Unwelcome Guests: The 10 Most Questionable Cameos In Video Games

We get it: Sometimes the video game experience is enhanced through combining forces. That’s what Sony is banking on with the crossover-tastic PlayStation Move Heroes, featuring characters from their Ratchet & Clank, Jak & Daxter and Sly Cooper series. However, sometimes things can go mildly (or horribly) wrong by introducing new characters in a context that just doesn’t make sense. (It even happens to the best of them.) That's why we’ve put together our picks for the most nonsensical walk-ons in the history of video games, including a few surprises, a bit of a contradiction on our part, and even some chocolate starfish. Watch for the crossover!

By Troy Mounis

We're not the most adept poke-hunters out there, but we do know from playing SSBM that Pichu's greatest strength is running away from everyone. Unfortunately, the game isn't called Super Escape Bros. Melee, which means he's as useless as a Shake Weight around Rosie O'Donnell. Also, the fact that Pikachu was already in the game should've prevented the developers from sticking the weaker version of it into their roster. That theory was obviously proven wrong, but they smartened up for the sequel by relegating the mouse to trophy duties.

The developers at the now-defunct Midway must've been riding the

Pineapple Express to pull out an idea like this: modeling one of the

characters in a Mortal Kombat game after their motion capture

guys. It gave us a chuckle as Mokap, a former martial arts teacher from

Barack's neck of the woods, took on the likes of Quan Chi, Scorpion, and

Raiden with various tae kwon do, tai chi and karate moves—all while

sporting the funny-looking suit with the balls stuck to it.

Nevertheless, these kinds of desperation moves didn't help move the

franchise forward, eventually leading to the game maker's demise.

It took just a few more sold copies of first-person shooter Killzone 2 for Sony to throw caution to the wind and dump their intellectual property across multiple properties. The strangest one was the appearance of Helghast paraphernalia in their Everybody's Tennis spinoff series in 2010. Scolar Visari's minions go from volleying bombs to serve and volleying, marking an embarrassing moment for them and an uncomfortable moment for you as you wonder when you'll be able to start shooting something.

Of all of the characters in Capcom's fighting game, none come in so high on the "Useless Meter" than Roll. (Yes, this includes Servbot, who can at least transform into a large version of himself wielding a toy hammer.) Mega Man's younger robotic sister was obviously included as some twisted joke, as her move set consists of simply lower-grade versions of the original man in blue's, giving us absolutely no reason to ever want her in our entourage of world-beaters.

They may have appeared in these pages last year and were called "both fruitful and completely necessary," but let me politely disagree with my colleague and question Namco's decision to mash the Star Wars characters into their fighting series. The result was two of the most unbalanced characters ever to grace the stage of history. Especially Yoda: When he wasn't being too short to be grabbed, he was probably hopping around too much and causing you endless "Ring Out" losses. The suck you are! Yes, hmmm.

With a game title like that, gratuitous cleavage shots should've be the only unlockable the game's developers used to entice us to keep playing, not the crazy-haired Heihachi from the Tekken series. Yet, there he was, doing the ol' forehand-and-backhand with Anna (a dream we've had many times). Okay, so Heihachi is here more or less because we're jealous of him, but still: stick to driving dudes into the ground and scaring children, old man.

Square Enix took over development duties for this 2006 titles and promptly left their imprint on it by including the likes of Moogle, White Mage, and Ninja. That would be all well and good, provided that they somehow made sense within the context of the Mushroom Kingdom, like they all somehow fell through a dimensional warp bubble and found themselves in Mario Land. But, no, they're just dumped into the player roster; even worse, they're given abilities that are markedly better than those bestowed on Nintendo's homegrown players.

We love Nintendo's mascots as much as the next person, but when they start to invade even non-Nintendo franchises, then it gets to be a bit much. Nintendo signed a deal with EA Sports to provide some of their brand names and likenesses to their snowboarding franchise, which led to their inclusion in SSX on Tour. It felt like a desperation play by EA to help boost the recognition of their game and a strange move for Nintendo, as Mario & co. rarely rub elbows with, y'know, humans. Thankfully, the idea was later dropped as the fat plumber returned to what he does best: eat horridly-colored mushrooms and get strung along by kidnapping-prone princesses.

No, this isn't a joke. This actually happened. Complete with annoying hand-waving, even. Limp Bizkit's front man found his way into the game by way of a musical partnership with the professional wrestling entertainment company, officially exemplifying when the line is crossed in attempting to shoehorn new characters (fictional, promotional, or otherwise) into a video game. Shudder.