Rico, I’m sorry…

Hey Rico, what’s up man? Yeah, look, I gotta apologize. Lately I’ve been saying some pretty bad stuff about you and I wanted to talk to you about it. I may have called you incompetent. It’s possible I called you the worst videogame character in the known universe. I know, I know, that’s some rough stuff and I probably went a little over the line, but come on man, we both know you deserve some of it. I mean, you weren’t a very good soldier in Killzone 2 and people died because of it. Not to mention you colossally screwed up your only mission while on Helghan. I mean, that’s bad, right? Well bro, I may have meant that before, but I totally don’t mean that now.

Not since meeting Ishi.

Ishi Sato is your, I dunno what you’d call him, your cyborg co-pirate in Bulletstorm. Cy-jerk is more like it. He’s part of your crew and then you get him half blown up pretty early on in the game. He gets patched up, don’t worry, but from then on he’s a cyborg who is constantly whining about how painful it is to fight the AI in his computer parts. That is when his bad, computer eye doesn’t get all red and he tries to kill you.

Now, Ishi certainly has a reason to be upset, I mean, it is my fault that he’s a cyborg, but he totally was an uptight prick before being turned half-robot. In the obligatory flashback scene where we see why me and my crew are a bunch of drunken idiots, he’s all like “we should take no joy in killing” and being all sanctimonious. I mean, we’re assassins, and aren’t you supposed to enjoy your work? And then I totally take a bullet for the dude and he didn’t seem even the slightest bit grateful. All I get now is “your thirst for revenge doomed us all Gray”, “I’m a cyborg because of you Gray”, “I won’t hesitate to kill you, Gray”. Yeah, well guess what dude, you were a pompous jerk before and you’re a pompous jerk now only now you can bench press a Volvo and take 10,000 volts to the face with no damage. From where I’m sitting, that’s an upgrade.

Now, if Ishi were just a jerk, it’d be ok. Well, better, but not necessarily ok. Here’s the thing though, he’s not just a jerk, he’s incompetent. And not incompetent in a passive way, like you, but actively incompetent in a way that gets me killed. Like, a lot.

First of all, dude can’t aim for shit. I mean I know the guns we get ain’t nothing to write home about, but come on, I’m popping off gag reflexes and head shots all day and he can’t hit the broad side of a barn. Maybe it’s because his idea of firing from cover is to hold the gun above his head and spray wildly, but still. Second, he’ll let dudes just run by him so that they can make a beeline for me. I mean, I know I got him in this mess, but this leash thingy on my arm means that I’m the only one who can move that bus to make a bridge. Without me, Ishi sits planetside until his Energizers run out and the creeps and skulls try to make a stereo out of his stupid, red eyed face.

Still though, that’s not the worst. I mean, you can’t aim for shit either and based on our time on Helghan together, you were more interested in wasting bullets than killing Helghast. What makes Ishi so bad is that he gets in the way, like all the time. If I go to slide into an enemy, he’ll step in front of me and stop me dead so that the enemy I was going to launch into a prickly cactus now clubs me to death. Or, I’ll have an enemy in the sights of my flail gun and Ishi will step in front of me just as I shoot. That’s one round wasted and one enemy still alive to shoot me. Thanks Ishi. Or, even better, I’ll leash a dude and as the guy is being pulled to me so that I can kick him away, Ishi will step in between us and stop the guy dead so that he can get up and kill me. I mean, I know Ishi hates me and all, but this is ridiculous. The weird thing is that Trishka never gets in my way. Even when the enemies have dispersed for the time being, Trishka is all running forward and Ishi is all up in my business staring at me. I mean, personal space dude! It’s like this leash isn’t just for enemies, it also ties Ishi and me together.

Then, to top it off, Ishi doesn’t even have the cyber-stones to stay mad at me. Two thirds of the way through the game he has to give me some speech about how he doesn’t blame me, that my attempt to kill Sarrano, the attempt that got Ishi robotocized, was actually a mission of justice. Dude, it totally wasn’t! I just wanted Sarrano dead for using us! Justice had no part of it! I know that, Sarrano knows that, hell everyone knows that but Ishi can’t even be mad correctly! He’s gotta make it sound like he understands! Let me tell you something dude, if things were reversed, I’d a crushed his throat the minute I realized I was half MP3 player and then gotten off planet my own damn self. Screw this forgiveness noise.

So dude, I’m sorry. I’m sorry I said all of those things about you because for as bad as you were, you never got in my way, you never got me killed and you never backed down from your anger. I wish I could have said the same for Ishi. Worst part is he’ll be back in the sequel. Friggin’ great.

Hug it out, brah.

-Brandon