Have you ever met someone that you just didn’t like? Someone that made you think, “Gee, I hope this guy gets punched in the face in the near future.” Well, it turns out that these same kinds of people exist in the world of video games!
These 10 characters are shining examples of that feeling. No matter how well received or well written they are, you just can’t help but silently pump your first in glee when you see them die, suffer or just generally get their faces beaten in.
Obviously, there were some omissions and not everyone that deserved it could make it onto this list. If there was a character you really felt deserved to be on it, comment below and let me know!
10. Grelod the Kind – The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
So, you’re running through Skyrim, doing your thing, maybe killing some dragons or slaughtering some bandits, and then you make it to the rat-infested (literally) town of Riften. You find the orphanage and go inside. Maybe the Dragonborn can afford to take in a heartbroken street urchin or two. And then you meet her.
Grelod the Kind. The cruel, child-abusing headmistress of Honorhall Orphanage, Grelod is actually in the midst of a speech about beating the kids when you walk into the orphanage for the first time! While killing Grelod is actually the player’s ticket into the Dark Brotherhood quest line, she’s one of those few characters in Skyrim that absolutely nobody had a problem murdering, and even your character acknowledges via the in-game journal that Aventus Aretino, the boy who gives you the quest, can live happily now that Grelod is a corpse.
If you need further proof that Grelod is a real douche, look no further than the children of the orphanage, who laugh and cheer when she dies, even if you kill her right in front of them.
9. Bowser – Mario Franchise
Anyone who grew up playing games in the ’80’s and ’90’s knew that the King of all Nintendo baddies had to end up on this list somewhere. Still, to be fair, Bowser has been douching it up for years and doesn’t make it any higher up on this list, simply because he’s been getting his butt kicked for so long.
While it never gets any less satisfying hurling the big SOB into bombs, dropping him into lava pits, pelting him with his own robot dogs or running him off the racetrack, there is absolutely no shortage of Bowser pwnage to be found in games.
Still, after 20 years of seeing him kidnap Princess Peach over and over and over again, I can no longer play a Mario game, regardless of how amazing it is, without groaning when I see King Koopa’s ugly mug and counting down the seconds until I can wipe my doody-stained plumber shoes all over it.
8. Slippy Toad – Star Fox 64
In Star Fox on the SNES, there was one companion that always drove me insane. Slippy Toad. The anthropomorphic amphibian was a constant nuisance, always needing to be saved and whining incessantly at you until you rescued his gimpy wart-covered backside.
Then we got to Star Fox 64 where he…played exactly the same role. In fact, Slippy in Star Fox 64 was actually even more annoying than his SNES counterpart, if only because Star Fox 64 had voice acting. Which meant that not only did you still have to deal with his constant harassing you to save him because he can’t shoot down one measly drone fighter without messing it up, but now you had to actually listen to it too.
While Slippy does play an important role on the team, analyzing the bosses and displaying their health meters during battle, I still can’t resist shooting that irritating little turd blossom down every chance that I get.
7. The St. John Family – The Walking Dead: Season 1
There are two prominent games based on Robert Kirkman’s fantastic Walking Dead comics. Because The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct is a steaming pile of crap, we’re going to talk about the good game, simply titled The Walking Dead: Season 1.
Once players make it into “Episode 2”, formerly titled “Starved For Help”, they will encounter the St. John family. This seemingly kind family of farmers takes in Lee Everett and company and offers them sanctuary from both bandits and walkers alike.
Still, not everything is as it seems. After making it deep into the level, the St. Johns are revealed as cannibals after one of your comrades crawls downstairs and interrupts dinner, missing both of his legs.
These sick disgusting people then capture your whole group and lock you in a storage room while you wait to be feasted on. In a game where the primary goal is to avoid being eaten by dead people, having to avoid being eaten by living people also just straight up pissed me off and I took pleasure in QTE-smashing the crap out of each and every one of them.
6. Vaas Montenegro – Far Cry 3
Far Cry 3 was a fun game. Running around an open-world island, mindlessly murdering pirates and bandits and pirate-bandits and getting inked with tattoos that give you special abilities and killing more people.
One of the primary reasons Far Cry 3 was so much fun? It had a great antagonist.
Vaas Montenegro is exactly what you would expect a pirate dealing in human trafficking to be: A foul mouthed, belligerent, disrespectful, irritating, excessively unstable jackhole.
You spend the entire first half of the game hunting Vaas down and building yourself up to be strong enough to reach and kill him, all the while enduring a seemingly endless array of traps, taunting and swerves.
Even though it was a bit of a cop-out to reach the final fight with Vaas, only to battle and kill him while essentially stoned out of your mind on acid, that didn’t make the feeling of plunging your blade into that potty-mouthed douchenozzle any less satisfying.
