Happy Three Years of Strange Gaming!

Wow, how the time flies by.  Three years ago today I created Strange Moments in Gaming in order to talk about all of the weird things I've encountered in videogames throughout my life.  I have certainly experienced many cringe/shudder-worthy moments in games (and I'm sure you all have as well), so I figured I might as well share the pain with everyone!

The evolution of the beloved (at least to me) site logo.

To celebrate the three years of this blog's existence, let's go for the totally not gimmicky approach of summarizing three of the strangest game character articles I've posted on this site.  If you're interested in reading the original articles in addition to the summaries, just click the title header of each section.

#3 - The Sligs of the Oddworld Games

Every good platforming game has to have its signature baddie, and Oddworld is no exception.  But whereas enemies such as the Goombas of the Super Mario series or the pig soldiers in Rocket Knight Adventures are somewhat goofy, the Sligs in the Oddworld games are downright horrifying.

Mario would probably soil himself if he ever came across one of these tentacle-mouthed lizard creatures, which Oddworld protagonist Abe encounters on a daily basis.

#2 - The Little Sisters of Bioshock

There isn't much about the Little Sisters that isn't creepy.  Their glowing pupil-less eyes and otherworldly voices provide plenty of nightmare material to gamers who venture into the halls of the city of Rapture.

As if that description isn't bad enough, hang in there because it gets much worse.  The sole purpose of Little Sisters is to extract and drink the blood of corpses scattered throughout the city (dead bodies are quite abundant thanks to Rapture's civil war).  The blood is then processed by slugs which are implanted inside the Sisters.  All of this horror exists just so a batch of the superpower-inducing substance called ADAM can be produced by the slugs.

#1 - Ooccoo from Zelda: The Twilight Princess

This monstrosity happened to be the very first strange thing I wrote about in this blog, and easily earns the top spot on this list.  Half-human, half-chicken, all terror is a good way to describe Ooccoo.

Did they really have to add nipples too?

Despite being somewhat useful to gamers by allowing us to save our location in a dungeon when a break is needed, you can't help but wonder why the game developers had to make this creature so darn scary-looking.  Even Link himself has a look of shock on his face the first time he encounters Ooccoo in a dungeon.  But then again I guess we shouldn't be too surprised; these are the game developers who brought us Tingle after all.


Speaking of Tingle, I bet you're wondering why he isn't on this list, he is one of the most talked about characters in this blog after all.  Well to address your concerns, I figured everyone was probably Tingled-out by now, thanks to his multiple appearances in Strange Moments in Gaming, including a starring role in this blog's lengthy 100th post.

I hope you've enjoyed this three year anniversary post, many thanks to everyone who has been reading and commenting over the years!

Wow, how the time flies by.  Three years ago today I created Strange Moments in Gaming in order to talk about all of the weird things I've encountered in videogames throughout my life.  I have certainly experienced many cringe/shudder-worthy moments in games (and I'm sure you all have as well), so I figured I might as well share the pain with everyone!

The evolution of the beloved (at least to me) site logo.

To celebrate the three years of this blog's existence, let's go for the totally not gimmicky approach of summarizing three of the strangest game character articles I've posted on this site.  If you're interested in reading the original articles in addition to the summaries, just click the title header of each section.

#3 - The Sligs of the Oddworld Games

Every good platforming game has to have its signature baddie, and Oddworld is no exception.  But whereas enemies such as the Goombas of the Super Mario series or the pig soldiers in Rocket Knight Adventures are somewhat goofy, the Sligs in the Oddworld games are downright horrifying.

Mario would probably soil himself if he ever came across one of these tentacle-mouthed lizard creatures, which Oddworld protagonist Abe encounters on a daily basis.

#2 - The Little Sisters of Bioshock

There isn't much about the Little Sisters that isn't creepy.  Their glowing pupil-less eyes and otherworldly voices provide plenty of nightmare material to gamers who venture into the halls of the city of Rapture.

As if that description isn't bad enough, hang in there because it gets much worse.  The sole purpose of Little Sisters is to extract and drink the blood of corpses scattered throughout the city (dead bodies are quite abundant thanks to Rapture's civil war).  The blood is then processed by slugs which are implanted inside the Sisters.  All of this horror exists just so a batch of the superpower-inducing substance called ADAM can be produced by the slugs.

#1 - Ooccoo from Zelda: The Twilight Princess

This monstrosity happened to be the very first strange thing I wrote about in this blog, and easily earns the top spot on this list.  Half-human, half-chicken, all terror is a good way to describe Ooccoo.

Did they really have to add nipples too?

Despite being somewhat useful to gamers by allowing us to save our location in a dungeon when a break is needed, you can't help but wonder why the game developers had to make this creature so darn scary-looking.  Even Link himself has a look of shock on his face the first time he encounters Ooccoo in a dungeon.  But then again I guess we shouldn't be too surprised; these are the game developers who brought us Tingle after all.


Speaking of Tingle, I bet you're wondering why he isn't on this list, he is one of the most talked about characters in this blog after all.  Well to address your concerns, I figured everyone was probably Tingled-out by now, thanks to his multiple appearances in Strange Moments in Gaming, including a starring role in this blog's lengthy 100th post.

I hope you've enjoyed this three year anniversary post, many thanks to everyone who has been reading and commenting over the years!

reade more... Résuméabuiyad

Sligs: It's An Odd World After All

With a name like Oddworld, you expect a weird game.  The Oddworld series definitely delivered the strangeness, and in a very good way.  The games had creepy locations and an even creepier population.  I still remember my "what the hell" moment seeing the animated Abe head for the first time on the title screen of Abe's Oddysee.  Today though we're going to overlook Abe and talk about the Oddworld games' iconic enemies: the Sligs.

Straight from the demented mind of Lorne Lanning

Sligs are to Abe what Goombas are to Mario.  However Mario never had to deal with fast-moving Goombas with machine guns who could pick him off from a distance.  Sligs are basically used as security personal throughout Oddworld, tasked with fending off intruders (I'm looking at you Abe) and keeping Mudokon slaves in line, which usually means beating them for no reason.  They are brutal, merciless, rude, and lazy, often sleeping and smoking on the job.

Appearance-wise, these upstanding citizens make you wonder what's going on inside Lorne Lanning's head; they look to be something out of your worst nightmare.  Tentacles either cover or extend from their mouths (we'll never know for sure since they always wear a gas-mask), making Sligs look like they are swallowing a giant green spider.  They also have no natural legs.  Their bodies end at the bottom of their spine, forcing them to crawl around using their arms unless they are fitted with prosthetic legs.

Slig without robo-pants

Sligs come in a few variants.  There's the standard foot soldier Slig (the first picture of the article), the flying Slig who uses a helicopter-style prosthetic that Dr. Robotnik would be proud of:

And then there's the Big-Bro Slig.  This is a Slig who has been beefed up using massive amounts of steroids, making him so large that he needs a heavy duty four-legged prosthetic in order to move around.

Of course Sligs are just one type of creature in the Oddworld games, there are many other nightmarish creations to talk about, but that's a story for another day!  Hopefully this brought back some memories of sneaking around Rupture Farms, hiding from these mean green machines!

With a name like Oddworld, you expect a weird game.  The Oddworld series definitely delivered the strangeness, and in a very good way.  The games had creepy locations and an even creepier population.  I still remember my "what the hell" moment seeing the animated Abe head for the first time on the title screen of Abe's Oddysee.  Today though we're going to overlook Abe and talk about the Oddworld games' iconic enemies: the Sligs.

Straight from the demented mind of Lorne Lanning

Sligs are to Abe what Goombas are to Mario.  However Mario never had to deal with fast-moving Goombas with machine guns who could pick him off from a distance.  Sligs are basically used as security personal throughout Oddworld, tasked with fending off intruders (I'm looking at you Abe) and keeping Mudokon slaves in line, which usually means beating them for no reason.  They are brutal, merciless, rude, and lazy, often sleeping and smoking on the job.

Appearance-wise, these upstanding citizens make you wonder what's going on inside Lorne Lanning's head; they look to be something out of your worst nightmare.  Tentacles either cover or extend from their mouths (we'll never know for sure since they always wear a gas-mask), making Sligs look like they are swallowing a giant green spider.  They also have no natural legs.  Their bodies end at the bottom of their spine, forcing them to crawl around using their arms unless they are fitted with prosthetic legs.

Slig without robo-pants

Sligs come in a few variants.  There's the standard foot soldier Slig (the first picture of the article), the flying Slig who uses a helicopter-style prosthetic that Dr. Robotnik would be proud of:

And then there's the Big-Bro Slig.  This is a Slig who has been beefed up using massive amounts of steroids, making him so large that he needs a heavy duty four-legged prosthetic in order to move around.

Of course Sligs are just one type of creature in the Oddworld games, there are many other nightmarish creations to talk about, but that's a story for another day!  Hopefully this brought back some memories of sneaking around Rupture Farms, hiding from these mean green machines!

reade more... Résuméabuiyad