Not only did we get the hero that no one wanted in this Metal Gear, but we also got his stupid whining girlfriend. Every time the Codec bleeps into life it seems that Rosemary's there, banging on and on about some inane dross that a man doesn't need to hear when he's running around an offshore facility killing men and hiding in lockers.

And Rosemary *must* be having her period because she's not just a nag, she's an unpredictable, emotional car wreck of a nag. She gets a huff on because Raiden can't remember the day they met. She starts crying because Raiden's room is sparsely decorated. She's lonely. She's not happy with her sex life. She wants Raiden to take more care with his appearance. And she insists on telling Raiden all of this - and more - throughout the duration of the game.

Thanks to Rosemary's persistent and emotionally-wobbly bleating, the Codec messages are like sitting through a therapy session between two highly dislikeable people. One of whom is a nag that needs to put a bung in her stupid pie hole.

He seems like such a sweet old dude. The helpful janitor. But, like most old people, he's a nag, a busy body and he gets right on your tits very, very quickly. "Have a transceiver" he says to Frank West when they first meet in the zombie overrun mall. It seems like the perfect team - Otis looking for survivors on the security monitors and Frank rescuing them. But the relationship curdles after, say, the second or third time that Otis buzzes the transceiver while Frank is up to his ear holes in hungry flesh eaters.

When speaking to Otis on the accursed transceiver, Frank is an easy meal for the dead people. He can't use weapons, so all he can do is run. Or he can cut the call from Otis short and get back to the business of making sure he's not eaten to death. But Otis doesn't like being cut off and he calls back two seconds later to have a moan. "Don't hang up on me. It's rude." What an idiot.

In the space of three days in the mall, Otis calls Frank around 40 times. And to think we get pissed when our mum calls us up more than twice a week.