Giant Enemy Crab

Giant Enemy Crab is an Internet meme created in video game forums in 2006. It achieved notable popularity in the gaming press and was also referenced by video game developers.

History

The meme originated during the demonstration of Genji: Days of the Blade at the Sony E3 2006 press conference. The producer Bill Ritch claimed that Genji 2's epic battles were based on "famous battles which actually took place in ancient Japan." Almost immediately after this was spoken, the gameplay footage demonstrated contained a boss battle against, in his own words, a "giant enemy crab." Popular memes originating from the Genji demonstration included the game features described such as "you attack its weak point for massive damage" and "real-time...weapon change," despite neither of these being at all new to video gaming, being staples of classic 1980s games such as Metroid. In IGN's E3 2006 wrap-up, they listed a number of Genji 2 quotes.

References in other games

There have been many references to this meme in other games and pop culture:

• In the PlayStation 3 game, Heavenly Sword, Kai considers "hitting your weak point for massive damage" in order to extract a password from an NPC.
• The PlayStation Portable game Monster Hunter Freedom Unite has a mission called "The Giant Enemy Crab" in which players hunt and slay a giant crab monster called the Daimyo Hermitaur.
• The Xbox 360 game Viva Piñata pokes fun at the quotes "real-time weapon change" and "massive damage."
• In the Nintendo DS game Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia, the boss named Brachyura is described as a "Giant Enemy Crab"
• The demo version of MotorStorm features a "massive damage" reference. Also, one of the races is titled "Giant Enemy Crab".
• In a trailer for the PlayStation 3 game, LittleBigPlanet, Giant Enemy Crabs can be seen in one of the levels.
• In the World of Warcraft expansion, Wrath of the Lich King, a quest in Dragonblight called "The Bait" involves killing a Giant Enemy Crab.
• The Nintendo DS game Scribblenauts allows the player to summon an enormous crab by typing in the phrase "giant enemy crab", "ancient japanese history" or "massive damage."
• In RuneScape, if the player talks to a giant pet crab while wearing a crab claw or crab helmet, it will say that it has no weak point and that you can't hit it for massive damage.
• In the online game League of Legends, the champion Urgot has a purchasable skin named "Giant Enemy Crabgot."
• In the PlayStation Portable game The 3rd Birthday, a mission objective states "Hit [the enemy's] weak spot for massive damage."
• In the Nintendo DS games Pokémon Diamond and Pearl and Pokémon Platinum, a member of the villainous Team Galactic threatens "causing massive damage to Professor Rowan's assistant".
• In No Time To Explain, the first and major enemy the hero faces is a Giant Enemy Crab coming from the future.
• In Guild Wars, one of the monthly environmental effects for Player versus Player gameplay was named "Massive Damage"
• In Borderlands, the final and most difficult boss battle in the last expansion, Secret Armory of General Knoxx, is against Crawmerax the Invincible--a giant crablike creature which can only be damaged by critical hits to weak points in its armored shell. (Despite the similarity, this is not a direct reference)
• In The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion there are measly enemies known as Mudcrabs. There is a cave known as Green Mead cave where a giant version of one of these creatures exist (the only one in the game), but it is still simply named "Mudcrab."