I hate: Tusken Raiders

 I hope they don't come back. Screw their numbers.

No, this isn't a backwards stab at one of the most lamentable lingering plot-threads in the recently ended and decently bloated 'The Book of Boba Fett' series, although why I'm at it: those guys really did drag the show, didn't they? I mean sure, they were supposed to serve some sort of role in teaching Boba how to work in a tribe, in turn showing us how the big bad Fett lion became a mewling house cat for the latter length of our season. But lacking any sort of baseline for the person who Boba Fett was, the transformation felt entirely and utterly devoid of consequence, making these walking carpet salesmen feel like catalysts to pointlessness and mediocrity. But that isn't why I gripe myself with their entire race, much as it must seem like that case. No, my indignations run deeper and fouler, because I hate video game Tusken Raiders.

That must seem pretty general to you. 'Video Game' Tuskens? Which ones? They've been adapted any number of countless times in so many different games it's wont to make your head spin; surely I can't mean to make a statement as meaninglessly sweeping as to declare them all the worst of the worst! Except I can, and I do, very much so. I hate all Tusken Raiders in every game they're in. And I admit that it's unfair. There's no rot so deep that it touches each and every iteration of them- that would be impossible. What I'm about to discuss, for example, has no bearing on their Lego Star Wars incarnation. (At least, not exactly, but they do show up quite frequently in the level they star for.) But it's an issue of such frequency that their presence now imbues me with the expectation that they are soon to wrong me. And what is my great cause for concern? Simple: They're OP as heck!

I know that Star Wars has always found itself infatuated with the idea of the weak prevailing over the powerful, from rebellions to teddy bears, so it shouldn't be too surprising to see that a race of tribalistic sand-people that largely shun the technological bars that dictate the entire rest of the Star Wars universe tend to be unrealistically savvy battle opponents. That's a given for a George Lucas species. But these Tusken's, in most every one of their games, are just demons. They shatter the difficulty curve whenever they show up, rewrite the combat standard, bring home the sweaty palms and distressed brows. Tusken Raiders absolutely wreck shop, and I cannot stand them. Why should nomad tribals be able to haunt me across Star Wars games like this? When will it stop!

Perhaps the first time I really noticed it was during the original Star Wars Battlefront, where their people hold the unique position of being one of the only non-combatant factions who simply inhabit a certain map and are allowed to capture and hold territory completely for their own. They terrorise the Dune Sea map and their weapon holds the dubious honour of being one the highest damage output rifles in the game, capable of one-shotting you on the highest difficulty. They spawn endlessly, forcing the real conflict to try and continue around them, they hold enough prowess to take the entire map if only their programming would allow them to leave the areas around the Sarlacc pit, and they turned my defence position into rubble countless times with sheer indomitable force. I'm not ashamed to say that they ran me out of that area of the game for life, I've never tried to capture their Command Posts in the years since I was a child playing their poxxy levels. Thus was the first time I realised that these tribal were more than just troublesome.

Next I vividly recall that feeling of an injustice being made upon my person during my first time playing the classic: Jedi Knight Academy. As every Star Wars property must do at least once, there is a mission where you visit Tatooine. Because for a backwater, no-where planet with nothing of consequence on it whatsoever, it doesn't half seem to attract the fate of every significant player in the Star Wars Galaxy, does it? I can't remember why you have to go there, I don't remember much of what the mission held. All I remember is the hell that was trying to clear the parts of the level invested with Tuskens, for their sheer damage output rivalled that of the many full-blow, card carrying, Crimson saber wielding, Sith your go up against throughout the game. This time it was their Gaffi sticks that I feared, for they seemed to possess the power to pass through my invincible light blade and gut me like a fresh-hung fish in the Butchers. There was none of the intense, back and forth duelling which characterised the other power melee duels that Jedi Academy seemed to excel at. None of the dangerous dance of death, ducking and diving around deadly daggers. It was just boom: you're dead. You meet a Tusken, it kills you. (Best keep your distance!) For a game that seemed to fuel the power fantasy of being an incredibly versatile Jedi, this single mission turned that dial to the exact opposite end, where I was feeling as green and gangly as a fresh spat-out Undead in the waking hours of my Dark Souls playthrough.

Of course, there's no way I could talk about overpowered overlords without bringing up the single greatest Star Wars game ever made. That's right, Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic features it's own share of Raiders, and they're just as bad as ever. Populating, where-else, the Tatooine level; these cretins prove to be the single most consistently troublesome threats in every playthrough I do. Key reasons: they're resilient, hit hard, come in packs- oh, and they ambush the living daylights out of you the second you touch the sands. It's almost laughable for the fools at Arrakis to be afraid of their petty Sand worms, when the true reapers of the sands wear baggy curtains. I cannot, for the life of me, spec a Tusken-proof team, and I've tried repeatedly. Once again, these inexplicably invincible insurrectionists dominate the day. More the fool, I.

I think for me it comes down to the ignominy of the matter. In Battlefront I'm a trained solider, battle-hardened on the blood-stained sands of countless worlds, and effortlessly bushwacked by rug ruffians. In Jedi Knight Academy I'm an aspiring Jedi knight who's downed battalions of Stormtroopers, and who is coming to grips with slaying Dark Jedi themselves! Only I can't handle the ragtag raiders from down in the Dune Sea. And in KOTOR I'm a deity of ability, effortless mowing down rooms of Sith, putting down Dark Malak himself with but a few hits- but Tusken Raiders are harder to hit? Am I interpreting that right? Sand People make for more competent duellists than the erstwhile Dark Lord of the Sith? Some part of that is undeniably hilarious, but the rest is achingly sad. And frustrating. Good thing these guys are stuck to their sand Tipis, they'd be worse than the Mandalorian menace if we let them loose in the stars!

Who can say when it was that every single disparate Star Wars game developer sat down and collectively decided that this particular enemy archetype was going to the bane of this franchise from every corner, but I lament that day with a passion! I can only assume that this curse extends further than the game within my ken too. Masters of Teras Kasi? I'll bet that Hoar can wreck the player with a hand tied behind his back. (Wait, no, the Tusken Raider from the game is called 'Hoar'. That's literally his name, I'm not calling him-) New Lego Star Wars? I bet the raiders swarm and demolish you in freeplay like biblical locusts. And Jedi Fallen Order 2? You heard it here first, but I'm betting Cal's greatest yet-to-be-fought nemesis wears a tatty cowl and caws like a hog in an orgy.