Poll: Sidekicks...dead useful or dead weight?

[HardRockSamurai]

Whather they're carrying equipment, giving advice, or simply making a hero look more bad ass in comparison, sidekicks are undoubtedley a part of Video Game history. Famous sidekicks include Tails (or any other Sonic character for that matter), Sheik, Cortana (yes, I had to include her) and many more...but are sidekicks really...useful? Admit it, there are some sidekicks that you would like nothing better than to bash their heads in (for me, it's Toad, I can't stand him.)

Okay, before I get carried away with ranting, let me re-stress my main point...what do you think of the sidekicks in video games? Are they useful? Friendly? Necessary? Or obnoxious? Pointless? Annoying?

 

[Samuel71]

Sidekicks are good with fries. French fries, to be precise.

 

[Dante_Alucard]

I like side kicks one of the best ones is clank

 

[qbert4ever]

Bah, feed them all to the wolves I say. I have enough problems of my own trying to save the world without needing to babysit some two-bit pretender. Because let's face it, no sidekick is ever as good as the head honcho, and the guys (or girls, I'm all about equal opportunity here) without them always seem to save the world just as well as the ones with a little buddy.

Teamups (Avengers, Justice League, etc.) on the other hand, kick all sorts of ass.

 

[SargentToughie]

Sidekicks are great, there's nothing like shoving a boot into some looser's hip... oh, wrong sidekick

 

[wilsonscrazybed]

I like the Lego Starwars/Indiana Jones sidekicks. I despise sidekicks that need defending, or don't serve as anything more than a longterm escort mission.

 

[AWC Viper]

they are all meat shields with the exception of: alyx vance, cortana (she is a hologram), tails, all the party members with the exclusion of the old chick of KOTOR 1 and 2 and...............thats all i got

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

Meh. While I like having backup I can depend on in a firefight, I've found that I'm falling out out of love with sidekicks/companions- even (dare I say it? Yes! I dare!) Alyx Vance. The problem is that I love to explore and look at details. There was one spot in HL2 where the Combine had just shut down a rebel enclave based in a small cul-de-sac off the canals (this is just after you get the gun on your watercraft). After dispatching the Combine and the cluster of headcrabs that came out to hug me, I lingered for a moment- and then realized that somewhere, a windchime was ringing in the wind. It was so melancholy and beautiful that I ended up standing there for a couple of minutes just absorbing it.

Now, if Alyx had been with me, I would've felt pressured to move along, get things done. I don't know why- they're just NPCs, they'll wait forever if I make them- but I always get this feeling that I'm holding them up.

"It took you a while to get here, Gordon. Run into any problems?"

"Uh... yeah. Massive Combine patrol on the road. Running gun battle. Lots of time lost."

"Not really, Dad. Gordon was staring at the pictures on the walls at the old inn we drove by."

 

[panthrjd]

"When you die, wait up for me, Little Buddy."
"Hahahahaha.. .oh Sam... When I die, I'm taking you with me!"

Some games couldn't exist without the sidekick.

 

[BallPtPenTheif]

i became the grand champion in Oblivion and now i have a little manboy that follows me everywhere. he makes me feel like a man again

 

[Iceman23]

Sidekicks are good, but only when they are useful (Alyx Vance, The Arbiter, the horse Agro also falls in here) or when they are merely a voice inside your head/next to you, giving you advice on what to do next (Cortana, Midna, etc.)

Sidekicks become a major pain in the ass when they are fairly/completely useless, such as Dom from Gears of War who (along with the rest of the squad) suffered from a particularly bad case of Halo Marine Syndrome (firing a automatic weapon with weak individual rounds in short controlled bursts.) The Darklings from The Darkness also fell into this catagory from time to time as well (they were useful sometimes, but their poor AI made them wander into the light a lot, so I would have to take time out of a gunfight to order them to get back into the shadows.)

 

[DominantGiraffe]

why is there no middle ground between 'unswerving praise' and 'damning condemnation'?

 

[salamifart]

I like the ones in war games that actually do shit. Not just stand there and be your little gay friend.

 

[Joeshie]

Alyx Vance is the only sidekick AI that I can remotely stand. Every other attempt has pretty much been a massive failure in AI.

 

[Fire Daemon]

I'm suprised no one has mentioned games such as Baldurs Gate, Kotor, Final Fantsay etc. You never play these games without some AI help (sometimes they are player controlled) and because of this the RPG genre has gotten the sidekick down to a fine artwork.

They give the sidekicks a good back story anf a good reason why they would join up with you and ignoring Mass Effect for a second, are helpful. Other Genres just need to pick up on this and the sidekick will stop being ennoying and become a vital part to the game.

Certain developers have done this but the majority have not.

 

[Asehujiko]

Too useless: Almost anything. Shotguns are not suitable for sniping, miniguns are not made to be used on semi auto,pistols are no anti tank weapons and especialy DON'T USE ROCKETLAUNCHERS IF I'M MELEEING.

Decent: Alyx Vance, most rpg characters, anything human controlled.

Too overpowered: Bioschock mind control. As soon as you get your own Rosie to play arround with the entire game turns to "photgraph all the corpses left behind by your buddy and loot them while you are at it.

 

[Jumplion]

I don't like Sidekicks that hump my ass for help all day, i like 'em independant able to hold their own most of the time.

Also, they better not have the most annoying personality/voice possible because then i'd try to kill them as sufficeint as possible.