PlayStation Monsterpedia: Fangs for the Memories

I love monsters. I grew up watching movies like “It Came From Beneath the Sea” and “The Thing” and playing games like War of the Monsters and Resident Evil. I wanted to honor that spirit with this first edition of the PlayStation Monsterpedia, a collection of detailed artwork and in-depth specifications gleaned directly from the game developers that inspired it all.

For this edition, I selected monsters that have left a strong impact on me personally, whether it was Dead Nation’s panic-inducing Cutter or Sackboy’s new arch-nemesis the Negativitron. Expect to see future editions of the PlayStation Monsterpedia detailing more memorable monsters from PlayStation lore, both old and new. What beasts would you like to see in the next installment? Be sure to leave your suggestions in the comments.

Codename: “WIDOWMAKER”

Height: Varies; size difference assumed to be based on varying maturity
Weight: Varies
Natural habitat: Unknown; Chimeran in origin
Defensive mechanisms: Toxic, caustic saliva; barbed fore talons; thick, chitinous armor
Weaknesses: Heavy artillery
Appears in: Resistance: Fall of Man, Resistance 3

BEHAVIOR:
The Widowmaker is the largest known feral Chimera, a wild spider-like predator that spits caustic saliva at any foes it cannot stab with its razor-sharp tarsi. Its appearance on the battlefield requires immediately engagement by all nearby units, with high casualty rates reported for both human and Chimeran forces. Widowmakers are generally solitary creatures, though scattered reports have indicated the possible existence of clans of Widowmakers stampeding through the wilderness.

Unlike the young Widowmakers Nathan Hale fought in England, fully grown Widowmakers are nearly impossible to defeat with conventional weaponry, though high explosives can prove effective. Initial data suggests that combatants that focus on the creature’s face first, then its weak points as it reacts, suffer lower casualty rates.

Codename: “DEVOURER”

Height: Approximately 25 feet tall
Weight: 7.5 tons (estimated)
Natural habitat: Marshlands surrounding New Marais
Defensive mechanisms: Powerful musculature; long, barbed tongue; thick armor plating
Weakness: Electricity; gaps between armor plates near the mouth and ribs
Appears in: inFAMOUS 2

BEHAVIOR:
The Devourer is part of The Corrupted, a race of mutant beings that have burrowed from the swamplands surrounding the city of New Marais. More precisely, The Corrupted comprise a hierarchy of organisms, including humanoid creatures equipped with long bladed arm talons as well as armored drones called Ravagers. The Devourer represents the pinnacle of The Corrupted’s unnatural evolution. The Devourer’s long, barbed tongue is prehensile, and the creature uses it to immobilize and ingest organic matter.

Eyewitness accounts from New Marais are scarce, but the Devourer is reportedly aggressive and territorial, making it exceedingly dangerous. With its vast size, enormous strength and armored exoskeleton, the Devourer presents a persistent threat to the citizens of New Marais — particularly as The Corrupted make increasingly bold incursions into inhabited urban centers. Attempts to subdue The Corrupted by local law enforcement have proven unsuccessful, sparking a small-scale arms race as mutant and human alike position for control of New Marais. A local anti-mutant vigilante group called the Militia has reported some success in keeping The Corrupted at bay, and have peddled these achievements into a local protection racket.

Speculation that The Corrupted and the Devourer were mutated as a result of local Ray Sphere experimentation warrants further investigation.

Codename: “CUTTER”

Height: 11 feet tall
Weight: Over 700 pounds
Natural habitat: Bioengineered, designed for urban environments
Defensive mechanisms: Thick, hardened carapace; machete-like talons
Weaknesses: Tactically inept
Appears in: Dead Nation

BEHAVIOR:
This lab-grown bioweapon patrols large areas and can survive for months, even years, on very little physical sustenance. The Cutter’s behavioral patterns are simple and primal, a testament to its artificial origin. Alarmingly nimble despite its towering physique, the Cutter tends to surprise its unlucky targets. Upon seeing its target the Cutter immediately charges and attempts to cleave the victim in two using its massive bladed talons.

The Cutter shows little discrimination in choosing targets, and won’t hesitate to carve through nearby reanimated corpses if they stand between it and living prey. Resourceful survivors have been known to exploit this fact as a way of negotiating the countless walking dead that now prowl the streets of major urban centers worldwide.

Codename: “VERANIDATOR”

Height: Approximately 50 feet
Weight: 6.6 tons (estimated)
Natural habitat: Any large scale urban environment
Defensive mechanisms: Multi-shot rocket launcher; hydraulic claw; immobilizing acoustic eruption
Weaknesses: Easily distracted
Appears in: Eat Them!

BEHAVIOR:
Constructed in the laboratory of noted monster scientist Dr. Wilder, the Veranidator is equipped for maximum destruction in urban environments. Its rocket launcher can be used to take out ground-based and aerial attackers, and the patented ROAR acoustic weapon will immobilize unprotected human foes. Its hydraulic claw is just as useful for smashing through structures as it is grabbing improvised weaponry from the ground.

Like all of Dr. Wilder’s creations, the Veranidator is powered by disposable fuel units commonly used in vehicles, cafes, street corners, and anywhere else civilians congregate. Dr. Wilder has bragged that the Veradinator is just one of over five million variations he can create in his state-of-the-art genetic lab.

Codename: “NEGATIVITRON”

Height: 2.6 miles, or approximately 42,000 Sackboys
Weight: The Sun
Natural habitat: The cold, empty reaches of the Cosmos; the cupboard under the stairs
Defensive mechanisms: Sucking; creating Meanies and infecting the Cosmos; telling jokes at funerals
Weaknesses: Metal toy soldiers, bits of string, Sackboy
Appears in: LittleBigPlanet 2

BEHAVIOR:
Deep in the exquisite cold of the interstellar Cosmos, the skilled Negativitron hunter must know when to hunt and when to flee. Wherever there is silence, wherever there is serenity, calm or peace, that is when the tracker must be his most wary.

With infinite patience, the Negativitron waits in the darkest corners of the Cosmos with one terrible eye always open. The hunter will receive but one warning that his quarry has turned: THE UNMISTAKABLE DEATH WOOSH OF AN 1800W BAGLESS INTERSTELLAR VACUUM CLEANER! Snarling, thrashing, sucking, The Negativitron attacks with nothing but vengeance and fury on its mind. In the vast blackness of space, a Vacuum within a vacuum. Feeding on fear, on doubt, on all those times you were told you were worthless and grew to believe it. The Negativitron will read you, search you. The more you fear it, the stronger it becomes.

And what of the hunter? For most, eternal silence and blackness. Perhaps one in a hundred will escape with his life intact, and one in a thousand with his sanity. The Negativitron is a ruthless foe, filled with cunning and empty of remorse. It will lure you, trick you, seduce you and destroy you. Yours will be but another forgotten story, a speck of dust in the nebula of forgotten heroes.

The Negativitron shall live on! Brooding, resting, waiting.