A type of enemy in video games that does no damage by itself but pushes the player into hazards where they can receive damage or die.
This pushing could be a simple shove, or they could be equipped with a shield, spring or catapult to actively change your trajectory. Sometimes this goes both ways; the enemy itself may be susceptible to being pushed around by the player character and are as vulnerable to the dangerous surroundings, especially if they are an Invincible Minor Minion that is otherwise immune to direct damage.
Related to Ledge Bats and Annoying Video Game Helper, and subtrope of Harmless Enemy. This is a less violent version of Punched Across the Room.
Examples:
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Action-Adventure
- Mission: Impossible (Konami): Neo Knights are fast moving enemies armed with a riot shield. When they spot you, they charge at you full speed and push you back to force you into a pit. Naturally, most are placed so that your back is right up against a pit when you enter their field of vision. They're also by far the strongest non-boss enemies in the game, taking seven hits, compared to most enemies only taking one, and the tough enemies taking two.
Beat em Up
- Burning Fight have that random hobo who won't target you directly in fights and seems content minding his own business... but should you cross paths with him, he'll suddenly induce a fellatio on you (yes, really, you think we're making things up?)
which somehow forces you to cease all actions. You don't lose any health in the process, but you are disabled and exposed to being attacked by other mooks.
MMORPG
- Some World of Warcraft enemies, especially elites have this. This is both dangerous and frustrating - not only can they push you into a chasm but some of them hit hard enough to send you flying out of their aggro range, causing them to reset to full health.
- The Victoria type enemies in Streets of Rage 4 will hop away from you to keep their distance so they can throw their grenade based weapons at you. They'll also shove you away if you get close to them.
Platformer
- Commander Keen:
- The first Episodic Game (Marooned on Mars) has Butler Robots. All they do is go back and forth on a track pushing you around and making it harder to jump if they're touching you.
- The first game also has Yorps. Little happy green aliens that hop in one direction, easily shoving you around if you don't shoot them or at least hop on them for temporary paralysis.
- Keen Dreams has giant carrots that run around. Be careful or they'll push you into a pit.
- The fourth episode (Secrets of the Oracle) has Bounders, which are giant, sentient, rubber balls that bounce around and will push you where you don't want to go, though skilled players can ride them.
- The scientists in the factory levels of Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back use a riot shield to push you into pits.
- Koindozers from Donkey Kong Country 3: Dixie Kong's Double Trouble! will use their shields to push you into hazards.
- Birds in I Wanna Be the Guy mess with your jumps and could possibly redirect you into spikes.
- There is an enemy in the first Pac-Man World that uses a light shield to push you into Bottomless Pits.
- Sonic the Hedgehog:
- Crawl, a recurring badnik that first appears in Sonic the Hedgehog 2's Casino Night Zone, carries a shield that resembles a bumper. He bumps Sonic away with this shield if hit from the front or top; he has to be attacked from behind to defeat him.
- Rock'n from Sonic 3 & Knuckles, a giant walking block of rock that pushes the player around.
- Super Mario Bros.:
- The fittingly-named Sir Shovalot in Donkey Kong '94 and the first Mario vs. Donkey Kong, which charges at Mario with its shield as soon as it sees him. While they can be useful to get through tight gaps, if they push Mario against a wall, he'll be Squashed Flat and lose a life.
- Super Mario 64:
- Bullies do nothing but charge at Mario and shove him around, possibly into a nearby pool of lava.
- Chuckyas, a non-explosive Bob-omb variant, pick Mario up and throw him in a random direction. King Bob-omb does the same, but he actually can harm you via fall damage if he manages to pitch you off the summit.
- The Heave-Ho enemy has a dustpan in the front that flings Mario if he steps on it.
- Super Mario Sunshine introduces the Cataquacks, round enemies that fling Mario into the air upon contact. The blue ones do this harmlessly, while the red ones cause Collision Damage in the process. The blue Cataquacks return in Super Mario Galaxy.
- Super Mario Galaxy: The various types of Topmen, spinning top-shaped enemies that try to bump Mario off ledges or into electrified rails.
- Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island:
- This game introduces Bumpties, which are harmless penguins only capable of making Yoshi bounce into enemies and obstacles.
- A boss variant, Salvo the Slime, cannot damage Yoshi directly. He will attempt to knock Yoshi into either smaller Slime Drops, which can harm him, or into lava. A few other large Slimes can be found in World 6, and behave identically to Salvo.
- Another boss variant is Sluggy the Unshaven. He's as tall as the ceiling, and will slowly slide towards Yoshi. If Yoshi does not defeat him in time, Sluggy will force him off the platform and into a pit.
- Yet another variant of this is Potted Ghost, who, as his name implies, is a ghost stuck in a large pot. Since he's a ghost and doesn't have a weakpoint, Yoshi can't hurt him with his eggs, so the only way to defeat him is to push the pot he's stuck in off the ledge, but a number of Shy Guys are also positioned on the other side of the pot that try to push the pot back and the ghost will push Yoshi back if he tries to get past him to defeat the Shy Guys, the battle consists of a tug of war to push the pot and the Shy Guys off the platform while avoiding the flames the ghost spits out.
- The Fattingtons in the Shivering Mountains level of Wario World try to bump Wario into pits (accentuated by this being an ice level), where he'll fall into the Unithorn's Lair. The Unithorns themselves also count, as they sometimes use their horns to knock Wario into the Lair's toxic water.
Puzzle
- Rocky in Adventures of Lolo is like this, either pushing Lolo into hazards or trapping him and forcing him to suicide.
RPG
- Large Bodies in the Kingdom Hearts games tend to be this. They do pack a bit of a wallop of their own, but they are very easy to dodge for all but the least skilled players. Their real threat is that their stomach rebounds your keyblade, so even if you don't mean to be attacking them, if your attack so much as grazes them, Sora gets knocked back a few feet and stumbles for a couple seconds. On higher difficulties, this nearly assures you 2-3 hits from anything else in the area.
Real Time Strategy
- Plants vs. Zombies 2: It's About Time have some enemies that will push your plants around. The Mecha-Football Zombie will push a plant, causing all those behind it to be pushed backwards (and is a One-Hit Kill if they're pushed out of the lawn), the Fisherman Zombie will use his fishing rod to pull your plants towards him (and most likely into the water), the Excavator Zombie will use his shovel to throw plants forwards making it easier prey for the zombies, the Punk Zombie will kick a plant backwards to the nearest empty space behind (or out of the lawn if there isn't any), and the Ankylosaurus will push zombies forwards, causing them to push plants similar to a Mecha-Football zombie when they bump into the first plant they meet.
