9 Video Game Mascots We Absolutely Hated

The logical apex (or should that be nadir?) or the 50 Shades inspired sadomasochism phase of the past decade was surely the depraved cries from one dark corner of the online commentariat begging for a return of video games' worst bobcat, despite his most recent outing being a totem pole for terrible.

It wasn't always this way. Bubsy - a Sonic knock-off so obvious you'd have half expected him to turn up in one of the Blue Blur's Dreamcast romps - debuted strong, his typically pun-tastic, typically 2D platforming Claws Encounters of the Furred Kind garnering, if not emphatic, at least generous approval. The sequel, prosaically named Bubsy II, maintained the standard.

Then the cat was declawed.

Developers Accolade penned an exclusivity deal with Atari, bringing the bobcat's furred adventure, appropriately, to the Jaguar. But in spite of its heightened graphical fidelity and enlarged world, the gig was growing stale, and next to the console's other then-exclusive platformer, Michel Ancel's defining Rayman, it couldn't compete.

Bubsy wrecked the furniture for the last time in 1996, when, with the Atari deal as dead as their foundering hardware, new developers Eidetic became the latest team given the thankless task of trying to replicate Nintendo's flawless, industry-altering Mario 64. Inevitably, they failed, but how! Bubsy 3D was a top-to-bottom mess, its titular cat obeying the command of the player much like a real one. The mere suggestion that anybody would want another one of these games 21 years later was frightful. Or should that be fur-ightful (sigh)?