Videogame history is littered with rage and frustration. While we all love and cherish this noble hobby we call gaming, it has still been the source of thrown controllers, broken furniture and endless streams of curse words. While much anger has been had at bad level design, cheap deaths and wasted money, plenty of rage has been reserved for the characters themselves.

Game characters can be incredibly annoying. This is the result of an industry where game developers try to be writers, and homeless drunks try to be voice actors. I am sure that as I type, there are multitudes of irritating faces and grating voices that are now running through your brain. I am sorry for making you remember Navi. 

Fear not, however, for I hope to exorcise some of those demons today with a most therapeutic article. Come with me as I discuss the videogame characters I'd like to kill and describe exactly how I'd kill them.

Name: Navi
From: The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
As Annoying As: Chinese Water Torture

Navi from Ocarina of Time is a classic case of horrendously irritating character design. Intended to be a helpful guide that helps you find your way in the Zelda series' first fully 3D Hyrule, Navi instead became a repetitive and unbearable thorn in your side. Her constant whines of "Hey" and "Listen" drove many Nintendo fans mad, which is why they now find things like Wii Music acceptable. She deserves to die.

So how would I kill her? As a fairy, she's quite small, and while it would be so easy to simply crush her in one fist, that's nowhere near satisfying enough. Instead, I would entice her into my hands by standing near an unopened treasure chest. The little bitch likely won't be able to resist flying my way in order to hover around the chest and shout "Listen!"

Once she was in my clutches, I would carefully yank her wings off with tweezers, before tossing her into a glass tank. One of those tanks with magnified areas for studying ants and things, so I can watch her suffer. This would be quite fitting, since ants would also be in the tank. Fire ants, to be precise.

Don't worry Navi, I'm listening to you now. Listening to you gurgle and screech as my copper agents of retribution sink their pincers into your lithe naked flesh and fill you with so much venomous solenopsin that it starts coming out of your mouth and pushing your eyes from their sockets.

Name: Bad Brother
From: Golden Axe
As Annoying As: Losing a card game to Val Kilmer

Golden Axe is as aggravating and cheap as any hack n' slash with coin-op roots. The only thing worse than a chap shot, however, is a cheap shot that laughs at you and that's what these complete and utter dicks do on a regular basis. By far the most infuriating enemies in the Golden Axe series, these slapheaded wankers revel in their arrogance, constantly knocking you down and then having the gall to cross their arms and laugh, their countenance bearing a smug and smarmy smirk with all the shameless self-satisfaction of the fucking Charmin Bear. 

So how would I kill one of them? In order to get one of these fuckpots right where I want them, I'd need to get him chained up by his hands and feet to a bed. I could lure him into my bedroom for kinky sex play under the pretense of paid pleasure by masquerading as a high class dominatrix. In order to lull them into a false sense of security, I might need to suck them off a bit. I am willing to make any sacrifice in order to achieve my ends. With the tosser now under my power, I can set to work. 

In a fitting parody of his mallet-wielding ways, I would take up my own heavy mallet and stand over his corpulent form, looking down at his spread-eagled legs. With mallet above head, I would swing down and send my object of metal doom swift and sharp into his perineum (or grundle, to use the Latin term), taking note of the sounds of splintered bone and cries of anguish. If his testicles get in the way then so be it. I would continue ramming my blunt vengeance into his increasingly cracked and loose pelvic girdle until I am certain that shock will see to the rest of the mortality process. 

The last thing his stupid Oddjob face will see is the image of me, looking down, my arms crossed as I chuckle silently. 

Name: Princess Peach
From: Mario Kart
As Annoying As: Those women that point out how much better they are than men, failing to see their own sexist hypocrisy

Princess Peach pisses me off in Mario Kart, and for that she must obviously die. The way she disgustingly mocks players when overtaking them is unforgivable, and it happens often as I seem to remember most versions of the game having a distinct hard-on for the bitch and trying to ensure she regularly wins. Very much like the "games journalism" industry, Mario Kart gives women an easy shot at the top in the vain hope they'll get some pussy out of it. 

So how would I kill her? Well obviously boiling water would find its way onto her snatch at some point in the proceedings, but she does indeed deserve a punishment to fit the crime. I would have her tied to the front of a motor vehicle, her legs bent underneath the car while he back is forced into the hood, where she will be bound with rope and unable to escape. 

After driving around London Town at high speed for hours, laughing and drinking heavily, I will then locate the head office of Diva Insurance, a UK-based car insurance company formed exclusively for women, who are obviously better drivers because they can have babies. I'd drive into the car park, the screech of my tires doing little to drown out the screech of Peach, before driving headlong into the back of the first parked car I see. Peach will be the filling of an unforgiving steel sandwich, and she'd have deserved it. Fucking deserved it. 

Name: Rico
From: Killzone 2
As Annoying As: Rico in Killzone 2

I've talked about Rico before, but it bears repeating, While Killzone 2's story was lame at best, it would have been ten times better if they just removed this walking penis from the entire event. A sick amalgamation of every testosterone-induced videogame cliché, this swearing, socially maladjusted gun fetishist is too macho even for Cliffy B to wank over. 

I think any reasonable person could work out that Rico deserves to be anally violated with a shotgun, trousers round his ankles, hands tied behind his back and a ballgag in his mouth. Spectating gimp optional. I'd say a Winchester M1897 would make a good shotgun to rape someone with, since you've quite a long and smooth barrel with only a small obstruction if one intends to go deep. I'd pilfer Rico's Thrillzone for about three hours and twenty five minutes, or until my arms get really tired. 

No need to remove the shotgun when finished -- just pull the trigger. I'll need to remember to erect a mirror on the other side, in front of Rico's idiot face. I wouldn't want to miss the expression!

Name: Big the Cat
From: Sonic's Latest Piece of Shit Adventure
As Annoying As: The Sonic Cycle

Big the Cat is not only reprehensible for being a gormless, frog-faced, retarded twat, he is also a representative of everything that is wrong with Sonic games. With Big, we can see every thought process that runs through the diseased minds at Sonic Team. The desperation in adding character after character in the vain hopes that Sonic won't suck anymore. The lazy creation process whereby they pick an animal, choose a color for it, then attach a random word pulled out of a fucking hat for the name. So blatant, and so very rubbish.

So how would I kill him? As with all mentally retarded gentle giants, the fate of Big is to be kicked to death while helplessly looking up at his tormentors and/or abandoning carers, begging pathetically for a salvation that will not come. Big doesn't even deserve any invention in his death, since invention and Sonic don't go well together anymore. I would have him set upon by farmhands, paying homage to Lenny in Of Mice & Men, another gigantic and simpering moron whose comeuppance couldn't come quickly enough. 

Name: Crash Bandicoot
From: Crash Bandicoot
As Annoying As: Children

I am intensely nostalgic for the PlayStation, but good God were its platform games terribly annoying. Only Spyro the Dragon really seems able to stand the test of time when it comes to 3D platformers, and while Crash Bandicoot has a level of respectability, it really didn't age well. That's not to say it was glorious in its heyday either, as Crash Bandicoot remains one of the most frustrating titles of all time, with dodgy controls, camera issues, and excruciating pitfalls. The worst part? Crash's repetitive cries of "woah" every time you fail. Each "woah" was like a dagger in my left testicle. 

So how would I kill him? Well since Crash Bandicoot loves falling into the water so much in his games, I figure he might like to see what drowning is really like, and whether or not he can say "woah" when I'm forcing his head into the bath, watching with ecstasy as his limbs flail against the enamel and struggle for oxygen. The stupid drowning idiot. 

Then I'd find Coco Bandicoot and kick her repeatedly in the bandicoot womb. Just to make sure there's no risk of anyone rising to take Crash's stupid place. 

Name: Squall Leonhart
From: Final Fantasy VIII
As Annoying As: Most JRPG clichés

Good lord, what a whining prick. Squall stands as testament to what is wrong with the vast majority of JRPG heroes. A moody, bratty, stuck up manchild who is supposed to be mysterious and aloof but just comes across as a prick virgin wanker spunkpustule whose very existence serves as a slap in the face to those who are actually doing something with their lives other than moping around in bed, absorbed in pain and loneliness. The least he could do is get laid, but he's not even got the balls to do that. 

So how would I kill him? I'm not sure I need to. With someone like Squall, I believe life is tantamount to death. Besides which, I'm certain he'd kill himself at any available opportunity, so it's best to simply let nature take its course. Just remove all the Phoenix Downs from the room and replace them razor blades. The rest will take care of itself. 

"Maybe I'm a Lion?" Maybe you're a stupid emo fucknuckle, more like.

Name: Ryu
From: Street Fighter II
As Annoying As: Spam

I'm not too sure how he is in Street Fighter IV because I am not a fighting game player. However, for his trespasses in Street Fighter II, Ryu is long overdue penance. One of the most obvious examples of fighting game cheapness, most matches involving Ryu center around the spineless bitch sitting on one side of the stage, hurling Hadouken after Hadouken with no sense of shame. It works, but it's fucking pathetic. This is exemplified almost to the point of self-parody by the game itself. One of the "press start" demos that play on one version of the game has Ryu vs. Ryu, and the two literally stand there, canceling out each other's Hadoukens as they fire them at each other, over and over again. Such sniveling bullshit. 

I'd make Ryu appreciate just how easy it is to throw fireballs at people repeatedly, so that maybe, in the moments before death, he might actually learn something about not being a cunt. After paying Sagat in Pokémon cards for helping subdue Ryu and get him tied to a chair, I will set about my task of soaking heavy rocks in paraffin. 

Having donned the necessary flame-retardant garments, I would ignite the paraffin-soaked rocks to create some infinitely more effective Hadoukens of my own. Let's see how he likes fireballs in the face for all eternity, shall we? I mean, he won't really be able to appreciate the fire part of it, since I am basically just throwing rocks at his head, but I'll be able to enjoy the aesthetic and metaphorical value of it, and that's all that matters. Fuck Ryu, he doesn't get to have an opinion. 

Thus ends our lighthearted romp through some of the characters that have really gotten on my nerves over the years. Certainly you have some of your own. Why not share them with us, and describe what you'd like to do to them? It'll surely prove how mentally well-adjusted videogames have made us. 

Bye bye!