It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas, which means all you good little girls and boys will soon be receiving a visit from old Saint Nick. Of course, I know what some of you little monsters are thinking: "Santa is so lame. He's fat. He's old. He wears a stupid outfit. He's fat. He needs an upgrade." Santa would be a lot cooler if he was replaced with one of your favorite video game characters, am I right?

No, I am not right, and neither are you. Video game characters exist in worlds of violence and fantasy, and don't know the first thing about Christmas spirit. Don't believe me? Let's take a look at some notable examples of video game characters you would NOT want to find breaking into your house with a bag full of 'goodies' in the middle of the night.

I know some of you would love to find David Bowie-esque Albert Wesker waiting under your tree come Christmas morning, but hear me out. Underneath that leathery voice and those piercing, reptilian eyes is an ego that's grown three sizes too large. Chances are, if you see Big Al teleporting down your chimney it means someone is either going to die, get put under mind control, or is actually an Umbrella CEO in disguise - none of which are very Christmas-y.

Gift of choice: Uroboros. Albert Wesker doesn't need anyone else; he has… uroboros. And he is all too willing to share it with anyone (and everyone) on the planet, thus ensuring complete global saturation. Hope you kids like zombies.

"ARRREES!!!" You know what that is? That's the sound of Kratos wishing you a merry Christmas. It's also how he says "Ho! Ho! Ho!" and "Good morning" and a whole bunch of other everyday idioms. Kratos may appear to be in the holiday spirit - what with that red-and-white ensemble he's always running around in - but don't let that fool you. His heart is a lump of coal, and every single man, woman, child, and especially ARRREES!!! is on his naughty list.

Gift of choice: Murder. Let's face it, Kratos only has one setting: murderdeathkill. It's how he gets through life. Try and think of a problem that Kratos has encountered in which stabbing didn't fix everything. Okay, there was that one box-sliding puzzle, but that's about it.

At first blush, Samus seems like a good pick for the part of Santa Claus. She has a spaceship that can zip her all across the planet. She can transform into that little morph ball and roll her way down the chimney. And she's a pretty nice and well-adjusted lady when she's not battling space pirates. Just slap a fake beard and a red coat of paint on her and you're good to go. There's just one tiny hiccup when it comes to the actual giving of the presents...

Gift of choice: Nothing. Don't get me wrong, Samus would love to give little Timmy a present. But here's the thing: her commanding officer, Matt, hasn't authorized the use of Samus' present cannon just yet. Apparently it poses too great a risk to the general public, or somesuch nonsense. Better luck next year.

The Pokemon prof. wouldn't be the worst Santa. He kinda looks the part, which is a good start, and he has lots of experience working with children. His knowledge of Pokemon is absolute, making him a great storyteller when roasting chestnuts on an open fire. At some point, however, he will try to send your son or daughter off on a ‘Pokemon adventure’. All he asks in return is for someone to tell him the name of his grandson.

Gift of choice: An empty house. The professor never leaves home without a few Pokedexes plus a Charmander or two, just in case he should run into a young person who hasn't dedicated his or her life to catching wild animals. Those Pokedexes aren't going to complete themselves after all.

Naked Snake's whole job - nay, his entire life - is built upon sneaking into places he's not supposed to be. Whether it's the Russian wilderness, the jungles of Costa Rica, or straight into our hearts, this legendary soldier is custom-made for infiltration, so you'd better believe he can worm his way down a chimney. Just make sure the kids are tucked in tight - otherwise they could end up in a sleeper hold, or with a tranq dart to the neck.

Gift of choice: Dead animals. Wake up, little Billy, wake up! Look at what Santa left you: a reticulated python carcass. It's right next to that hunk of raw markhor and the kenyan mangrove crab. They smell of dead animal (go figure), but I hear they taste pretty good.

Dante is one of the most destructive and obnoxious guests you could have the displeasure of hosting during the holidays. He starts by kicking in the door (because chimneys are for nerds) and spies the milk and cookies left on the table. Instead of eating them like a normal person, Dante first shoots out the legs of the table and kicks the whole thing towards the ceiling. Then he stabs each cookie out of the air with the tip of his sword, before catching the glass of milk at the last second without looking. He then leaves a demon corpse under the tree with a bow on it.

Gift of choice: Property damage. Here's the thing: Dante knows his whole life is one big video game. Why do you think he's able to get away with all the crazy stuff he does? He's like Neo at the end of The Matrix: he knows the rules - sees the code - and knows how to break them.

Kuma is a bear. You do not want to have a bear in your home attempting to hand out presents. Bears are wild animals, and pose an obvious safety hazard to both children and adults - not to mention the potential property damage. Have you seen those videos online of bears breaking into campground dumpsters? They're crazy. If a bear smells food inside your pantry (or small child) they will pop the top and refuse to stop. Plus, bears don't look anything like Santa Claus.

Gift of choice: A mess. How big of a mess, you ask? Imagine if your household cat was actually a ferocious mountain lion. Now imagine if that mountain lion was a bear. Think of all the damage those long claws and sharp teeth could cause. Not to mention all the fur it would shed.

December 25, 2006

I can feel The King's presence - he smells my hunger. My family doesn't believe he's real, but I know it to be true. I've seen him dancing across my periphery; seen his dead, soulless eyes peering out from the shadows atop a twisted grin. He won't stop until all manner of fast food horror has been visited upon this house; my family drowned in a sea of dry hamburger patties and soggy fries. I can't stop it. The hunger inside me is growing worse. The King will be here soon.

Gift of choice: Delicious Burger King food products. The King bestows upon his subjects only the finest beef patties from your local Burger King eatery. If something should go wrong with Christmas dinner, never fear. The King will be there - burgers in tow - regardless of how many doors you lock.

Now do you understand, children? At the end of the day, the original Santa Claus is still the best Santa Claus. He's round, he's jolly, and he won't try and steal your stuff or abduct your kids. Let him do his job, and let the video game characters do their jobs.

And for even more holiday fun, be sure to check out .

Pain and injury are usually so abstract in video games. Most of the time you only care if it lops off a portion of your health bar - and even then, only until you can find a medkit or engage in some self-healing breathing exercises. But some video games seem delight in injury so much that they transcend the beatdowns we've come to expect and willingly, enthusiastically, inflict sympathetic pain in their audience.

These are some of the worst games to leave you squirming in your seat, clutching at your ribs, and wincing in agony at the events transpiring before your eyes. Sometimes they do it to drive home a point, sometimes they do it to make you sympathetic to a character, and sometimes they just do it to make you uncomfortable. You might want to get some aspirin ready before you click on for these gruesome memories.

Animal Crossing making its players wince in agony? I know what you're thinking, but bear with me for a second here. Yes, most of the game is chill and cheerful, with nary a concern in players' minds aside from when to sell turnips or how to make enough bells to pay off the mortgage. C'mon, is anything more zen than going from one tree to the next, lightly shaking it, and waiting to see what will drop from its branches? Yes. Many things are. Because some of the trees drop hives full of bees.

These bees aren't the kind of animal that will write you letters or ask you to bring them a peach. They're the kind of animal that chases you with kamikaze zeal until you dart into a neighbor's house and barricade the door or, more likely, the swarm catches up. When they envelop you, the awful KRSSSZZTTT sound that they make as they sting you right on the eyeball will echo in your mind forever. And the huge welt they leave where your eye used to be will stick around for the rest of the day or until you apply some medicine... assuming that bastard Nook even has any in stock.

It's kind of cool to be able to point at one of a character's most recognizable attributes and say, "Oh hey, I was there when he got that!" It really makes you feel connected, and it's the kind of thing you come to appreciate in time. But when you first experience stuff like, say, Big Boss being tortured and then having his eye shot out in Metal Gear Solid 3, it's a little harder to stomach.

You may be wondering about the absence of a on this week's 'Top 7', but I had to give it to Big Boss, not least because the torture scene encompassing the incident goes on for nine minutes. Nine minutes of electrocution, bludgeoning, and near-eye-extraction topped off with the little misfire that plants a patch on the face of Big Boss and, in the grand scheme of things, on the faces of his progeny. It doesn't hurt that voice actor David Hayter really made an art of pained grunting in this performance.

Lots of painful things can happen to Amanda Ripley throughout the course of Alien Isolation. But I'm not talking about the deep-seated abandonment issues that stem from her mother leaving her at the daycare center and disappearing into space. I mean the terrible ways that she can meet her end from Sevastopol station's many threats. Among many other candidates, she can be shot to death by panicked survivors, have her neck snapped by unfriendly androids, or, y'know, that alien could show up.

The monster has so many ways of snuffing out poor Ripley's life, but the most painful is probably (and yes, this is a tough choice) the good old tail-through-the-guts maneuver. What makes it so bad? I have to give it to the brief pause before she looks down and sees the spear-like appendage quivering in her newly remodeled torso. You spend a moment thinking, "Wait, why did I stop running?" and then, "Oh, hello, that's my diaphragm". It's the anticipation that gets me.

Ok, fair enough, inflicting gratuitous injury is kind of Mortal Kombat's thing. I understand that. But there's a big difference between a pixelated fatality animation and the gratuitous cinema experience that are the X-ray moves, not least because almost every fight is interrupted for several seconds to dwell on them. That's not unusual for fighting games, but at least in Street Fighter it's just Ryu hollering as beams shoot out of his hands. He doesn't pause the game to show you some Un Chien Andalou-grade bullshit.

I can't be the only one who feels uncomfortably aware of their own bones after playing a match of Mortal Kombat. The way it zooms in deep to show the skeleton before and after it's shattered in multiple places, turning on the super-slo-mo so you can see bits splinter off and lodge deep inside the body… it makes me ache all over. Drink your milk, kids, or this could be you the next time in you're in a scuffle.

Do you ever put a few shots into a particularly nasty boss when you finally manage to kill it? There's no gameplay reason to do so - it's just as dead before as it is after - but it feels good to celebrate your victory with some macho depravity. Macho depravity is pretty much God of War's schtick, but the final battle of the final chapter takes the beefcake by letting you pound Zeus' face into a lumpy blob of minced meat for however long you want.

You might have noticed that this is the only example in which the player character is dishing out the pain instead of receiving it. But this article isn't about characters wincing - it's about players. And if you have even a shred of sympathy for Zeus after all the crap he's put you through, you'll feel every one of those punches… even after his blood obscures your vision and you have to go by the crunching sounds. That didn't stop me from keeping it up for a good minute or two, of course.

There's only one reason the otherwise-forgettable Quake 4 keeps . What else could it be but that damn Stroggification scene, in which id's contribution to the body horror genre is delivered with all the subtlety of a buzzsaw? The absolute worst part, though, is that you get to watch the assembly line of suffering have its way with the guy in front of you before you experience the agony in first person.

Take special note that, at multiple points in this scene, your vision blacks out and Quake 4 permits you to think that it's just gonna cut to the next scene. NOPE. Your eyes open again (I guess all those Strogg nanites keep you from going into shock and passing out from blood loss) and it's off from the leg-cutter, into the torso bolter! And when you're rescued just before the brainwashing begins, your fellow soldiers spend a whole 30 seconds on genuine concern. Then they run off and expect you to follow on the robo legs that were just attached to your bloody stumps moments ago. Screw you guys.

Oh, God. Just try watching Metal Gear Solid 4's microwave corridor scene without feeling some... phantom pain. And then remember how unexpectedly involving it is to have to pound the triangle button throughout the whole thing. Hideo Kojima loves an over-long camera shot, but every second of this scene drives home the theme of self-sacrifice like another nail hammered through your hand - not a single second is wasted, much as we all hate Kojima for dwelling on our hero's unimaginable suffering.

Snake's already limping and grunting when he enters the microwave-trapped chamber, his prematurely aged body having been battered and burned throughout the course of the game. Once he's in, his high-tech octocamo suit starts smoking within seconds. Its panels turn red-hot and burst as he drops to his knees, then to his belly, and crawls. The health meter chirps its familiar little 'Uh-oh' sound as the door opens, revealing another corridor full of lethal radiation. By the time you reach safety, your thumb is so sore from button mashing that, silly as it sounds, you feel unified with Snake in his struggle. Then you both can have a good puke.

Wondering why I didn't put any groin shots in there? Well, 1) they probably don't hurt as much to watch if you don't have testicles so, statistically speaking, the pain averages drop off, and 2) we already . But what do you think? Any other truly agonizing games you think deserved a place in the Top 7? Let me know in the comments!

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