For the last couple of days, I had been suffering with a horrible bout of writer's block. Sure it's an easy thing to write about booze, there's a near infinite amount of ways you can mix the stuff. But when it comes to something that I am seriously passionate about, say video games, I can tend to stop thinking in abstract ways and want to sometimes do just a straightforward top 10...but that's not something that I can do. I asked for help last night, and help was given, in spades! Tonights list is inspired by none other than Aerox who I would like to give thanks to (among all of the others) for his help.

Tonight's top 10 is one that allowed me to finally air some dirty laundry about those certain characters that you wish you could shoot instead of help because how badly they drag you down. Its almost like adopting a Chinese baby, you're all excited until you realize that it's of no use to you. Yes ladies and gentlemen, tonight's top 10 will be dealing with the most useless characters in video games.

I know that I probably left out someone who you think should have made it, tell you what, you tell me and I'll put it up here as an...

Honorable Mention:

Tingle
Johnny Cage
Sandbag -- Super Smash Brothers Melee

Mario -- Super Mario Brothers 2



Every other character in Super Mario Brothers 2 was specialized and pretty damn cool, except for the man himself. Mario was just average in every department, Toad was the fastest runner and picker, Princess could float, Luigi could jump like a mofo, and well, Mario just kinda sucked in this game.


Shang Tsung -- Mortal Kombat Series

From This ^ to this v = HUH?!?


Yeah, it was pretty cool that he could transform to any character in the game, and there was a time in Mortal Kombat 2 when I could use this guy fairly well. The main problem that I have is that he only had a limited time to be that character before morphing back to his lame ass self (3x fireballs = punk) why couldn't Shang Tsung morph into something much cooler, like a Terminator...


This Kid -- Zone of the Enders



I know that his name was Leo Stenbuck, so chill out. Though I hate reluctant heroes, and I'll be honest with you, the only reason that I bought this game is that it had Kojima's name attached to it and the fact that it had the demo for MGS2 included. I think I played the demo a whole hell of a lot more than I actually spent playing ZoE. Thankfully the character was replaced by a dude named "Dingo" who was much cooler.


Ashley -- Resident Evil 4

Maybe if she looked like this, she'd be harder to kidnap!


There's just about nothing I hate more than having to do escort missions in games. Half the time you wish that you could just finish the game without having to worry about this stupid girl. Put a bullet in her head and tell the president that there was nothing you could do.


Professor T Bird -- Battletoads



I don't know about you, but when there are characters in a game whose sole purpose is to be exposition and "aid" the team with information, they should not be allowed to take credit for something the person in the trenches does. They should also not be able to trash talk you when you die, that's a big no no in my book.


Big The Cat -- Sonic Adventure Series


Sonic games are meant for one thing, speed and pretty scenery, oh yeah smashing shit up from jumping on it. It is not meant to be a game where you go fishing. That is wrong! Big the cat may look cool, but he is the equivalent of a pile of fail in my book, playing as the girl sonic was much better. Hell, I'd rather play as Tails, and I hate Tails!


Any Blue Mage -- Final Fantasy Series





Strago Magus, Quistis Trepe, Quina Quen, Himahri Ronso, just go jump in a cold river with your armor still on. I've always hated the blue mage class from Final Fantasy, there's no worse magic than the ones that you have to fight enemies to get. It's cool if you just learned it somewhat easy, but for you to get some of the spells, you have to find some pretty out of the way monsters. I would rather have a party with a black mage, a white mage, and a fighter...that's it, nothing else! Red Mages can fuck off too!


Cait Sith -- Final Fantasy VII



There aren't words for how out of place this character is in the whole scheme of things in Final Fantasy VII. It seemed really neat when you thought it was really a cat riding a large moogle. But the moment they told you that it was a board member of Shinra who was controlling the character from Midgar...ok, I can buy the lifestream, the various 'weapons' in the game, Cloud being ghey about Sephiroth, the snowboarding, and the motorcycle chase, but don't expect me to believe in a cybernetic kitty riding a robot moogle, that's just too much for me to take.


Slippy Toad -- Star Fox



I would purposely let him die in the original Star Fox just because I got sick of having to save his ass. The same goes for all the other wingmen, but mainly Slippy. I don't know if its because I have a frog bias or whatnot...I can't quite explain it, it's not that I want him dead, I just don't want him to be alive any longer.


Navi -- The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time



2 words: HEY! LISTEN!


Shaq -- Shaq-Fu



I'm speechless, how could this not be one of the most useless characters in video game history. For those unfortunate enough to play this, I'm sorry. I find it amusing that for a time Shaq thought he was something special, making rap CDs, putting himself into a fighting game, oh so ninties! The sad thing is that as the titular character, he wasn't even that good of a character to use! How shitty is that?!?



Well, that wraps up another edition of A Weird Kid's Top 10. I hope you all enjoyed reading as much as I enjoyed putting tonight's list together. As always, let me know if you have a particular top 10 that you'd like to see, and I'd be happy to oblige. And for all of you that have submitted ideas, I promise I'll eventually get around to yours. Thanks for reading!!!