Buggin' Out: The 10 Best Insect Characters In Video Games

You hate bugs. We hate bugs. Everybody hates bugs. Except for weirdos. And the last place that we want to see them is on our walls or in our bathtubs. But you know where we don’t mind them? In video games, of course. And with Earth Defense Force: Insect Armageddon out today, we thought we’d like take a look at the best appearances of creepy crawlies in all of gaming. Hope you have a shoe handy! [Ed.—We don't know why the Antlions from Half-Life 2 aren't in here either. Damn kids!]

By Rich Knight

Millipedes in real life are REALLY slow, so this speedy incarnation of the long bug with the (apocryphal) thousand legs doesn’t get many points for realism. But it does get points for making the cuddly guys look like ravaging killing machines. Bouncing off the walls while you frantically try to blast them away was always a scary concept. Especially when you had other bugs bouncing around you, too. Uch. Just thinking about the game makes our skin crawl. Still!

Okay, so real sandworms aren’t all that horrifying. But in the world of Dune (And, to a lesser extent, Beetlejuice), they’ll sink the ground right under ya, pa. In the seminal real-time strategy game Dune II, they played a pivotal role in barreling through terrain underground and smashing shit up just when you thought things were all set up. Dangerous, monstrous things, indeed. Also, not to be confused with the Graboids in the movie Tremors. Those were badass, too, but they weren't sandworms. #nerd

We think the insect in the Atari classic is a fly, but we can’t be entirely sure. For one thing, we’ve never seen flies shoot pellets out of their snouts. And for another, we’ve never seen them tear apart great space gods called a Qotile. But we have seen them wallow in shit. And that’s what makes Yar so compelling—no wallowing and no shit. You have to give credit to an insect that goes so far outside its comfort zone.

Let’s be honest. Caterpillars are pussies. They’re slow, easy to step on, and they gush real good when you crush them with your shoe. So we’re going to have to give credit to the caterpillars in the Mario-verse for being so resilient and tough. These badass mofos don’t crush easily at all. In fact, they actually get pissed when you jump on them and storm at you, trying to mow you down. If this is a sign of the future, then we don’t want any part of it.

This game is a Pac-Man clone through and through, but its shifting walls gives it an extra special boost in the rip-off department. And like real ladybugs, we can’t help but want to protect them from other, uglier bugs that come marching out at them like Gestapo. Luckily, the ladybugs in this game are crafty and can get away from trouble by just hitting green walls. Sigh, if only life could be that easy.

And no, we don't get the box art either. Or the fact that the game's title is two words, even though "ladybug" is one. Take it up with the entomologists.

Another Pac-Man clone, but what’s interesting about this game is that you don’t play the role of the dung beetle itself, but actually, the role of the insect laying the dung. Wrap your head around that as a game concept. What’s also interesting about this title is that it’s almost a little bit like Pac-Man Vs. in that you get a very small screen for yourself that the enemies can’t see, giving you the advantage. You eat, you shit. Just like in real life. What a concept!

Spiders, in general, are pretty horrifying creatures already. So how about make a game with a spider that can jump, have special powers, and think with the mind of a scientist? Yeah, that sounds a little less frightening. Spider: The Video Game was a fun title, but we couldn’t help but get the heeby-jeebies every time we booted it up for our PSXes back in the day. We’re all men here at Complex, but dammit, spiders still creep us out. Just look at the way they WALK. *Shiver*.

Ants aren’t scary, just a nuisance. But giant ants? Giant ants make us soil our shorts. And they’re huge in Zombies Ate My Neighbors, rampaging through the neighborhood and swiping your items away from you. The ones in this game are meant to be an homage to the old B-movie classic Them!, but they’re just so much creepier in this game than in that movie. Even talking about it almost 20 years later, we're going to have Honey I Shrunk the Kids nightmares all over again.

Cockroaches are a pain in the ass—both in real life and in Breath of Fire, where they gang up on you and attack. Luckily, the little ones die easily, just like they do in reality. But unlike reality, in BoF, if you kill all the baby ones, their bigger, angrier mother will come out and take revenge on you. We’re sure it’d go squish just like any other bug, but if a giant cockroach came out of our walls with a mother’s fury, wanting to kick our asses, we’d probably move locations. That shit’s just unnatural, man.

The granddaddy of them all (and precursor to Millipede), this game frightens us on multiple levels. One: centipedes are the most disgusting of all bugs, and the idea of one running right toward us in anger is terrifying. Two: when you shoot the centipede in this game, it breaks into segments, causing one to imagine what that would be like in real life. And three: well, it’s fast, which is also like centipedes, so it’s realistic. God, if there were ever a game that we wouldn’t want to be real, it’s this one. And yes, we’ve played Silent Hill.