The Millstone / Video Games

The Millstone in Video Games.

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• Baldur's Gate III had a villainous example in the form of Orin the Red. She was a Psycho Knife Nut who jealously betrayed the mastermind of their Evil Plan, the Dark Urge, and took his place. As a direct result of this, she made it possible for the good guys to stop them, potentially cost her God of Evil The Chosen One, and caused the elder brain they enslaved to go rogue. Her allies in the Big Bad Triumvirate tolerate her out of necessity while being fully aware that she's a liability, and even her comrades in her Religion of Evil hate her for ruining everything (including her own grandfather Sarevok).
• Claptrap from the Borderlands series. His complete inability to do anything right most of the time greatly annoys both the characters and players alike. Exaggerated in the Claptastic Voyage DLC for Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel!, where it reveals his most disastrous accident to date. It's even made into a gameplay mechanic, wherein his ability may cause the other Vault Hunters to start randomly jumping or otherwise lose control.
• Daikatana has your two teammates, who cause a game over if they die, but are unfortunately completely rock-stupid even by dumb AI standards.
• Jin in Dead Island is a complete and utter liability. After reaching Morseby, she steals the truck and threatens you until you agree to gather supplies for everyone, resulting in a number of survivors being killed. Then she gets kidnapped by the gangs when she tries to help them, and you have to go rescue her, resulting in the person who went with her dying. Then, in a rage, she releases Ryder White's infected wife, and he shoots and kills them. But, not before taking the cure which actually transforms him into a monster. All in all, the party might've lasted much longer had Jin not been around.
• Stross from Dead Space 2. He might start off helpful, but aside from one moment of telling Isaac where to find the Marker, he's completely useless. This is thanks to Stross going slowly insane over his refusal to accept responsibility for the deaths of his wife and child, as well as most of the people on his ship when he picked up the Idiot Ball and unleashed a necromorph outbreak. He eventually pulls a Face–Heel Turn by attacking Ellie and taking out one of her eyes with a screwdriver, and then tries to kill Isaac with the same, but Isaac drives the screwdriver into Stross' brain, which finally kills him.
• Fallout:
  • Fallout 2 has the Pariah Dog, a random encounter that can join over the party limit, drops your luck to 1, and gives you the Jinxed trait. The only way to fix this is to get the dog killed, but the damn thing has loads of HP and runs away the moment a battle starts.
  • The Hanged Man was to be this in Fallout: Van Buren. A tough but evil guy who would piss off almost everyone if he were recruited. In Fallout: New Vegas's Honest Hearts DLC, he became the much nicer "Burned Man" Joshua Graham. The closest thing in New Vegas would be Boone, but only if you planned on allying/being friendly with Caesar's Legion, since his response to them is to shoot on sight. Boone at least will let you know beforehand if you're entering Legion territory and asks if you still want him along or if you need to dismiss him. He'll also mess up the NCR-aligned quest "Silus Treatment" when you try to interrogate a captive Centurion (Centurions are trained to kill themselves before capture to prevent info leaks, but Silus is a huge coward), by barging in and killing the guy before you can get him to talk.
• In Ghost Recon, your own teammates tend to get themselves killed, by getting themselves shot by the enemy, moving themselves out in the open, or getting in your line of fire.
• Godzilla: Monster of Monsters! lets you play as Godzilla or Mothra. Mothra is so delicate, has such a weak attack, and can be stun-locked so incredibly easily, that the game is actually easier if you kill her off and just solo each map as Godzilla. Everyone who has ever played this game has gotten a Game Over because they learned how awful Mothra is, didn't use her, beat the map as Godzilla, and then were unable to drag Mothra through the final stage as well. Quite literally the only thing Mothra is good for, is she can hover in a blindspot where Mecha Godzilla simply can not hit her but she can hit him with her poison wing drop, but getting her through the stage to even pull this off is so prohibitively difficult it's a lot easier to just let Godzilla do it.
• In the Grand Theft Auto series:
  • Grand Theft Auto: Vice City: Lance Vance. The only helpful thing he ever does is betray you so you can finally shoot his dumb ass. He's somehow even worse in Vice City Stories — most of his brother Vic's problems are due to his screw-ups.
  • Hilary King is even worse. You have to beat him in a race for the story to continue, which is extremely hard. Not because he's so fast, but because he keeps getting himself killed due to game bugs that are triggered by his erratic driving. Worse is that his presence in the story is entirely pointless. You recruit him as the getaway driver for a bank robbery, but he won't work with you unless you prove yourself better than him in every way, by beating him in a race where he has a supercar and you have some dinky thing. Then when he finally needs to show his worth in the actual robbery getaway, he immediately gets out of the car, starts shooting at the SWAT team, and is instantly killed when they return fire.
  • Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas has Jeffrey Cross, better known by his gang name of OG Loc. He thinks he's a rapper, but is not shown to have any quality as a rapper (or any other profession, for that matter). Exactly why he deserves your help is unclear. The missions you get from him (none of which earn you any money, only an increase in CJ's respect stat) involve: helping take revenge on Freddy, a Vago who "supposedly" stole his rhymes as opposed to buggering him in prison and leaving his "macho pride" in shambles; steal the rhyme book from Madd Dogg, an actual rapper, then a van with a sound system at a beach party^note between Loc being a complete joke and the people at the party just having a good time and doing no harm, you might actually feel bad when you ruin the party; kill Madd Dogg's manager^note although he turns out to be involved with the Ballas, so he's a more acceptable target... and after all this trouble, he just decides to violate his parole so he would go back to jail. In this case, revenge is a dish best served cold: after CJ finds Madd Dogg again and helps the true rap star back to his feet, they crash one of Loc's music video premieres and eventually his whole career.
• Guilty Gear: Inverted somewhat. I-no is an underling of That Man who probably does more harm to his plans than his opposition does thanks to her pervasive Stupid Evil tendencies, but he makes a point of keeping her around because he fears the damage she could actually do by not being around to give her a cause. He speculates that if she were ever left to her own devices, she would be much, much more dangerous. Sure enough come -STRIVE-, Asuka is locked up in the White House and Raven is standing by the sidelines, leaving I-no a free agent. With nobody around to stop her own designs, she merges with Happy Chaos, becomes a Physical God and nearly destroys the world.
• Doctor Fate from Injustice 2 shows up twice in the game to impede your progress, basically allowing the plot to happen in one scenario and just prolonging it in another, for no real reason other than "something something order or something." Seriously, the guy really needs a hobby. Even the characters In-Universe agree, as best said in a clash between Fate and Green Arrow:
  Dr. Fate: Order will prevail!
  Green Arrow: You really need to get laid!
• Dr. Laura Sorkin is a rather obnoxious case of this in Jurassic Park: The Game, owing to her For Science! mentality and her good-intentioned but foolhardy attempts to save the dinosaurs. She's the reason the Troodons were left alive as she chose to study them in secret rather than euthanize them as ordered, she's the reason the survivors didn't leave when they had the chance as she wanted to cure their lysene dependency, her decision to not tell the mercenaries about the Troodons results in them being slaughtered, she ultimately traps the survivors and is killed by the Tylosaurus she releases in an attempt to "bargain" for the lives of the animals, and of course all her actions are directly responsible for causing Billy Yoder to snap under the pressure and turn on the survivors. Literally every death in the game is either directly or indirectly her fault.
• Lynch from the Kane & Lynch series, who causes both his and Kane's lives to be turned upside down in both games due to his psychotic tendencies, which have the tendency to make already bad situations worse, such as suffering a psychotic break while they have hostages and gunning them all down in a fit of panic, which loses them their bargaining chips and gets them in even worse trouble.
• Rico from the Killzone games. Especially the second game in the series, where his actions caused many fans of the series to hate his guts from that point onward.
• The Legend of Zelda: Hyrule Warriors: In certain Adventure Mode battles, a single Cucco will keep following you every way you go until your attacks ruffle its feathers to summon its army against your butt. Yes, it follows you and no one else for that one reason, so it makes you think twice about your positioning and using area attacks.
• Oy vey, every AI-controlled partner in LEGO Star Wars. They are programmed to charge in and engage the enemy, but they can not damage the enemy at all: this means they have a nasty habit of standing right in the path of your fire and shielding the enemy from your attacks while firing their own ineffective attacks at them. It becomes even worse if they're a Jedi-type, as they will actually begin deflecting your shots back at you instead of just getting out of the way: no wonder these knuckleheads lost the war.
• In the original Mass Effect trilogy, the Council serves as this for Shepard. Despite the fact that Shepard is a Spectre, ostensibly with carte blanche from said Council to break any law and do anything s/he feel is necessary to complete his/her mission, any action Shepard takes is second-guessed by the Council, and vital information or resources are often withheld. At one point in the first game, Shepard has to steal his/her own ship back because the Council put it on lockdown. Even after a galaxy-wide invasion in the third game, the Asari councilor delays telling Shepard about a Prothean beacon until its location is all but overrun with Reapers.
• Mario Party:
  • Mario Party: Star Rush: The World 2 boards have Peepas that disguise themselves as ally characters, and they appear at the same time as the actual character. You won't know if the ally you're collecting is real until after you do so, and if you accidentally recruit a Peepa, their Cursed Dice Block roll will deduct from your roll instead of adding to it for as long as they're following you.
  • Super Mario Party: In King Bob-omb's Powderkeg Mine and Gold Rush Mine, it's possible to temporarily recruit a Bob-omb as an ally by passing its space in the northern section of the board, but this should be avoided, as their Dice Block deducts from the player's roll instead of adding to it.
• In Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, EVA actually lives up to the quote at the beginning of the page, since knocking her unconscious and dragging her limp body is both possible, and usually preferable to having her follow you while constantly eating up your rations. Also, if you are spotted, she often chooses to stand her ground and engage the limitless army of enemy troops, rather than attempt to hide like a good agent.
• Resident Evil – Code: Veronica features Steve Burnside, who seems to go out of his way to be either completely useless or an active hindrance in every circumstance.
  • Right after you're released from the prison, Steve opens fire on you with a mounted machine gun. (To be fair there, he did think Claire was a zombie.)
  • Claire needs some Gold Lugers to open a door, but taking them starts to set off a trap. Putting them back disarms the trap. After leaving the area, Steve tries to take the Gold Lugers, but is too dumb to put them back, forcing Claire to save him. As thanks for saving him, he then keeps the Gold Lugers and refuses to give them to you unless you give him "something fully automatic."
  • When Claire finally finds something fully automatic for him, Ashford dumps them into a trap. Steve then uses all the ammo the guns have to kill about ten zombies and shoot a wall.
  • Steve pops in when Ashford ambushes Claire, getting shot for his troubles and hitting Ashford with a wild shot. When they close in for the kill, Steve has Ashford at gunpoint for about twenty seconds before Ashford just runs away — and apparently the only reason Steve didn't shoot is because he was weirded out by Ashford being a transvestite.
  • Since Ashford got away, he's able to both arm the self-destruct system and release a Tyrant to kill Claire and Steve.
  • When that fails, Ashford takes control of the plane Steve's piloting to crash-land into Antarctica.
  • While in Antarctica, Steve operates a drill, but gets distracted by Claire's butt. This causes him to lose control of the drill and forces Claire to find a gas mask to continue.
  • Finally, Steve gets kidnapped and Claire has to deal with his monstrous form — and she can take any weapons she wants from the item box, forcing Chris to use the leftovers for the real final battle instead of the glorified cutscene battle.
• In Shin Megami Tensei IV, your AI partners can be this depending on who you're facing. One good example is the Wake-Up Call Boss fight against the Minotaur. If the AI draws Walter, it's best to reset immediately, as Walter will throw Agi attacks at him, do no damage, and feed him Smirks.
• Silent Hill:
  • Silent Hill 2 has everyone's favorite manipulative stripper Maria. Not only does she not carry a weapon or help James in any significant way, she seemingly goes out of her damn way to jump in front of your attacks, or stand immediately next to the attacking monster. So, of course, after all that hard work keeping her safe on that great big Escort Mission, she gets herself killed. Three times. Even more fustrating is the fact that Maria's death during gameplay before she's killed in a cutscene results in a Non-Standard Game Over. Justified in that she's a manifestation created by the eponymous town for the express purpose of thoroughly screwing with James.
  • Not to be outdone, Silent Hill 4 has Eileen Galvin, whom you spend the latter half of the game guarding from danger. If you give her a weapon, she will flail at the nearest enemies, no matter how killable they are. To many a first-time player's chagrin, the more damage Eileen takes, the faster she dies during the final boss battle, and when she dies, you have a greater chance of getting the Downer Ending where Everybody Dies.
• The Obstructive Bureaucrats above Lambert in Splinter Cell: Double Agent Version 2 do nothing for Sam but make his job more difficult for him. Because they don't trust Sam or Lambert's plan, they go out of their way to actively hinder him such as calling in a bomb warning to the Cozumel police which puts the entire cruise ship on lock-down and swarming with police when Sam is trying to infiltrate it. This actually forces Sam to make a lot of the morally black choices they're afraid of in the first place.
• In Tales of Symphonia, though he greatly improves and his intelligence does come in very handy later, Genis Sage has one very specific moment of this that has huge consequences. When he and Lloyd attempt to save Marble from being beaten in the Iselia Ranch, the plan is for Lloyd to distract them and run through the forest so they follow him, thus preventing the village from being implicated. But, as Lloyd is doing this, Genis trips and makes enough noise that the Desians hear and begin looking for him, so Lloyd is forced to run back and fight them, thus his face is caught on camera. Once the Desians know of his identity, they also discover Lloyd has an exsphere on him and attack the village as punishment for Lloyd violating the treaty, thus getting Lloyd and Genis banned from Iselia. All because Genis tripped.
• Ben from The Walking Dead (Telltale) shows this to such a degree that he even realizes his status as one.
  • First, he made a deal with bandits to trade them supplies in exchange for not hurting his friend — when he realized they didn't have his friend, he continued giving them supplies because they'd threatened to kill him.
  • Second, his not confessing to the paranoid Lilly about his guilt winds up getting either Doug or Carley killed, depending on who survived the encounter in the drug store.
  • Third, as a result of his pissing off the bandits to such a degree, Duck winds up getting bitten by a walker during a bandit raid, and Katjaa is Driven to Suicide as a result of being unwilling to Mercy Kill Duck.
  • Fourth, when he and Clementine are cornered by zombies in Savannah, he runs away rather than stay and help her, which ends up getting Chuck killed when he comes in to save her instead.
  • And finally, he removes an axe keeping zombies out from a doorway to use to open another door. Too Dumb to Live barely begins to describe the guy, but lord knows he tries. At least in his defense it's worth noting that the zombies had stopped trying to break through the door he took the axe out of and the windows were completely covered in blood by that point. You actually walk past the doors on your way back to where everyone else is before Ben shows up with the axe that was used to keep the door shut.
  • And then there's what happened when the group finally found a boat. It turns out, while everyone else was out doing something else, and Ben was left guarding the boat, another group of survivors, who are essentially made up of a doctor and elderly cancer patients, are able to steal the boat. Everyone else is very rightfully angry at him for this.
  • Jane, albeit being a much lesser example than Ben, rudely snatches the torch from his cold dead fingers and runs with it until her own death. She's the one who decides to mug the panicked and vulnerable Arvo, a youth who clearly could not have survived without protection from a group, because she decided she'd like his medicine, and she's the one who decides to "prove" Kenny's instability by harassing him about his dead family, pretending she lost his Son to walkers, and then antagonizing him about that until he snaps. Of course, robbing Arvo causes his friends, armed with AK-47s, to come looking for revenge which results in the ultimate collapse of the group, and the latter very understandably causes Kenny to lose his shit and try to kill her which forces Clementine to decide either to intervene and kill Kenny or let him have at it. She's at least a competent survivor in her own right, very much unlike Ben, but every decision she makes is mind-numbingly stupid, antagonistic for the sake of being antagonistic, and causes nothing but problems.
  • And then there's Gabe from Season 3. Holy Christ. Where Ben was completely useless but was at least a decent person who tried to be helpful and do the right thing, and Jane was a needlessly antagonistic drama-generator who was at least a capable survivor and combatant in her own right, Gabe embodies the worst qualties of both with none of the positives. He can't fight his way out of a paper bag, he doesn't contribute anything, and he constantly causes problems: he constantly needs to be saved, he calls you out in front of Tripp and Eleanor for shooting Conrad, conveniently leaving out the part about Conrad holding him at gunpoint and you had to do it to save his life, which causes Tripp to turn on you and Eleanor to betray you to Joan, he calls you out for having an affair with Kate (even if you didn't) which causes David to turn on you, and he's the reason David dies. It's not helped by his constant Wangsting about boo-friggin'-hoo he's unhappy and life sucks, and how he constantly lectures Javi for his choices (which, to be fair, everyone else does that too).

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