Wii Features

Ever wondered what it would be like to have video game characters in your Pokemon party? Why choose boring old Bulbasaur when you can choose a beautiful Kasumi? Or a level 50 Sackboy?

We've given 21 game characters the Pokemon treatment, with four moves to choose from and some evolutionary states too.

Who would you choose?

We’re big fans of dicking around, so when someone suggested that we attempt to reproduce a classic sitcom in Half-Life 2’s Garry’s Mod, we cited the “why the hell not” clause of our operating procedures and immediately began violating ragdolls. While our interpretation of the greatest nihilist sitcom ever may not win us any awards at machinima festivals, it can at least inspire some ironic

3D games, as a rule, don’t age well. The games of the last couple console generations might have been awesome for their time, but take a look at them now and it’s hard to see them as anything other than jaggy abortions in which cardboard rectangles masquerade as limbs. And as if that weren’t embarrassing enough, most of those games contain female characters who, in their day, were genuinely considered sexy.

Yes, your boss is evil. The fritzy coffee machine and the copier are evil. The guy in your department who says, “long lunch today?” is pure evil. There’s probably a sub-cavern in hell with extra bubbly lava reserved for people who say “taskforce,” “mindshare,” “workflow,” “ping,” “team player,” “value add” or “pro-active.”

What links all great men through history? The insatiable pursuit of power? An unwillingness to compromise? Snappy dress sense? Nah, it’s a good old tache, of course. Inspired by the recent clean shaven antics of Final Fantasy big cheese Hironobu Sakaguchi and Adolf Hitler, we’ve decided to shave the soup strainers off some of our favourite games characters.

Warning: the following images may shock and appal

They might not look all that, but give them the wrong look and the following group of surprising badasses will kill the hell out of you. Wimpy either in appearance, profession or nature it doesn’t stop these secretly Chuck Norris hard characters from saving the world and giving evil the bird, while murdering hundreds of baddies in the process.

Somehow, though, we’re just not buying their unexplained ass-kicking

So what would happen if amoral Balkan sociopath Niko Bellic was in everyone's favourite cute and cuddly cartoon racer? Would Mario and chums accept him into the line-up with grace and humility? Would Niko keep the lid on all his murderous rage when Yoshi was firing red shells up his tailpipe? Of course, not. This is what would happen if the worlds of Liberty City and the Mushroom Kingdom clashed...

And that got us thinking. What

One of the challenges of an action game is creating a villain that you, the player, will want to destroy. Some games, like Killzone 3, end up crafting bad guys so cool and awesome, you're rooting for them instead of the so-called heroes. Then there are games that just get it right, making an entire army of bastards you just want to punch in the face.

Thanks to a mixture of visual design, atmosphere and writing, some games go beyond even that, and are able to craft an entire race of enemies that are simply despicable to behold. They're ugly, they're disgusting, and they garner absolutely zero sympathy. Those are the truly successful baddies in videogames, and now we rightly pay tribute...