Least favorite Video Game Baddie

['Ravishing' Ned Flanders]

Stalker

These guys are from Borderlands 2 & The Pre Sequel They have a gland that works as a shield as well as a cloaking device that turns them invisible until right before they attack you. Now that would be enough to irritate the piss out of anyone right? Well that's not all, they are also fast as shit so when they do turn invisible all you are able to do is keep an eye on your mini map and move around until they become visible again. They also tend to travel in packs.

The good news is that once their shield is all the way down they can't cloak anymore either so all you have to I chase them until they're deed. The best way I've found to do tho is with a long range weapon (like a sniper rifle) and pick them off from afar. An Elemental weapon also does good if you have one. Shock weapons are the best choice because the shock damage saps their shield real quick.

Giant Spore

These guys are also from Borderlands 2 and are my honorable mention. Not only do they float in the air making it harder to kill they come with 1 of 5 elemental types meaning they do even more damage when a shot connects. As if this isn't bad enough they pop out little spores that explode on contact and also do elemental damage of the same type as Mama spore.

They do have some upsides though. They follow you and if you do it right you can bring them to another bad guy and they'll attack each other, making it easier to kill them both.

However when you do kill it it explodes into a handful of the tiny spored that you then have to dodge until they touch down and explode

[Fallout]

Father from Fallout 4. Fallout 4 Spoilers below:

Click for Spoiler:

If you kick away the crutch that he's your son, this character has absolutely nothing of interest to offer. It's an extremely tired cliche to make a villain related to the hero to add an additional emotional connection to the conflict between hero and villain. What bad writers miss about perhaps the most famous example of this cliche, Darth Vader being revealed as Luke Skywalker's father, is that Vader and Luke are both interesting characters and have an interesting conflict despite this revelation, and this revelation adds even more tension to their confrontation. But would it be anywhere close to as impactful if General Veers (Julian Glover, the guy in the AT-AT) was Luke's father, and not Vader? Of course not, but Veers was far more developed than Father ever was.

Father is just a manipulative plot device to try and push the game forward whilst trying to make you care about him at the same time, to the point where it actually makes me angry. He's a zero-dimensional vessel and Exhibit A in lazy, uninspired writing, which is something that the Fallout series should never fall foul of, especially in the main storyline.

[Yaz]

Father from Fallout 4. Fallout 4 Spoilers below:

Click for Spoiler:

If you kick away the crutch that he's your son, this character has absolutely nothing of interest to offer. It's an extremely tired cliche to make a villain related to the hero to add an additional emotional connection to the conflict between hero and villain. What bad writers miss about perhaps the most famous example of this cliche, Darth Vader being revealed as Luke Skywalker's father, is that Vader and Luke are both interesting characters and have an interesting conflict despite this revelation, and this revelation adds even more tension to their confrontation. But would it be anywhere close to as impactful if General Veers (Julian Glover, the guy in the AT-AT) was Luke's father, and not Vader? Of course not, but Veers was far more developed than Father ever was.

Father is just a manipulative plot device to try and push the game forward whilst trying to make you care about him at the same time, to the point where it actually makes me angry. He's a zero-dimensional vessel and Exhibit A in lazy, uninspired writing, which is something that the Fallout series should never fall foul of, especially in the main storyline.

Just one of the many issue with FO4 for sure. The worst part for me, aside from me really liking the game at first and then quickly finding how watered down it truly was, was I get side tracked by side quests like a mother fucker. A decent number of the side quests in FO4 had a solid story around them. Then, I remember I have an actual objective to advance the plot and.....well Sly hasn't added the poop emoji.

I think your assessment is fairly spot on and it ranks, for me, among the worst let downs by a main story line in AAA titles.

[JGlass]

For me the most annoying video game bad guys are usually common enemies, not bosses. Cazadores from Fallout New Vegas come to mind: they were giant flies with a venomous sting. I don't think they did much damage themselves, but they were hard to hit because of their erratic flight patterns and the damage you'd get from their venom was crazy and it sapped your health for quite a while.

There's an enemy in the X-Com series called Archons and they're super annoying to kill. They are one of the few enemies that are able to fly in that game, and for some reason that makes them really hard for your squad to hit, and for a game that is all about positioning they are a nightmare as they have an ability to call down missiles on your squad's position, forcing you to run for different cover (which doesn't alway exist).

Also, Steph Curry in any NBA 2k game. Doesn't matter if he has a hand in his face, he's on the run, he just barely crossed half court... if the dude has a chance to hit the 3, he's going to take the shot, and he's probably going to make it. On one possession I had played great defense, forced Steph Curry to take a crazy moving shot maybe 10 feet from half court, and of course he buries it. Like, what else do you want me to do, 2k? How am I supposed to stop a player that can do that?

[Yaz]

For me the most annoying video game bad guys are usually common enemies, not bosses. Cazadores from Fallout New Vegas come to mind: they were giant flies with a venomous sting. I don't think they did much damage themselves, but they were hard to hit because of their erratic flight patterns and the damage you'd get from their venom was crazy and it sapped your health for quite a while.

There's an enemy in the X-Com series called Archons and they're super annoying to kill. They are one of the few enemies that are able to fly in that game, and for some reason that makes them really hard for your squad to hit, and for a game that is all about positioning they are a nightmare as they have an ability to call down missiles on your squad's position, forcing you to run for different cover (which doesn't alway exist).

Also, Steph Curry in any NBA 2k game. Doesn't matter if he has a hand in his face, he's on the run, he just barely crossed half court... if the dude has a chance to hit the 3, he's going to take the shot, and he's probably going to make it. On one possession I had played great defense, forced Steph Curry to take a crazy moving shot maybe 10 feet from half court, and of course he buries it. Like, what else do you want me to do, 2k? How am I supposed to stop a player that can do that?

Yeah, fuck Archons. I could live with the missile barrage as it rarely seemed to actually hit my squad and usually just blew up random cover I wasn't using, but the fact that they had the whole jetpack thing made them like impossible to hit. For whatever reason, something floating just a few feet off the ground and even my snipers just gave up. Sectopods, Gatekeepers, even Berserkers, all had a big body you could hit to offset their high damage, but the Archons just seemed to exist to piss you off. On a related note, in Enemy Unknown, the Chryssalids were one of my least favorite enemies because they would wreck your squad if they got in range and they could turn people into those zombie things, but in 2 I didn't have very much trouble with them. It may have been because they showed up primarily in those civilian rescue missions and would focus on killing civvies, but they became cannon fodder. Just seemed odd because even Sectopods got buffed in 2.

And double fuck Curry. I always play a big man in the 2K Career mode, usually a PF so I can still do stuff that isn't play in the paint. Even with my 6'10 Defensive Player of the Year guarding him, he hit way more than he missed. The worst was an instance where I blocked his shot, he grabbed it and then hit the follow up 3 in my face. The shade of it all.

[JGlass]

Yeah, fuck Archons. I could live with the missile barrage as it rarely seemed to actually hit my squad and usually just blew up random cover I wasn't using, but the fact that they had the whole jetpack thing made them like impossible to hit. For whatever reason, something floating just a few feet off the ground and even my snipers just gave up. Sectopods, Gatekeepers, even Berserkers, all had a big body you could hit to offset their high damage, but the Archons just seemed to exist to piss you off. On a related note, in Enemy Unknown, the Chryssalids were one of my least favorite enemies because they would wreck your squad if they got in range and they could turn people into those zombie things, but in 2 I didn't have very much trouble with them. It may have been because they showed up primarily in those civilian rescue missions and would focus on killing civvies, but they became cannon fodder. Just seemed odd because even Sectopods got buffed in 2.

And double fuck Curry. I always play a big man in the 2K Career mode, usually a PF so I can still do stuff that isn't play in the paint. Even with my 6'10 Defensive Player of the Year guarding him, he hit way more than he missed. The worst was an instance where I blocked his shot, he grabbed it and then hit the follow up 3 in my face. The shade of it all.

Yeah, the weird inability for your squad to hit the Archron is for sure the worst part about it. It pisses me off most when my snipers aren't able to make contact as you'd think a guy just floating in the air would be easy pickings for a sniper, but I guess not. The missile barrage annoys me personally because, while it's easy to avoid taking damage, it always blows up cover that I was just using, so unless I was able to wipe out the rest of the bad guys in the area before the Archon calls in the missile strike, I'm now defending against the enemies on the ground AND from the air.

I forgot about Chryssalids in the first game, they were the worst: they had suck a high damage attack WITH poison damage and they could travel like, half the map and still attack at the end of their turn. They were an absolute nightmare to defend against because if you didn't kill them within one round of agro (and there were no ambushes back in those days, so that was a tall task), you were basically guaranteed to take a medium to high amount of damage.

[Fallout]

If we're talking video game enemies, then I think enemies that fly across the screen in any platformer that end up knocking you to your death deserve a mention.

Your Medusas from Castlevania, your eagles from Ninja Gaiden and Shinobi, the horse heads from Zelda 2. But the worst of the worst has to be Firebrand from Ghosts N Goblins, infamous to the point he got his own game series and appeared in Marvel vs Capcom 3.

[Gelgarin]

A few spring the mind.

1) Whitney (Pokemon Gold et al)

This one probably only works if you're 12, but on behalf of basically every 12 year old on the planet back then: little miss rolling cow can fuck right off. It was the near perfect balance of overpowered (Rollout reliably stomping everything that didn't resist it - with nothing more interesting than Geodude capable of resisting it available prior to that point in the game) and really fucking annoying - with attract randomly disabling half your team and incessant recovery spam dragging the battle out six turns longer than it should be.

2) Whatever the fuck I fought at the end of Infamous.

Probably one of the most forgettable video games I ever bothered to complete, to the point that I have literally no idea what the final boss even was - but I do recall it taking fucking forever. Not due to challenge, which certainly wasn't there; just as a result of having one of the most obnoxiously long health bars I've ever seen. Also, is my hazy recollections are correct; Infamous didn't let you auto fire, so you had to be tapping left trigger none stop for the entire fight. If a boss carries an RSI warning then it is not well designed.

3) Caulder (Advance Wars, Days of Ruin)

The final missions of Advance Wars got progressively shittier with each iteration, but DoR was the unambiguous nadir of the series. You're given a huge map with tons of bases and cities to capture and an enormous, powerful enemy to overcome, and literally the only method to win is to ignore all of it. If you rush the mission objective right from the start you can clear the whole map in 7 turns. If you don't, and try to actually play the game, it is functionally impossible to win due to the power of your opponent and the arbitrary time limit imposed upon you. Now this, while disappointing, would not in itself merit a black mark, except the game repeatedly tells you that you need to build up your army and resources in order to win, both in terms of how you've been conditioned by the rest of the game, and what your support characters literally say right before the final battle.

4) Most of Bravely Default past about the sixth iteration.

I love the idea of an RPG where you're expected to be at level 99 with everything maxed out for half the game, and the challenge comes from finding the right combinations of skills and abilities to clear the battles. The problem comes from the fact that, in Bravely Default, past a certain point, the power level of enemies rises to the point that you're just abusing the same strategy for basically every fight, exploiting the Ninja's Utsusemi ability or the Spiritmaster's Stillness. This makes battles incredibly slow and repetitive, and from this point on you are expected to fight the same bosses over and over again, just with higher and higher HP totals.

5) Tower Knight (Demon's Souls)

This fight is fine but for one glaring problem. You are supposed to attack his feet to knock him over (Jason vs Talos style) but to game gives you absolutely no feedback when so doing that your attacks are accomplishing anything. As such I attacked his feet a few times since it seemed like the obvious thing to do, concluded that it wasn't having an effect and spent the best part of an hour trying, unsuccessfully, to work out a different strategy.

6) That fucking table (Persona 3)

It's a table. Sometimes that's enough.

[Dagger Dias]

Darknuts from Zelda. I hate every version of them in all of their appearances throughout the series, although the ones in the original are the worst. They are a nightmare to defeat when you are in a room full of the blue ones. Also, Malboros in the Final Fantasy series for the myriad of negative status effects they can inflict.

[Lee]

This guy. Is he a sandwich?