Whilst playing Conan on the PlayStation 3 for a review last week, I came across one of my major gaming pet hates: animal enemies. I’m not talking about the massive squid that nearly pulled my boat under or the ferocious dragon that tormented me for nearly half an hour, no, the most annoying and difficult enemies I faced were just simple, bog-standard lions who made regular, unwanted appearances throughout the second half of the game.

It was the same in my recent play through of Call of Duty 4. As the game progressed, the enemies invariably became more difficult and frustrating to deal with, but the ones that truly caused me the most trouble were the Russian dogs. Hearing the sound of nearby gun-fire would simply send me into attack mode, but the sound of a dog barking close by sent chills down my spine and put me into state of panic, desperately moving my view from side to side in an attempt to source the direction of the incoming animal attack. It was almost as if the evil bastards at Infinity Ward had watched my similar fumbled efforts on the original Medal of Honour game and designed this enemy specifically to strike fear into my heart.

My first memory of animal enemies causing such trouble was back in the early PlayStation 1 days, playing Tomb Raider. In all honestly, I was never the greatest fan of the game, mainly due to the control scheme being stiffer than a dead cat fresh from the taxidermist, but the one moment in the game that really stood out as the most frustrating was the bear fight right near the start. It literally took me days to get past that part, simply because I would panic and jump into the water whenever it got near Lara Croft and her massively oversized chest. It was only when I finally pulled together the composure to move and shoot without continually running away that I was finally able to defeat the bear, only to then find a pack of blood thirsty wolves awaiting me on the next level.