Annoying Gaming Sidekicks: Round 2

A while back I wrote a blog entry about some of the irritating game characters who are sidekicks to the main protagonist.  We've all experienced the pain of adventuring alongside one of these characters, who annoy us with their constant whining, excessive neediness, or any other rage-inducing personality traits.  Today I thought I'd throw a few more annoying characters out there, so we can all reminisce about the times we wished we could toss our faithful sidekicks off a cliff.

Pete, from Rockstar's Bully

Ah good ol' Pete, the biggest sissy in all of Bullworth Academy, which is the fictional school and main setting of Bully.  Pete is one of the social outcasts of the school, not belonging to any of the various factions in Bullworth (Nerds, Preps, Greasers, and Jocks).  In his own words, he's "too cool to be a dork, and too dorky to be anything else," although in my opinion the members of the nerd faction seem pretty badass in comparison.

As you can probably guess from the above quote, Petey constantly whines and bitches about his social status and the fact that he is constantly bullied, instead of trying to do something about it, leaving us annoyed rather than sympathetic.  Have you ever had a friend who would never shut the hell up about his/her problems?  Well thanks to Bully you get to experience those joyful one-sided conversations in a videogame!  Sounds fun right?  His appearances are fortunately very few and far in between (except towards the conclusion of the game), but he ends up becoming the only real friend of main character Jimmy, so we are stuck with his sorry ass until the credits roll.

The Co-Driver/Passenger/Annoying Lady Voice from Ridge Racer 3D

I don't know if this is really her, but since she's the only girl shown in the game let's just say it is.

Ok so maybe I'm getting picky once again, but the all-seeing, all-knowing voice in Ridge Racer 3D is always with you when you race, so that should be enough to qualify her as a sidekick.  Prior to owning RR 3D, I have owned RR64, which included one race announcer who would talk occasionally, offering words of encouragement when you battled opponents, telling you how many laps were left, etc.  Ridge Racer 3D still includes the announcer, but has also added a female commentator who comments on each...and...every..single...thing...you...do.  Drive into a wall?  Expect to hear her yell at you every time.  Bump into an opponent?  You will be chastised every time.  Execute a drift??  Expect to hear a "nice drift!" or a "you're making me dizzy!"

As a side note, in case you live in a cave and have never heard of Ridge Racer, these games require that you drift through just about every turn, so in RR 3D expect to constantly hear repetitive commentary.  I searched the game's manual thoroughly but I was unable to find the "throw your co-driver out the passenger door" button, oh well.

Slippy, from Star Fox 64

Well here we are, the mother (father?) of all annoying sidekicks.  This gender ambiguous frog (I'm just going to flip a coin and say Slippy is a guy) has been splitting our eardrums since the Nintendo 64 days.  Slippy's purpose in Star Fox 64 is to provide us with a damage meter for boss battles, as well as stating the obvious by telling us where the weak points are.  The problem is that his voice is a high-pitched shriek from hell, made worse by the fact that he communicates with Fox using a radio that has the quality of a Fisher-Price walkie-talkie.  Slippy's mostly pointless dialogue will pop up more often than you would like (ideally he should have had his vocal chords torn out before being allowed to join the Star Fox team).

When playing Star Fox 64, I usually try to get rid of Slippy as soon as possible by opening fire on his ship, but he even has the nerve to say "Hey! Why are you shooting at me?" in a pissed-off tone when you try to assassinate him, as if he doesn't know we all hate his guts.  Talk about being in denial.

With the recent re-release of Star Fox 64 for the 3DS, a new generation of gamers gets to experience the ear-damaging annoyance that is Slippy Toad.  Poor kids, not only is the 3DS ruining their eyesight, but this game is making them go deaf as well.

This concludes part 2 of Annoying Gaming Sidekicks.  Until next time!

A while back I wrote a blog entry about some of the irritating game characters who are sidekicks to the main protagonist.  We've all experienced the pain of adventuring alongside one of these characters, who annoy us with their constant whining, excessive neediness, or any other rage-inducing personality traits.  Today I thought I'd throw a few more annoying characters out there, so we can all reminisce about the times we wished we could toss our faithful sidekicks off a cliff.

Pete, from Rockstar's Bully

Ah good ol' Pete, the biggest sissy in all of Bullworth Academy, which is the fictional school and main setting of Bully.  Pete is one of the social outcasts of the school, not belonging to any of the various factions in Bullworth (Nerds, Preps, Greasers, and Jocks).  In his own words, he's "too cool to be a dork, and too dorky to be anything else," although in my opinion the members of the nerd faction seem pretty badass in comparison.

As you can probably guess from the above quote, Petey constantly whines and bitches about his social status and the fact that he is constantly bullied, instead of trying to do something about it, leaving us annoyed rather than sympathetic.  Have you ever had a friend who would never shut the hell up about his/her problems?  Well thanks to Bully you get to experience those joyful one-sided conversations in a videogame!  Sounds fun right?  His appearances are fortunately very few and far in between (except towards the conclusion of the game), but he ends up becoming the only real friend of main character Jimmy, so we are stuck with his sorry ass until the credits roll.

The Co-Driver/Passenger/Annoying Lady Voice from Ridge Racer 3D

I don't know if this is really her, but since she's the only girl shown in the game let's just say it is.

Ok so maybe I'm getting picky once again, but the all-seeing, all-knowing voice in Ridge Racer 3D is always with you when you race, so that should be enough to qualify her as a sidekick.  Prior to owning RR 3D, I have owned RR64, which included one race announcer who would talk occasionally, offering words of encouragement when you battled opponents, telling you how many laps were left, etc.  Ridge Racer 3D still includes the announcer, but has also added a female commentator who comments on each...and...every..single...thing...you...do.  Drive into a wall?  Expect to hear her yell at you every time.  Bump into an opponent?  You will be chastised every time.  Execute a drift??  Expect to hear a "nice drift!" or a "you're making me dizzy!"

As a side note, in case you live in a cave and have never heard of Ridge Racer, these games require that you drift through just about every turn, so in RR 3D expect to constantly hear repetitive commentary.  I searched the game's manual thoroughly but I was unable to find the "throw your co-driver out the passenger door" button, oh well.

Slippy, from Star Fox 64

Well here we are, the mother (father?) of all annoying sidekicks.  This gender ambiguous frog (I'm just going to flip a coin and say Slippy is a guy) has been splitting our eardrums since the Nintendo 64 days.  Slippy's purpose in Star Fox 64 is to provide us with a damage meter for boss battles, as well as stating the obvious by telling us where the weak points are.  The problem is that his voice is a high-pitched shriek from hell, made worse by the fact that he communicates with Fox using a radio that has the quality of a Fisher-Price walkie-talkie.  Slippy's mostly pointless dialogue will pop up more often than you would like (ideally he should have had his vocal chords torn out before being allowed to join the Star Fox team).

When playing Star Fox 64, I usually try to get rid of Slippy as soon as possible by opening fire on his ship, but he even has the nerve to say "Hey! Why are you shooting at me?" in a pissed-off tone when you try to assassinate him, as if he doesn't know we all hate his guts.  Talk about being in denial.

With the recent re-release of Star Fox 64 for the 3DS, a new generation of gamers gets to experience the ear-damaging annoyance that is Slippy Toad.  Poor kids, not only is the 3DS ruining their eyesight, but this game is making them go deaf as well.

This concludes part 2 of Annoying Gaming Sidekicks.  Until next time!

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Unexplained Strangeness in Bully

Have you ever come across a character in a game whose back-story isn't explained, despite the fact that we know the back-story could be awesome, even to the point of rivaling the main storyline?  It's annoying that game developers sometimes leave interesting stories out of our games, so that we may only speculate in forums or (shudder) fan fiction.  But as with all media, the authors can't explain everything or the games/movies/books would never be released.  In this article I'm going to be looking at some of the weird things in Rockstar's Bully game that have unfortunately gone unexplained.

But wait a second, Bully?  A game about a kid taking over a private school?  You might be thinking that other than the exaggerated high-school setting, there's nothing too interesting happening in the background.  But keep in mind that this is a Rockstar game, remember all the crazy things you heard on the car radios in the Grand Theft Auto games?  Not to mention the supposed Bigfoot sightings in GTA San Andreas.  Bully surprisingly contains some aspects from the science fiction and horror genres.

The presence of aliens is strongly implied in the game.  One of the missions in Bully has you collecting transistor radios for a hobo camped out next to the school.  Once you've given all the radios to the hobo, he builds some kind of device, and then is promptly pulled into the sky by a huge tractor beam, never to be seen again.

Beam me up Jimmy!

That's not all the alien evidence either.  Later on in the game you get access to the nearby asylum, where you discover more hints.  In one room is a portrait of a scientist standing next to what looks like a little alien:

Like all conspiracy theories involving aliens, low quality photos are to be expected.

Further exploration takes you to a room with X-ray images hung on a wall.   Some of these images appear to show an alien's head.

I don't know about you, but when I was playing through Bully I definitely wanted to learn more about the alien presence in the little town this game is set in, it seemed more interesting than the game's plot of taking over the school.

Earlier I also mentioned horror aspects in Bully.  It is hinted that there is a werewolf inhabiting the area.  In the same X-ray room mentioned above, there are also an X-ray showing what appears to be a wolf-ish head on a human body.  Nearby in the asylum is an area that looks to have once been barricaded off.  When you come across this area, the barricades have long since been violently destroyed, giving the appearance that something has broken out of the asylum.  Another fun thing Rockstar added to this game is a werewolf mask that you can equip.  The interesting part is that the mask has a facial scar similar to that of the game's main antagonist Gary (coincidence?).  Add to that the occasional howling sounds that can be heard at night, and you have one fun side-story that the developers have left mostly to our imaginations.

 This concludes my look at some interesting story possibilities in Bully that have yet to be explored in depth.  What kind of unexplained game stories have you guys come across?

Have you ever come across a character in a game whose back-story isn't explained, despite the fact that we know the back-story could be awesome, even to the point of rivaling the main storyline?  It's annoying that game developers sometimes leave interesting stories out of our games, so that we may only speculate in forums or (shudder) fan fiction.  But as with all media, the authors can't explain everything or the games/movies/books would never be released.  In this article I'm going to be looking at some of the weird things in Rockstar's Bully game that have unfortunately gone unexplained.

But wait a second, Bully?  A game about a kid taking over a private school?  You might be thinking that other than the exaggerated high-school setting, there's nothing too interesting happening in the background.  But keep in mind that this is a Rockstar game, remember all the crazy things you heard on the car radios in the Grand Theft Auto games?  Not to mention the supposed Bigfoot sightings in GTA San Andreas.  Bully surprisingly contains some aspects from the science fiction and horror genres.

The presence of aliens is strongly implied in the game.  One of the missions in Bully has you collecting transistor radios for a hobo camped out next to the school.  Once you've given all the radios to the hobo, he builds some kind of device, and then is promptly pulled into the sky by a huge tractor beam, never to be seen again.

Beam me up Jimmy!

That's not all the alien evidence either.  Later on in the game you get access to the nearby asylum, where you discover more hints.  In one room is a portrait of a scientist standing next to what looks like a little alien:

Like all conspiracy theories involving aliens, low quality photos are to be expected.

Further exploration takes you to a room with X-ray images hung on a wall.   Some of these images appear to show an alien's head.

I don't know about you, but when I was playing through Bully I definitely wanted to learn more about the alien presence in the little town this game is set in, it seemed more interesting than the game's plot of taking over the school.

Earlier I also mentioned horror aspects in Bully.  It is hinted that there is a werewolf inhabiting the area.  In the same X-ray room mentioned above, there are also an X-ray showing what appears to be a wolf-ish head on a human body.  Nearby in the asylum is an area that looks to have once been barricaded off.  When you come across this area, the barricades have long since been violently destroyed, giving the appearance that something has broken out of the asylum.  Another fun thing Rockstar added to this game is a werewolf mask that you can equip.  The interesting part is that the mask has a facial scar similar to that of the game's main antagonist Gary (coincidence?).  Add to that the occasional howling sounds that can be heard at night, and you have one fun side-story that the developers have left mostly to our imaginations.

 This concludes my look at some interesting story possibilities in Bully that have yet to be explored in depth.  What kind of unexplained game stories have you guys come across?

reade more... Résuméabuiyad