a stupid name too.Plus he looks like a cliché villain like the guy from Wacky Racers.

8.Latisha- ToeJam & Earl III: Mission to Earth

Toejam and Earl are the two funkiest aliens ever. They have been in some crazy adventures together, collecting pieces, fighting Earthlings, throwing tomatoes. Then the Xbox version came out in full 3D. But something always bothered me about the cover. Who the hell is that blueish alien? Ah, so they added a female character to the game. Now you can also select her but why would you? You have ToeJam who has three legs, you have Earl who has a gut and she…she just has boobs. Not three or anything interesting, just two. To confused all the young boys playing. She doesn’t add anything and is filled with anger and sarcasm. She was put there to counterbalance the stupidity between ToeJam and Earl and that’s not what we wanted. We don’t need a woman to tell us men how to behave amiright?! High fives all around!

7.Mokap- Mortal Kombat

I hate Mokap. If you read my “What Happened to Mortal Kombat?” you might remember me saying that there were a ton of characters. They were all great-ish and interesting-ish. Sure some like Meat were just lazy but Mokap?! He wasn’t even suited (no pun intended) for the Mortal Kombat universe.With all the stupid complaints I’ve heard of people bitching about Freddy Krueger being a character (by the way he is awesome!) Mokap is not. He looks stupid, he’s forgettable and he’s just not Mortal Kombat material. I remember unlocking him with a bunch of friends and thinking what the hell just happened, why that?  Now Freddy, that’s Mortal Kombat material.

6. Rob Zombie- Twisted Metal 4

Twisted Metal has always been filled with colourful and interesting characters. Very interesting. Like killed-my-own-army-buddy, ate-him-and-now-I-wear-his-skull-as-a-helmet interesting. Once Twisted Metal went to 989 studios the whole concept went a little nuts. Twisted Metal 4 had a weird new story (Sweet Tooth took over and we get a ridiculous origin story to Twisted Metal.) and Calypso is now a selectable character along with Captain Grimm and Drag Queen. But, for some reason Rob Zombie of the band White Snake is a selectable character too. Why? Because he made the music for the game? Sure. Out off all the characters his ending was the best, but still it just unlocked a sample of his music video. The only reason why he’s not that bad is because his car is literally the Dragula. Hell yah! Seriously that song makes me want to kill flies!

5.Fred Durst-Fight Club the Game

Fight Club is a terrible game. I love the book and I love the movie. So naturally I had to get the game (which used a real cool x-ray attack thing that would later be seen in Mortal Kombat.) After playing the game for a while I unlocked Fred Durst. Yup. The guy from Limp Bizkit, the successful 90’s rock-Hip-Hop band that was good until Wes Borland left, who’s singing sounds like me crying and trying to explain stuff to my “Mom! It’s my generation!” Why was he a character? Well from what I gather and my hardcore research (I listened to the album), in one song he says, and I quote, “…to the dance flow in stewa-stereo pay me no mind I seen the Fight Club, about 28 times and I’m a keep my pants sagging keep a skateboard…” (Livin It Up, Chocolate Starfish and the Hotdog Flavoured Water). So I guess since he made that reference they put him in the game. In that case I will say I love Mario until I get put into a game.

4.Roo- Streets of Rage 3

Look at the cover of the game above, who stands out the most? The old man of course! Beside him is a Kangaroo. Now this isn’t so bad since Streets of Rage is pretty damn awesome (even if has some of the gayest animation ever in a game. I mean that literally not offensively) but he can’t pick up weapons. This is the equivalent of “jumping the shark” of video games. There should be a meme to this, like “picking the Roo” or “hopping the game” I don’t know. Anyways it’s stupid yes, but at least it’s entertaining. Stupidly-entertaining but…you know… Shut up! Kangaroos are awesome. They will kill you!

3.Silver the Hedgehog- Sonic the Hedgehog Universe

As much as I hate Shadow the Hedgehog, at least he looks cool. I mean the 12 year-old in me loves the way he looks but the 20-something me grew up with Sonic and hate em all. Shadow was Sonic s doppelganger, fine, I get it. He has guns and was a “bad ass”. OK, kids dig that. But Silver the Hedgehog looks like a Power Ranger Zord. He’s the “future” hog. He’s magical and whimsical. He’s got telekinesis powers. He’s also a frikkin’ Hedgehog, none of this applies! After the 20 minutes or so of playing the 06′ Sonic the Hedgehog game I laughed when they first introduced Silver, Sega tried to make it all mysterious, and maybe that’s the problem. They’re taking a franchise about a Hedgehog who runs fast and taking themselves way too serious. Silver is the strange character that was added in a world with a whole mess of unnecessary characters. He’s the only one with actual powers and who can float. He’s the only one who can use random mysterious powers. May I remind you he’s a Hedgehog?!

2.Rookie-Ghostbusters the Game

Look I love the Ghostbusters and I was thrilled with the new game. But I did not like the empty one-dimensional character known as Rookie. I didn’t play Ghostbusters to fight alongside them, I played Ghostbusters to play as them. He never said a line and just made dumb faces to express his feelings. Instead I was hoping to be able to switch between the four. Or at least let me control Rick Moranis.

Now before you start going nuts on me I LOVED THE GAME. I’ve played it too many times. But no matter how much I play it, I find myself disliking that character more and more. Even before the game came out I wondered why I was controlling a totally different person. That would have been fine but he’s quiet. He’s not funny or sarcastic; I don’t even know if he knows what’s going on.  When playing a Ghostbusters game you need laughter and stupidity. After all we liked the movies because of who was in it. The characters made the Ghostbusters come to life, but this Rookie fellow could have died and I could have cared less. He had a typical generic look to him (minus a beard) he was just there. Never speaking really separated him from the rest of the crew and honestly having 5 Ghostbusters in a game is a lot to handle. Hopefully if there is another game he got “fired”.

 1.Raiden-Metal Gear Solid series

Man I love Metal Gear Solid. To its stupid but yet enjoyable plot to its very creative characters I knew something big was going to happen when Metal Gear Solid 2 came out. I’ve seen trailers of the game that showed Snake in all his 420P resolution beauty running and hiding, just like the original. Ah good times will be held by all. Until I played the game and completed the first chapter. All of a sudden the game opens up–again, with an opening sequence eerily familiar to that of Metal Gear Solid. The characters say his name is Snake even though it doesn’t sound like Snake. Then he takes off his mask. And he looks like Sephiroth.

As I’m well aware as to why he was made, and how he now is a bad-ass ninja-cyborg thing. His story in Metal Gear Solid is really not needed. Snake doesn’t pass the torch, and we really only truly care about Snake’s story not Raiden. We wanted (and still do) want to know what happens to Snake not if Jack remembers where he and Rose met. He was supposed to be the new “Snake” for the younger generation. You know the guy the boys want to be and the girls want to be with. Unfortunately the fans hated him, maybe it’s cause we all were lied to during original footage of the game that just showed Snake and no where was Raiden EVER mentioned. Maybe it’s cause the whole “love story” with Rose. Maybe it’s cause he doesn’t look like a bad ass but instead a pretty boy. All I know is that he was very unnecessary.