One of the best advancements in video game history is the ability to play multiplayer games. This has evolved over the years from humble beginnings of swapping gameplay between two players to massive battles featuring hundreds of people from around the world. For most games, the characters you can play in a multiplayer match are well-balanced, but not every character is created equally. There are a few that send opponents into a fit of rage when you choose them because they’re unfairly balanced or have some advantage. We’ve highlighted three of the best examples and arranged them in chronological order of release.
1) Oddjob – GoldenEye 007 (1997)
Image courtesy of Nintendo
GoldenEye 007 for the Nintendo 64 helped evolve the first-person shooter genre, and one way it did so was through its excellent multiplayer system. Playing with your buddies was a lot of fun, but there’s a catch. If someone grabs Oddjob, everyone around them collectively moans with frustration, as the character has a height advantage because of his short stature. Because the N64 game’s controls were relatively rudimentary compared to today’s console capabilities, you couldn’t just aim down the sights. You had to stop and manipulate the controls to aim manually, making Oddjob harder to hit than every other character. Most friend groups had an unspoken rule about choosing Oddjob, and he’s probably who you thought of when you clicked on this article.
2) Yoda – Soulcalibur IV (2008)
Image courtesy of Namco Bandai Games
The Soulcalibur franchise is well known for its mixed balancing issues with guest characters, chief among them being Yoda from Soulcalibur IV. The diminutive Jedi Master was available on the Xbox 360 version of the game, while Darth Vader wound up on the PlayStation 3 edition, though people could purchase Yoda as DLC. Like Oddjob, Yoda’s short height offered a significant advantage, making it easy for players to avoid being hit while playing him, and a challenge for their opponents to land a hit. He could flip about as he did in the Prequel Trilogy, making him an annoying, difficult character to beat, and thus decidedly unbalanced.
Image courtesy of Nintendo
You might be noticing a pattern here because for our third pick, we’ve gone with Meta Knight from Super Smash Bros. Brawl. He’s small in stature, like the other two choices, but that’s not why he’s on here. It’s because he’s uncommonly fast in all of his varied moves, making him incredibly difficult to take down. This gave him an unfair advantage on both defense and offense, thanks to his devastating moves that turned him into a tiny ball of digitized death. While players pretty much agreed that he offered an unfair advantage, that was effectively proven when Meta Knight became the first character banned in competitive tournaments.
Which of your favorite unbalanced characters did we miss? Leave a comment below and join the conversation now in the ComicBook Forum!