As a child I grew up loving the X-Men from the comic books and the cartoons on Saturday mornings. As with most good vs evil cartoons from back in the day I always preferred the “bad guys”. One of these was Charles Xavier’s (half) brother Cain Marko, known as Juggernaut. His powers were superhuman strength and was virtually indestructible. He was the first boss in the original X-Men game on the Mega Drive also. He was also woefully portrayed by Vinnie Jones in the X3: Last Stand movie and just pretty much ran through a few walls. But Juggernaut was huge, and I didn’t really think Bullet Tooth Tony really did justice to the role. Someone in WWE like Triple H or Batista for me would have been a better casting.

Roll forward now to the next gen consoles and the name Juggernaut draws totally different connotations now. I’m talking about the behemoth guys with ludicrously heavy armour in the Call of Duty series. Now with my new found addiction to the survival mode in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 I have come across these looming bastards on several occasions now, compared to my fleeting experience when I’d dabbled in Modern Warfare 2 Spec Ops missions. These guys get dropped from helicopters wearing flame retardant bomb suits and they are just hard. Sometimes carrying riot shields these assholes are onto you quicker than a flash and will make your survival experience a lot shorter than you realise in no time at all if you’re not wise to it quickly. While I do appreciate the challenge provided by these waves of enemies, the practically invincible juggernauts really do take the p*ss after a while.

How on earth can a man wearing a bomb disposal suit manage to withstand such a pasting? Last while playing co-op I went up to one from behind a point blank range and unloaded a 100 round magazine from a PKP Pecheneg into the rear of his head, to which he turned around and meleed me with the butt of his gun, rendering me to be downed. Assuming I had a hit ratio of 75% from from less than 10 cm away firing, that is still 75 rounds of 7.62 x 54 mm bullet in the back of the head. Not only would the guy be dead, I’m imagine his head would be removed. Similarly I have shot a juggernaut in the arm with a Barrett 50.cal from about 5 metres away, to which he sort of shrugged and then carried on firing. Not only would that have taken his arm clean off at that range, he then turned around practically unscathed and returned fire. What are these guys? Part of the Russian G-Nome project? Any human who can recover totally from catching a flashbang grenade with their face to be completely compus mentus within 2 seconds has to be superhuman. Are juggernauts in MW3 designed to be like Cain Marko since their apparent inability to receive damage makes them the most formidable foe in the game.

I enjoy MW3’s survival mode immensely, but it’s easier shooting down a warship than one of these guys! While I appreciate the attempt to create realism in war games, I need to remind myself that Call of Duty games are still arcade style rail shooters at heart.

Personally, this will always be the Juggernaut for me: