geddydisciple:

SomeBritishDude:
That new guy in Half-Life 2 episode 2...I forget his name. He came out of nowhere, theres no point to him, he's not even a patically good charcter. I just don't understand it, we probley won't even see him in episode 3, what the hell?!?

Magnusson actually played a pretty big role in HL2 Episode 2. Unfortunately valve didn't develope him like the rest of the characters, they just kind of threw him at us.

I disagree. Although he is never mentioned before Ep.2, he is featured throughout the episode before you finally meet him in person towards the end. When he showed up, I immediatly thought "Oh yeah... that arrogant git who keeps telling me to hurry like I'm eight years old and late for school". That's pretty good character building IMO, the fact that I felt I knew who he was when I met him.
Besides, the same thing could pretty much be said about Eli. I'm not even sure he had a name in HL1, he was just the token black scientist.

Kind of out there, but the scholar class in FF3 (or any FF game for that matter). Let's see... Study enemy? (White Mage: Libra) Level 1-3 White and Black Magic? (Red Mage: Level 1-5, get him earlier). Best class ever.

R.O.B from SSBB.

Dayne Gonsalves:
R.O.B from SSBB.

You don't diss R.O.B he was the greatest peripheral ever.

Seriously I will hunt you down... look behind you....................... BOO.

you guys are forgetting EVERY NPC in guildwars... none of them seem to have lives (they just stalk you to EVERY BLOODY OUTPOST)
they don't have brains either, so when you're sneaking by a horde of enemies, they stop to tie their shoes, then shout "hey, big horde, we're here" and subsequently flee when attacked... makes me want to join the monster side

EDIT: I almost forgot... THE HEROES.. yeah, let's trade what little AI the standard NPC's had for CUSTOMISABLE SKILLZ... woo-frickedy-hoo

Jung and Michael from R6V2. Me and my friend have a running joke... "Ok, you take the top doors, I'll rapell down, and the Special Olympics participators can take the bottom doors."

Well, mine's not exactly a character, but the 'bucket' in FF:Crystal Chronicles and therefore the 'bucket holder' becomes useless.

I don't honestly think it's fair to trash talk ANY character from Metal Gear, people. Rose DID serve a purpose, as being the way the fake Colonel and Rose led him on later. Plus, Rose played a solid part in Raiden's personal storyline, especially at the end.

And, I'm not disagreeing with the fact that Raiden is an androgynous, whiny twat-monkey, but he could at least jump and cartwheel in a very impressive fashion, even whilst covering his exposed genitalia with one hand. Bet you can't do that, eh?

Oh, and as for most useless character? Hum...going to have to go with Liara from Mass Effect. Quite possibly to most commonly incapacitated and weakest character usable in your party, I found my self wanting to kill her myself, in combat. She put herself directly between your bullets and their intended targets, and her biotic whatnots were complete rubbish. I always just used Wrex and Garrus, possibly the two most badass characters in the game, besides yourself (if you choose to be evil that is).

Tiny Kong in DK64. All the shrinking stuff felt tacked on. Give my Dixie Kong if you wanna spin, no need to try and "cool it up" for the young kids.

42manZ:
The Turian in your party (can't remember the name) in Mass Effect. Even the Krogan had a part to play in however you try to calm him down, the Turian was just useless

Are you sure it wasn't just something to do with your playstyle? Garrus and erm, forgot the Asari's name, anyway, I used both of them constantly, and Garrus has his fair share of lines and such, also gives you some missions, etc.

The final boss in FF9, I think his name was Neco? You play through the game and never here of him once and then all of a sudden he's like MUHHAHAHA FIGHT ME. Which begs the question, "why" but there's no real answer. No one talks about it before or after, but he's the final boss.

Russ741:

D2wontdie:
id say more than half of the AI in oblivion

i mean they have the same voice all over the map with the exact same thing to say

over and over and over again

Think you got it. Most (if not all) the Ai in oblivion were the most annoying and pointless things i can think of in a game. Going on a killing spree though the imperial city is a good way of reliving stress though.

Unfortunately that killing spree is ultimately rendered a bit unsatisfying by the immortal quest characters. Nothing makes me miss the old days of Morrowind quite like "Random Bloody Bastard X is unconscious."

Penelo in FFXII i mean she sucks. the only time i use her is during quickenings

ElArabDeMagnifico:

42manZ:
The Turian in your party (can't remember the name) in Mass Effect. Even the Krogan had a part to play in however you try to calm him down, the Turian was just useless

Are you sure it wasn't just something to do with your playstyle? Garrus and erm, forgot the Asari's name, anyway, I used both of them constantly, and Garrus has his fair share of lines and such, also gives you some missions, etc.

Yeah, one up for Garrus. I took him everywhere and when he is levelled up he is very handy. Same with Liara (the Asari). +1 for ElArabDeMagnifico

My vote would be for that chick in Ninja Gaiden 2 (Sonia?). All she did was get captured, get rescued and then get captured again. Except for her helicopter/jet thing she is absolutely useless.

Princess Daisy-She only appears in sports games/party games and just seems to be to buff up the roster.

squid5580:
Noober from Baldur's Gate.

Damn straight, was there a way to not kill that guy, i mean i had to walk like tiny little steps between him trying to talk to me, then eventually get to the edge of the map, and then re-enter the area this time running away from him, you could kill him with a freiking quarterstaff!

Your - I don't know, chum - from Tenchu Z. His/her job is to show up after a mission and say...nothing much, I suppose it has something to do with the plot, but no-one cares.

Sephiroth, in fact that whole game was pointless.

andrew rian in bioshock was pretty pointless, they could've just made atlas the creator of rapture, or the other way around, made andrew the creator and last boss, either way it's just another model the creators had to make, and another voice actor they had to hire

smokeraven:
Kimahri in FFX, i've never used him once

Kimahri was the shit. Mine is my second strongest character(purely in terms of melee)

aquacoma:
Sephiroth, in fact that whole game was pointless.

Blasphemy. Your day will come, just you wait.

Every character in any Harvest Moon game. Except the people that sell stuff.

aquacoma:
Sephiroth, in fact that whole game was pointless.

Man, you are the worst troll I've seen in a long time. That barely annoyed me. You could at least have thrown in a lulz, misspelled words, exclamation marks or something. You're just not trying, man...

That weapons expert in MGS3... he had absolutely no plot relevance, nothing useful to say and worse, barely nothing funny to say (I only remember that emmerson, heinrich thingy)

alucard_101:
andrew rian in bioshock was pretty pointless, they could've just made atlas the creator of rapture, or the other way around, made andrew the creator and last boss, either way it's just another model the creators had to make, and another voice actor they had to hire

Umm... you can't be serious. Short of dropping spoilers, meeting Ryan is the key point of dispelling the illusion of any kind of "choices" we thought we might have had in our actions.

tobyornottoby:
That weapons expert in MGS3... he had absolutely no plot relevance, nothing useful to say and worse, barely nothing funny to say (I only remember that emmerson, heinrich thingy)

Token black guy is token black guy... even in Japan.
Actually, I think his main function was to adress the issue of racism in the 60's since he has some rather lengthly opinions about this. Seems obvious to older people, but kids playing the game might learn something from it.

Andrew_Vee:

alucard_101:
andrew rian in bioshock was pretty pointless, they could've just made atlas the creator of rapture, or the other way around, made andrew the creator and last boss, either way it's just another model the creators had to make, and another voice actor they had to hire

Umm... you can't be serious. Short of dropping spoilers, meeting Ryan is the key point of dispelling the illusion of any kind of "choices" we thought we might have had in our actions.

yeah, but they couldv'e just had atlas do the speech and then the whole "would you kindly" crap, and then had the whole "battle of the adam" with him. snd ever notice how in bioshock it's all about adam and eve, i think the developers were putting in religious subliminal messages

alucard_101:
andrew rian in bioshock was pretty pointless, they could've just made atlas the creator of rapture, or the other way around, made andrew the creator and last boss, either way it's just another model the creators had to make, and another voice actor they had to hire

I have to disagree. The conflict between Ryan and Atlas was what caused Rapture to crumble and the main character to be created. Ryan and Atlas were integral to the plot and setting.

They pair you up with a worse BBEG while going after the slightly less BBEG who is trying to kill both of you.

AS far as pointless characters, what about the dude who popped up in Mortal Combat just to say "Toasty" occasionally. He was pretty damn pointless.

poleboy:

tobyornottoby:
That weapons expert in MGS3... he had absolutely no plot relevance, nothing useful to say and worse, barely nothing funny to say (I only remember that emmerson, heinrich thingy)

Token black guy is token black guy... even in Japan.
Actually, I think his main function was to adress the issue of racism in the 60's since he has some rather lengthly opinions about this. Seems obvious to older people, but kids playing the game might learn something from it.

mmm yes that's very posibble, but seeing that I don't remember that so vividly means it didn't impress me much anyway. It is one of the things that I love about that game, how they captured the zeitgeist. Especially the space race.

But now you mention it... maybe it was one of those MGS fourth-wall breakers! "You see, people, back in those times the black guy wasn't allowed to do anything important" ^^;

poleboy:

aquacoma:
Sephiroth, in fact that whole game was pointless.

Man, you are the worst troll I've seen in a long time. That barely annoyed me. You could at least have thrown in a lulz, misspelled words, exclamation marks or something. You're just not trying, man...

Actually, he's kinda right. If Cloud had just put a gun to his own head at the start of the game, Sephiroth would have failed before he started. No Cloud, no Black Materia, no Meteor, he could just sit in North Crater and stew.

However, Cloud is not the king of Xanatos Suckers. That would be Atsuma in Enchanted Arms. Cloud finally stops being Sephiroth's whipping boy at the end of disc 1, around 2/5 of the way through the plot. The point in Enchanted Arms where you realise that everything you've done has been set up by the Big Bad specifically to destroy the world, and that if your character had just upped and died the world wouldn't have been in the shit? About the third stage of the final boss fight.

Jhereg42:

AS far as pointless characters, what about the dude who popped up in Mortal Combat just to say "Toasty" occasionally. He was pretty damn pointless.

Wasn't he one of the designers?

farah. I love pop, and i like her as a plot element, but she was damn useless in combat. And who puts a switch behind a crack anyway? in terms of all around ulelessness, any of the "party members from oblivion. damn i hated them. and the scientist from timeshift. damn, anybody can shoot a gun and wear a suit, why him? Off topic btw, but what if gordan freemans purpose? why does it have to be him that saves humanity? I always wondered that.

waliligi warios brother from mario party, mario glolf, mario tennis ect...

nathan-dts:
Oh got another fighting game one; Olimar, Lucas, Ness, Dedede, Snake, Mario, Luigi and Peace from SSBB.

Don't involve yourself with the metagame, then.