AI companions tend to come in a couple different flavors. There’s the true companions, versatile and interesting characters who really add something to the experience, like Elizabeth from BioShock Infinite or Alyx from Half-Life 2. Next are the harmless annoyances, who aren’t great to have around but don’t get in the way–Ashley Graham has the good sense to keep her head down, and Navi has some alright advice here and there. And then there are the AI companions who actively make the game worse by existing. From charging headfirst into enemy bullets to using up your precious resources while you shriek in rage, they seem deadset on making EVERY level the “hell level.”

In (dis)honor of these hated, virtual hanger-ons, I’ve compiled a list of the worst AI companions gaming has to offer. Hoarders, pesterers, jerkfaces and straight-up dead weight–they’re all here, and they’re going to do their best to ruin your fun. It’s time for some naming and shaming!

Sheva (Resident Evil 5)

The thing about going into battle with someone is that you need to trust them. “With your life” is a pretty good benchmark, since your partner will hopefully be stopping bullets and knives from trying to occupy the same space as your internal organs. That’s why so many players hate Sheva, Chris Redfield’s partner in Resident Evil 5: she can’t be trusted. She consumes all your shared ammo and health items like its penny candy, and when you’re on your last legs and need her most, she has a penchant for standing around and letting nature run its course. She may not be a bad character per say, but it’s kind of hard to remember that when she’s watching you die like an unfeeling robot.

Tails (Sonic 2)

Bless Tails; he really does try. He just sucks so bad that failure is his only option, and he simply can’t keep up with Sonic “Gotta Go Fast” the Hedgehog. Sometimes that’s literal, like when he’s so slow on special stages that he regularly runs into bombs and ruins everything. Other times he’s just flat-out dense, like when he collapses platforms before Sonic can even touch them or runs straight into very obvious spikes. You want to give him a little credit, because he will nab a ring or two for you. But then he’ll promptly lose them doing something stupid, or drag you down when you try to help him, and you’ll suddenly wish Sonic would aim his fist bumps a little higher.

Duck Hunt Dog (Duck Hunt)

With man’s-best-friends like these, who needs enemies? Not Duck Hunt, where your only real enemy in the struggle for duck dominance is your son-of-a-bitch hunting dog. Rather than focusing on your victories like any good dog should, the Duck Hunt Dog spends more time ridiculing you for your failures. The mockery never ends. Every time one of the slippery fowl gets away from you, the Dog is there to undercut your self-esteem until you just can’t take it ANYMORE!!! You can’t shoot him either, to the disappointment of frustrated players everywhere. However, he is set to appear in the upcoming Super Smash Bros for Wii U/3DS, so revenge might finally be ours.

Roman (Grand Theft Auto 4)

Niko Bellic deals with some unpleasant things in GTA IV, brawling with vicious gang members and dealing with the popo after accidentally mowing down a group of tourists. But few things in Liberty City make your stomach drop like getting a phone call and hearing “HEEEEEY COOOOOOOOOUSIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIN” blasting down the line. After the fifteenth time cousin Roman ask you to join him in an annoying bowling minigame, you start running people over out of rage instead of just for fun. It would almost be bearable, if that was the worst family failure you had to deal with. But when you have to kick the crap out of a bunch of guys to clean up your cousin’s mess? And then he calls you for the sixteenth time? Bowling balls aren’t all that’s gonna roll!

Survivors (Dead Rising)

I get that the zombie apocalypse can be stressful, especially when you find yourself locked in a shopping mall with a horde of the undead, packs of psychopaths, and no Orange Julius stands in sight. But as completely idiotic, frustrating, and useless as the survivors in Dead Rising can be, it looks like the zombies arent the only ones in want of brains. Most of your human cohorts are unbelievably slow, lagging behind you even when you’re carrying an injured party on you back. They’re virtually incapable of defending themselves even with a weapon, and have a nasty habit of walking into the thick of a zombie pack and expecting you to get them out. Sure, you can leave particularly infuriating survivors behind, but that hurts your overall score, and the one you left for dead could be replaced by someone equally useless!

Survivors, again (Left 4 Dead)

Speaking of left for dead–sorry, Left 4 Dead–those survivors don’t come out looking so good either when a fellow player isn’t controlling them. CPU versions of the zombie-blasting friends do their best to emulate human behavior, like a robot trying to calculate the square root of love, and do seem to get it right some of the time. But they’ll just as soon stare at you Sheva-like as you die, play lemming and leap off balconies, or get comfy in a toasty patch of fire. Forget any time you need to lay low and not draw attention–the AI knows that proper way to combat the horde is to run in with guns blazing. Oh, and never forget to walk directly up to a witch. Come on, they just need some love.

Superfly Johnson and Mikiko (Daikatana)

Granted, Daikatana itself is notoriously awful, and it’s AI characters could hardly escape the crapshoot. Still, Superfly Johnson (yes, that’s his actual name) and Mikiko go above and beyond, combining their powers to make this game as bad as it could possibly be. These two hit all the terrible AI touchstones: running directly into any stream of bullets you let loose, getting stuck on doors, and happily putting themselves in lethal situations where their deaths spell Game Over for you. They even spice it up a bit by being blithely hostile, occasionally shooting you in the midst of a firefight instead of getting shot themselves. Did I mention friendly fire is on? When Mikiko double-crosses you and steals the Sword-of-Ultimate-Power-or-Whatever at the end (I’d warn for spoilers, but who cares?), you almost start to wonder if these two were actually brilliant enemy combatants. But, no–they’re just that stupid.

Your comrades (Gears of War)

The characters in Gears of War are men and women of extremes. I don’t mean those times when they go mano-a-monster with the demonesque Locusts, but the part where they’re either really bad or way too good at it. In the first Gears game, your brothers in (h)arms spent a lot of time doing lethally stupid things, like meleeing a megaboss or standing on top of a campfire. Dom in particular is known for putting himself in deadly situations that are too dumb to comprehend. The developers saw the problem here and adjusted for Gears of War 3, by which I mean the game basically plays itself. Yes, replace my clunker van with a rocket I can’t ride. That’s so much better.

Natalya (GoldenEye 007)

Yes, Natalya, I know we have to go to the main control room. Now if you could do that without walking in front of all of my bullets, marching directly into enemy fire, or getting stuck on the goddamn door of the goddamn main control room, I would REALLY. FREAKING. APPRECIATE IT!!! The most frustrating part of an otherwise great game, Natalya is the epitome of rage-inducing escort bots. Progressing requires that you anticipate her slow, clunky movements and keep her from walking into the business end of a rifle like she thinks it’s shooting money and free ice cream. I’m pretty sure she leads a double life as a target dummy, which explains why she has such crap dexterity that she gets stuck on a doorframe.

WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT???

Even years after they first drove us into a frothing rage we haven’t forgotten these AI idiots, and I’m sure most of us would rather hang out with anyone else over them. A rabid wolverine, perhaps. What do you think? Does the memory of these horrible partners make you want to tear your hair out? Did we miss an odious offender? Tell us in the comments below, and share in our hate-pain. Hain. Yes.

Want more rage against hapless “helpers”? Check out the Top 7 video game sidekicks we hated. Would you rather sooth your wrathful heart? Check out 10 sidekicks that deserve their own game, because they’re not all useless.

The post Gamings worst AI companions appeared first on Game News.

Seems like a pretty rich pack of add-ons for the price, with new maps, items and playable characters including Big Rig Dizzy back when the character wore brutally unironic trucker hats. We should mention that if you bought the Gears 3 Season Pass (opens in new tab) this is included and is available for you right now for no additional cost. How’s this for a first download pack? Good enough or are you holding out for something more single player focused?

The post Gears of War 3 Horde Command trailer details DLC with a Southern drawl appeared first on Game News.

As for who will be in the new campaign content, Bleszinski also said that the new story won’t be a retelling of any of the Gears graphic novels, but Michael Barrick, a character from Gears of War: Hollow will be making an appearance. As for Jace Stratton, Barrick’s trusty Delta Squad ally, we can’t be sure, but it wouldn’t be surprising to see him turn up again too.

Sep 28, 2011

Source: neoGAF

The post First Gears of War 3 DLC will feature a new cast appeared first on Game News.

Likened by Bleszinski to “reverse VIP,” the Very Unimportant Person mode (as we can hope and dream of it being called) checks your system records to see if you’ve ever taken any Gears of War game online or participated in the Gears 3 online beta.

Above: If you haven’t a damn clue what’s going on here, the new mode will help make sense of (some of) it

Ham-fisted oafs who’ve played Gears but just never got any good will be unceremoniously dumped into the multiplayer proper like steak into a lion’s cage, while new players gain access to an arena populated by their fellow Gears newcomers – all equipped with the aim-assist included in earlier games’ “Casual” single-player setting.

If you’ve never played a Gears of War game before, would this feature entice you into giving the titles’ multiplayer mode a try? Would you like to see other titles adopt such an option?

Jul 25, 2011

The post Gears of War 3: New players get exclusive “casual” multiplayer appeared first on Game News.

All gamers are carnivores and savages. Oh sure, some of us rarely eat meat in real life, but when we’re in a game, the thing we most want to see is our enemies turned into meat, the more rare and bloody the better. There’s something almost primal about seeing your foe turned inside out – you didn’t just win. You ripped them asunder. And there is satisfaction there. So which game this year looks best poised to satisfy our not-at-all-unhealthy bloodlust?

The Nominees

Rage
Capable of delivering some of the most eye-wateringly detailed graphics on the planet, Rage nonetheless keeps the gore quotient realistic and grounded. However, this creates one of those “less is more” situations – when you see the spray after unloading a shotgun shell into a mutant’s stomach, or watch as an expertly-thrown wingblade cleanly pops an enemy’s head off his body, you feel like a true master assassin. Preview

Dead Island
Zombies come apart more easily than not-yet-undead beings, and nowhere is that more evident than in this open world splatterfest. But the appeal here isn’t just that you can chop your foes into giblets. It’s the creative ways in which you can do it. Taking a cue from the Dead Rising series, Dead Island enables you to combine things like a hatchet and dynamite, which results in the ultimate sticky grenade when thrown.Preview

Prototype 2
Another open world game, but in this one you are a living bioweapon capable of incredible acts of destruction. Your body is capable of sprouting massive tendrils of living flesh, your arms can turn into blades six feet long, and nearly everything you see, be it monster, machine, human or some combination of the three, needs to be hacked into pieces. And if that wasn’t enough, you can consume people – literally – to take on their appearance.Preview

Rise of Nightmares
There’s no sense beating around the bush: Rise of Nightmares is not the prettiest game on this list. But it makes up for its lack of graphical detail by using Kinect to forge the most tangible connection between the player’s motions and what’s happening onscreen. It doesn’t quite come through in video, but here’s the point: It’s one thing to twiddle a controller stick to hack at a zombified face with an axe. But when you’re making the actual motion to press a chainsaw into a brain-eating ghoul and watching it rip through their rotting torso, it feels just a little bit more empowering. Preview

BloodRayne Betrayal
It may be the sole 2D representative on this list, but that doesn’t mean BloodRayne Betrayal is even remotely shy about letting massive gouts of crimson burst from every freshly-skewered enemy. The physiology of it all is questionable – we’re literally not sure how a creature of that size could contain that much blood. But it sure looks and feels good.Preview

Gears of War 3
A late entry, Gears of War 3 almost missed this list – as much as we love chainsawing friends, we’ve been doing that for years. But then we saw the E3 demo, in which a giant sea creature was attacking our heroes. Their solution? Blast it in the face until an eye bursts open, leaving the remnants dangling from its socket until the other one got blown out as well. This bodes well to us.Preview

And the winner
is%26hellip;

Prototype 2
Truthfully, this one wasn’t even close. Prototype 2 delivers theblood and guts in more different ways than you could imagine. It’s not just that your arms become blades. It’s not just that you’re practically made of gore, sprouting giant meat tentacles all the time. It’s not just that you can stabbing some poor bastard in the neck with your arm-dagger, which will make 40-foot tendrils shoot out of his body, grab everything withing range, then retract and explode. It’s all that and more. You can see this particular hell at around the 1:06 mark in the video below, but you should really just watch the whole thing. We have a winner.Preview

The Nominees

Rage
Capable of delivering some of the most eye-wateringly detailed graphics on the planet, Rage nonetheless keeps the gore quotient realistic and grounded. However, this creates one of those “less is more” situations – when you see the spray after unloading a shotgun shell into a mutant’s stomach, or watch as an expertly-thrown wingblade cleanly pops an enemy’s head off his body, you feel like a true master assassin. Preview

Dead Island
Zombies come apart more easily than not-yet-undead beings, and nowhere is that more evident than in this open world splatterfest. But the appeal here isn’t just that you can chop your foes into giblets. It’s the creative ways in which you can do it. Taking a cue from the Dead Rising series, Dead Island enables you to combine things like a hatchet and dynamite, which results in the ultimate sticky grenade when thrown.Preview

Prototype 2
Another open world game, but in this one you are a living bioweapon capable of incredible acts of destruction. Your body is capable of sprouting massive tendrils of living flesh, your arms can turn into blades six feet long, and nearly everything you see, be it monster, machine, human or some combination of the three, needs to be hacked into pieces. And if that wasn’t enough, you can consume people – literally – to take on their appearance.Preview

Rise of Nightmares
There’s no sense beating around the bush: Rise of Nightmares is not the prettiest game on this list. But it makes up for its lack of graphical detail by using Kinect to forge the most tangible connection between the player’s motions and what’s happening onscreen. It doesn’t quite come through in video, but here’s the point: It’s one thing to twiddle a controller stick to hack at a zombified face with an axe. But when you’re making the actual motion to press a chainsaw into a brain-eating ghoul and watching it rip through their rotting torso, it feels just a little bit more empowering. Preview

BloodRayne Betrayal
It may be the sole 2D representative on this list, but that doesn’t mean BloodRayne Betrayal is even remotely shy about letting massive gouts of crimson burst from every freshly-skewered enemy. The physiology of it all is questionable – we’re literally not sure how a creature of that size could contain that much blood. But it sure looks and feels good.Preview

Gears of War 3
A late entry, Gears of War 3 almost missed this list – as much as we love chainsawing friends, we’ve been doing that for years. But then we saw the E3 demo, in which a giant sea creature was attacking our heroes. Their solution? Blast it in the face until an eye bursts open, leaving the remnants dangling from its socket until the other one got blown out as well. This bodes well to us.Preview

And the winner
is%26hellip;

Prototype 2
Truthfully, this one wasn’t even close. Prototype 2 delivers theblood and guts in more different ways than you could imagine. It’s not just that your arms become blades. It’s not just that you’re practically made of gore, sprouting giant meat tentacles all the time. It’s not just that you can stabbing some poor bastard in the neck with your arm-dagger, which will make 40-foot tendrils shoot out of his body, grab everything withing range, then retract and explode. It’s all that and more. You can see this particular hell at around the 1:06 mark in the video below, but you should really just watch the whole thing. We have a winner.Preview

The post GamesRadar E3 2011 Awards: Most Satisfying Gore appeared first on Game News.

The game will ship with over 30 plastic figures; over 200 action, tools and Locust AI cards; 17 double-sided map tiles; roughly 75 tokens and markers; a line-of-sight ruler; multiple sets of attack and defense dice; and reference material.

The game is slated for release in Q3 2011, and will retail for $79.95 USD.

May 18, 2011

The post Gears of War: The Board Game coming this fall appeared first on Game News.