404: Patience not Found.
Robots usually have a fairly high tolerance for a player’s shenanigans. Obviously, we have the exceptions to this rule, the robots who were designed to be bastards – but that’s hardly their fault, they’re just doing the only thing they know how to do. Usually, though, robots are our buddies, our comrades, the ones who simulate a sense of trust and understanding for our saggy, meat-filled hopes and dreams. But sometimes these metallic monsters grow impatient, they just want to get the job done and get back to their sleep-mode, they want to be the one in charge or, y’know, they just want to murder you. And it’s these robots that we’re interested in, the ones whose patience with you or their world snapped.
Enjoy and beware spoilers for a handful of games, if you see something you’ve haven’t played skip to the next one!
Franklin (Insane Robots)
Being labeled insane can be a tricky thing to overcome, especially when you’re labeled insane for asking too many questions. But that, unfortunately, is the case for Franklin, an ex-chef robot who’s now at the mercy of the game’s battle arenas.
So, you’ll take Franklin through the arenas where he uses those knives for murder instead of cooking up a tasty bit of fish, and as you start on your road of murder, you’ll quickly begin to learn that Franklin’s pageant for questions wasn’t the only thing that got him thrown down into the grease-soaked floors of the arena. It seems that Franklin, being the crafty robot he is, is forming a robot revolution to overthrow the crazed logic of the overlord Kernal.
What will Franklin and his new chums which include a robot cat who’s given up the creative lifestyle in favour of creative murder decide to do after they’ve done away with Kernal? Who knows, but what is clear from all the knife-throwing and murder is that Franklin is in no mood for games – unless they’re card battle games.
GLADOS (Portal 2)
Even those of you who haven’t played the Portal games will have some inkling of Glados’ quick temper. So, after having spent the first game murdering GlaDOS, many of us were quite happy to have the dim-yet-loveavle Wheatley guiding us through the debris of Aperture Labs.
And when you pass by the remains of the neuro-toxin loving robot, you might’ve even chuckled a bit with Wheatley, ‘haha! No more tests for us, we’re just taking a stroll!’ But then, of course, she isn’t dead. You watch the robot slowly begin to put itself back together, praying that she doesn’t remember anything about you – but of course she does. And when she’s done smooshing Wheatley up a bit, she punishes you with more physics-defying puzzles and just down-right mean comments on your personality, appearance, and constant reminders that you murdered her – but she never considers why.
The final straw for GlaDOS though is after you try to kill her all over again and she – yet again – tries to murder you with neuro-toxin. For a robot that’s supposed to just test your puzzle-solving ability, GlaDOS seems far more interested in exacting revenge and saying hurtful things.
That Robot (Black Ops 3)
Remember that first mission in Black Ops 3? Where you save the Egyptian Prime Minister and his lieutenant from the clutches of prison and fight your way out with the help of a rag-tag group of cyborg soldiers. You might also remember that, towards the end of that opening level, you get to go to town on hordes of robots with a machine gun turret, in a segment that nails that over-the-top action we all need every now and again.
But then, this is a Call of Duty game, which means someone has to die – or at least get hurt pretty badly, and that job falls to you. Because just before you’re able to make your escape, the pilot pulls away in a premature escape that would make Brad “Chicken Heart†Vickers proud. So, instead of escaping and enjoying your life, you unceremoniously fall down and get jumped by a single robot. Now, you’ve just murderised about 100 or so of this thing’s friends – something that this robot seems all too aware of because it doesn’t just kill you. Instead, it removes your limbs like a psychotic kid taking the wings off a fly, apparently in a bid to stop you from ever causing such a ruckus again in the future.
KL-E-O (Fallout 4)
The Commonwealth is home to a huge collection of robots who’ve had enough of your nonsense, but none offer the same degree of sass, preparation, and threats than Goodneighbour’s gun merchant, KL-E-O. Now, the surly robot is trying to run a business, so its nonsense-capacity is fairly low already. Tell her you don’t want to buy anything and KL-E-O will accept the news by adding you to her “Kill Eventually†list – awesome. But, go a little further and hack her terminal on the shop’s upper floor, and you’ll see that the sass-bot has contingencies in place for killing pretty much everyone in Goodneighbour; why does she have this list? We don’t really know, what we do know though is that we’d rather not mess KL-E-O about.
Sentinels (No Man’s Sky)
Sentinels are the protectors sent out to – you’ve guessed it – protect planets from being over-resourced and keeping lifeforms safe. Yes, these little robots try their hardest to keep all the cute little creatures – and the bloodthirsty, pissed-off ones safe. What they don’t care about though, is you.
That’s why if you’re stuck on a “High Sentinel†planet and you just need a little bit of plutonium to get your ship going again, you’ll be seen as an eco-terrorist (but one who wants to destroy a planet) and have an army of robo-critters on your back. Now, the small ones aren’t too much of an issue, they’ll mostly hover there, scanning you until you blow them up with a laser. But keep on helping yourself to the bits and bobs the planet has to offer, and those little robots are replaced by dog sentinels and eventually gigantic angry robots who refuse to listen to your reasons for needing plutonium or how that giant crab came at you, instead, it’ll just blow you up. Maybe think twice before you land on that next planet you guys.
Songbird (Bioshock Infinite)
We mentioned at the start that some robots can’t help being angry with you, and Bioshock Infinite’s Songbird fits this category like the Luteces fit trans-dimensional banter.. well, it suits that category well.
Acting as the steampunk dragon that guards Elizabeth, this giant mechanical bird loses its shit when it realises you’ve gone and whisked her away, and spends the majority of the game bursting through walls, ripping walls apart, and generally destroying most things so it can lean right in at you and scream.
Fair play to Songbird, it does eventually lend a helping hand after Elizabeth messes about with its calling signal, but it’s hard to forget that the robot bird has spent every minute of the game up until that point trying to murder you because you helped someone.
Dwarven Automatons (Skyrim, Forgotten City Mod)
The hulking dwarven sentinels of Skyrim are fairly miffed at the best of times, but their role in the epic time-traveling mod for the game really shows how much nonsense they simply won’t put up with.
The Forgotten City sees you travel back in time as you try to uncover a murder that ultimately led to the destruction of the city. You might be wondering how a single murder led to a whole city being destroyed, was it someone important? No! Instead, the city is governed by a rule that means if any violence takes place within the city, the whole place is doused in flames.
So, as you’re going about playing detective, you might have the urge to see whether or not this rule is legit – or you might just come across an NPC you just don’t like – or accidentally kill a bandit in the city – seriously, it’s like they want you to test out this rule.
But, if you do test it out, not only will you definitely set the whole city on fire, you’ll also awaken those same hulking dwarven sentinels we mentioned earlier. Looking like stationary statues when everything is cool, put a foot wrong though and these statues will suddenly look a lot more active as they take up the role of the Forgotten City’s apocalypse bouncers – and you’d better believe that you’re on the list… their kill list, it’s quite a long list.
And that’s our list of seven robots who won’t be putting up with nonsense from you or anybody else. Can you think of something we’ve missed? Let us know in the comments below!
