# Your favourite game characters?



## Rodders (Jun 21, 2021)

Giving up the alcohol has really given me a lot more time, so I've been playing a fair bit of games this year. I've got to say that I've been enjoying myself immensely.

I think gaming is getting a lot of kudos for some great, immersive story experiences that we just aren't getting at the cinema, so, In a similar vein to Baylor's "best characters in cinema" thread, i thought i'd ask who you consider to be the best characters in gaming. 

Personally, my favourite game has to be the Half Life series (a VR capable machine will be my next PC one, my current one has been played out). I have to confess that i never saw Freeman as a great character, though. Perhaps the first person perspective means that i am Freeman and therefore i don't seen him as anyone other than me.

Early in my gaming experience is Kyle Katarn from the Jedi Knight series of games was a great character for me. I enjoyed playing a Jedi, but there was a sense that Kyle was always on the edge of getting revenge, which made him a more interesting personality than Luke. I hope that Lucasfilm Games returns to him now that Disney have taken over.


----------



## HareBrain (Jun 21, 2021)

Cloud! Sephiroth!


----------



## Toby Frost (Jun 21, 2021)

Gordon Freeman is a bit of a blank slate, probably deliberately. I always liked Garrett, the hero and narrator of the _Thief_ games, who was basically a noir private eye. Joel of _The Last of Us _is quite well-rounded. I played so much of _Left 4 Dead 1_ that I ended up liking the four characters, who have some good dialogue.

I tend to find that it's the companions in role-playing games that I remember. I particularly liked the red robot in _Knights of the Old Republic_, the people in _Dragon Age 2_ (especially Merrin the Welsh elf), and Nick Valentine and Piper in _Fallout 4_. 

Sander Cohen of _Bioshock _- basically a cross between Salvador Dali and the Joker - was a good villain. _Farcry 3_ had a notably unpleasant villain named Buck, IIRC.

Special mention must go to the alien scientist in _Mass Effect 2_, who sings Gilbert and Sullivan, and the narrator of _Strange Brigade_, who sounds how I imagine Space Captain Smith to sound.


----------



## Rodders (Jun 21, 2021)

I have Left 4 Dead and Bioshock in my Steam Library and intend to play them at some stage and I hope that Last of Us gets a port to PC as i have read much about the game and it has all been positive.

HareBrain, what games are your's from? Final Fantasy? 

I like Artyom from Metro 2033. There was a real feeling of hopelessness in that game.


----------



## alexvss (Jun 21, 2021)

2-B, Mai Shiranui, Chun-Li, Cammy!

I like it for the plot.



Rodders said:


> I have Left 4 Dead and Bioshock in my Steam Library and intend to play them at some stage and I hope that Last of Us gets a port to PC as i have read much about the game and it has all been positive.
> 
> HareBrain, what games are your's from? Final Fantasy?
> 
> I like Artyom from Metro 2033. There was a real feeling of hopelessness in that game.


I think that you'll probably won't like any characters from *Left 4 Dead* and *Bioshock* because, uh, the protagonists are barely characters at all. In *Bioshock*, they don't speak nor have a face nor any personality until the third installment, and in *Left 4 Dead* they're not characters, they're just "skins" for you to play online.

And yes, HareBrain's characters are from *FFVII*.


----------



## DrStrangelove (Jun 21, 2021)

*Kain and Raziel* from the *Legacy of Kain* series - beautifully acted opponents who, in time, realize thay need eachother more than anyone to survive.

*Solid Snake* from *Metal Gear Solid *- returning to Shadow Moses is a joy mostly due to his gritty sense of humour and occasional insights in the nature of warfare.

*Leon S. Kennedy* from *Resident Evil *- seeing him evolve from a terrified, first-dand-last day cop to a wacky, one liner spitting action hero from RE2 to RE4 is wonderful. 

*Kane* from *Command and Conquer *- one of the best if not the best villains in video game history with his trademark mix of terrorist leader, genius scientist and religious messiah with Abrahamic undertones.

*Karan S'Jet* from *Homeworld* - her sacrifice to lead the Kushan expedition into the dark void and calm voice between battles really sets the tone for both games that starr her.


----------



## Toby Frost (Jun 21, 2021)

alexvss said:


> I think that you'll probably won't like any characters from *Left 4 Dead* and *Bioshock* because, uh, the protagonists are barely characters at all. In *Bioshock*, they don't speak nor have a face nor any personality until the third installment, and in *Left 4 Dead* they're not characters, they're just "skins" for you to play online.



The first two_ Bioshock_ protagonists don't speak, but the antagonists do, and both Cohen and Ryan are good villains. Elizabeth and Booker from _Bioshock Infinite _are also good. The people in _Left 4 Dead_ do have separate characters, and while stereotypes (student, veteran, biker and office worker) their banter is quite entertaining. The team members from the second and third_ Shadowrun_ games are well done, too.


----------



## DrStrangelove (Jun 21, 2021)

Toby Frost said:


> The first two_ Bioshock_ protagonists don't speak, but the antagonists do, and both Cohen and Ryan are good villains. Elizabeth and Booker from _Bioshock Infinite _are also good. The people in _Left 4 Dead_ do have separate characters, and while stereotypes (student, veteran, biker and office worker) their banter is quite entertaining. The team members from the second and third_ Shadowrun_ games are well done, too.



*Shadowrun: Dragonfall* has one of my favorite NPCs in cyberpunk history, and that's Dietrich, a literal punk in a genre that in recent years, especially due to Deus Ex series, is ridden with cops rather than lowlifes.


----------



## hitmouse (Jun 21, 2021)

White kings pawn.


----------



## Phyrebrat (Jun 22, 2021)

*Assassin’s Creed*
Ezio Auditore da Firenze !! 
Alaïr ibn la Ahad

Galen Starkiller (The Force Unleashed)


----------



## Lawrence Twiddy (Jun 22, 2021)

DrStrangelove said:


> *Kain and Raziel* from the *Legacy of Kain* series - beautifully acted opponents who, in time, realize thay need eachother more than anyone to survive.
> 
> *Solid Snake* from *Metal Gear Solid *- returning to Shadow Moses is a joy mostly due to his gritty sense of humour and occasional insights in the nature of warfare.
> 
> ...


Wow completely forgot Kane from Command and Conquer, that one rolled back from memories. Great shout.

Characters I’ve really enjoyed across the years would be *Cloud Strife *and* Tifa *who’s second name eludes me; both from Final Fantasy VII. 
*Max Payne *was a wickedly violent anti-hero who I could not help but enjoy to play as.
Then on a lighter note always loved a comical or witty character so have to mention *Earth Worm Jim* and *Trevor Phillips *from GTAV. 
Then lastly I was besotted with the enigmatic *Mewtwo *from Pokemon, no dialogue or much else for that matter but that fact only intrigued be further as a teen.


----------



## Lawrence Twiddy (Jun 22, 2021)

And Alex the Kid  loved Alex the Kid!!!

_The theme tune will now ruin my day! _


----------



## Phyrebrat (Jun 22, 2021)

Lawrence Twiddy said:


> And Alex the Kid  loved Alex the Kid!!!
> 
> _The theme tune will now ruin my day! _



In that case I want to add Ulala!!


----------



## HareBrain (Jun 22, 2021)

Lawrence Twiddy said:


> *Tifa *who’s second name eludes me


That was her second name. Her first name was Ann. It's why she decided to fight Shinra.



Lawrence Twiddy said:


> Earth Worm Jim


I never played the game but I enjoyed the cartoon. I have a hankering to watch it again now.


----------



## Dan Jones (Jun 22, 2021)

*Sephiroth*, obviously, but HB got there first.

*Pyramid Head* from Silent Hill.

*Blackwall *from Dragon Age (specifically Inquisition).



Lawrence Twiddy said:


> *Earth Worm Jim*


What a game that was! Genuinely witty. And, on the same sort of line...

*Toejam and Earl.*


----------



## paranoid marvin (Jun 22, 2021)

*Minsc and Boo.*


----------



## W Collier (Jun 23, 2021)

The DOOMSLAYER.  I sympathize with his approach to problem solving.


----------



## Lawrence Twiddy (Jun 23, 2021)

Phyrebrat said:


> In that case I want to add Ulala!!


Ulala falls short of my radar, the nostalgia is all yours 




HareBrain said:


> That was her second name. Her first name was Ann. It's why she decided to fight Shinra.
> 
> 
> I never played the game but I enjoyed the cartoon. I have a hankering to watch it again now.



Ahhh yes the cartoon was equally as good! If this thread was about cartoons it would still make my list alongside *SuperTed* and *Biker Mice from Mars  *


----------



## Lawrence Twiddy (Jun 23, 2021)

Dan Jones said:


> *Sephiroth*, obviously, but HB got there first.
> 
> *Pyramid Head* from Silent Hill.
> 
> ...



hahaha! The alien rappers!? Never played it but my close friend was obsessed.


----------



## Dan Jones (Jun 23, 2021)

Brilliant game. Very dated now, but for its time it was really irreverent, surreal and witty. Plus, the 8-bit beats were Jammin', as Toejam would say! Great characters; they never said much but they were just so weird and cool.


----------



## Saiyali (Jun 24, 2021)

She doesn't really do anything but this .. it's enough


----------



## alexvss (Jun 25, 2021)

Saiyali said:


> She doesn't really do anything but this .. it's enough
> 
> View attachment 79555


That's *Oblivion* dialogue at its finest!


----------



## Alextrax52 (Jul 27, 2021)

Albert Wesker. A great fighter, even better schemer and world class backstabber. He’s what all villains should be: Ruthless, cunning,deadly and never accepting anything below success. It’s a shame that you can’t as him more in a story outside umbrella chronicles


----------



## Guttersnipe (Jul 27, 2021)

Sonic the Hedgehog


----------



## AllanR (Jul 27, 2021)

Manny Calavera from Grim Fandango.


----------



## AlexH (Jul 27, 2021)

Surely gaming is bound to be more immersive than cinema, so it's not really a comparison? You get to be the main character after all. It's up to you whether the main character progresses or not. Many games have much more time than cinema to get you immersed too.

I think *Mario *is a great character, and he's even gained an air of coolness about him in recent years.

*Guybrush Threepwood* from the Monkey Island games is hilarious, and *Coach *from Golf Story is pretty funny too:





*Joanna Dark* stood out in the 90s when there weren't many decent female characters in games, and *Elvis *the alien from Perfect Dark was great too.

I think a lot of 80s and early 90s games managed to inject characters with personality, even when limited by the technology of the time. E.g. *Dizzy*, the snakes from Snake, Rattle n Roll, the blob from A Boy and His Blob.

I haven't played many of the well-known story-driven games of recent years yet but have a few on my list...


----------



## paranoid marvin (Jul 31, 2021)

AlexH said:


> Surely gaming is bound to be more immersive than cinema, so it's not really a comparison? You get to be the main character after all. It's up to you whether the main character progresses or not. Many games have much more time than cinema to get you immersed too.
> 
> I think *Mario *is a great character, and he's even gained an air of coolness about him in recent years.
> 
> ...




Guybrush is/was an excellent character, but I think he lost a little something when he began to have a spoken voice. I guess when you have been playing the older games for years, you already have an image of the character's voice in your head, so that when you finally hear it there's is a likelihood it won't be what you were expecting/hoping for.

On the other hand, the voice characters from Day of The Tentacle I think we're all fabulously done, and help to make it such a wonderful adventure. As much as I like the earlier Monkey Island games, the puzzles, characters and inventive puzzles from DOTT gave it the edge for me.

I agree that the 80s and early 90s had some great characters, and this was probably because of the fact that technical constraints meant that you had to fill in many of the blanks in their make up. Dizzy is a good example, as are the likes of Miner Willy, Dynamite Dan, Jetman and Eric from Skool Daze.


----------



## Mon0Zer0 (Aug 1, 2021)

Alextrax52 said:


> Albert Wesker.



Not "master of unlocking" Jill Valentine?

My favourite characters from games are a bit daft:

Earthworm Jim
Duke Nukem
Doom Guy
Thomas (Kung Fu Master)
Rick (Splatterhouse)
Arthur (Ghosts N Goblins)
Isaac Clarke (Dead Space)
Geralt of Rivia
Guybrush Threepwood
Bilbo Baggins (Hobbit text based rpg)


----------



## Dahlvier (May 19, 2022)

Jon Irenicus from Baldur's Gate II.

Also Syous & D'raven from Dungeons & Dragons: Shadow Over Mystara as playable characters.


----------



## Bramandin (May 19, 2022)

DrStrangelove said:


> *Kain and Raziel* from the *Legacy of Kain* series



Raziel is my waifu.  I've been lightly ribbed for the necrophilia.

I'm not sure that I've played many other games with strong character arcs.  Sly Cooper does have a noble goal concerning his family legacy.  Kratos has pathos.  The Prince of Persia doesn't even have a name as far as I remember.  I'm not sure how much Daxter is really bothered by not being 'human.'


----------



## Guttersnipe (May 19, 2022)

Pac-Man seems like an OK guy.


----------



## Toby Frost (May 23, 2022)

He used to have his own TV show. He had a wife and kids, if I remember rightly, which is quite an extrapolation from the game.

I'd have to give an honourable mention to Sienna, the enthusiastically-acted wizard from the Vermintide games, who sounds like one of the great dames of British theatre on a massive night out.


----------



## bradleyibanez66 (Sep 13, 2022)

Dan Jones said:


> Brilliant game. Very dated now, but for its time it was really irreverent, surreal and witty. Plus, the 8-bit beats were Jammin', as Toejam would say! Great characters; they never said much but they were just so weird and cool.


I spent so many hours playing toejam and earl.  Thanks for the memory! My brain went straight to modern games, I forgot how old I am. 
One of my favorite games of all time was Rock and Roll Racing. Can't forget Mutant League Hockey, NBA Jam, Joe Montana Football, Wayne Gretzky's Hockey, a Sega genesis Fifa and Royal Rumble. So many good classics. Mario Paint lol remembering so many good games. 
Fav characters would have to be Master Chief from Halo 3 and, none other than, Seph-a-Roth dunah dunah dunah dunah Seph-a-roth. I also really enjoy Red 13 and the Cosmo canyon music. The original You Can Hear the Cry of the Planet track still plays in my head years later. Can't forget Symphony of the Night Castlevania. Thanks for the nostalgia! I could go on for days


----------



## bradleyibanez66 (Sep 13, 2022)

Guttersnipe said:


> Pac-Man seems like an OK guy.


That cherry chasin' dot muncher isn't even part of this game! Lol Wreck it Ralph great movie


----------



## Guttersnipe (Sep 13, 2022)

bradleyibanez66 said:


> That cherry chasin' dot muncher isn't even part of this game! Lol Wreck it Ralph great movie


You might know this already, but in the West, he was first called Puck-Man. They had to change it when people started to graffiti an F over the P.


----------



## bradleyibanez66 (Sep 13, 2022)

I didn't know that. "the title was changed for the North American release to mitigate vandalism." -wikipedia so funny, I might have never put that together without your description. Poor Mrs.PacMan having to put up with her husband's insatiable desires. 
I installed flooring in a house on the outskirts of Oxford, Ohio years ago. The widow living in this very large house claimed her husband was one of the original developers of the game. I thought it was interesting having been a gamer for most of my life.


----------



## bradleyibanez66 (Sep 13, 2022)

I guess I have to mention my human warlock from World of Warcraft: Bergynon. So many years of my life spent playing this character, downing bosses and humiliating opponents in pvp. Sometimes getting my own faced wiped against the pavement in gruesome battles. Fine! A lot of that, too! lol Some epic experiences being in top tier guilds, being the first guilds to down raid bosses on a realm and being part of the turning tide in massive pvp battles once our guilds roll onto the battleground. So many mentions on forums cursing us for crushing their hopes and dreams. What a great time! 
I do believe I got the name from one of the younger sons of the House Baenre bloodline in R.A.Salvatore's drow city Menzoberranzan. He was a lowly figure, but my Bergy achieved great valor. I was never in any of the nationally, or internationally ranked guilds, the game was already enough of my life to not fully immerse the entirety of it into the game, but I was regularly ranked in the top 100 on a few realms and was fortunate enough to hold the number one slot for warlocks on several occasions.  This character alone has literally over 365 days worth of hours logged in gameplay! I tanked with a dwarf warrior named Arcanisia regularly. Inspired by one of my favorite Magic the Gathering cards: Arcanis, the Omnipotent. And a Dranaei Shaman named Waar I healed with. 
I really don't game at all these days now that I have dived completely into the world of writing fiction, but there are so many fond memories of downing bosses and slaying opponents with good friends in my past.


----------



## Rodders (Sep 13, 2022)

I liked Jedi: Fallen Order and enjoyed Cal Kestis and his crew. I especially liked the sardonic humour of Merin. Looking forward to revisiting Cal's story in Jedi: Survivor. 

Deacon St. John in Day's Gone has been a lot of fun to play.


----------



## Vince W (Sep 13, 2022)

Recently: Amicia de Rune, Amanda Ripley, Doom Guy

Historically: Arthur Dent, Zork player, Starship Titanic passenger, Nethack hero @


----------



## Rodders (Sep 14, 2022)

Amanda Ripley. Good shout. 

I'm going to give Horizon Zero Dawn another go in a few weeks. I suspect that Aloy will become a favourite.


----------

