The gaming world has so much to offer to us, apart from the entertainment, there are the super awesome weapons, costumes and moments that you share with friends while playing a game together. The world has seen, especially over the years, the influence of this vast and ever increasing industry.
However, all this influence is further magnified through a good protagonist who intensifies the entire experience. It’s these protagonists that help a gamer really get into a game and end up spending hours and hours in the company of their favorite heroes. It goes to a point when they aren’t just treated as mere fictional characters, but are treated as personalities. These protagonists have feelings, good and bad traits, weaknesses, powerful abilities and flaws etc just like any other human being, which is what helps bridge the gap between the virtual realm and reality.
Let’s take a look at some gaming characters that earned that position in our hearts this year. Dont forget to poll for your favorite character too 🙂
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5. Isaac Briggs
The main character of the Splinter Cell franchise, Sam Fisher received somewhat of a makeover in the latest edition of Splinter Cell, a new voice-actor and a complete change of personality, making him less of a ‘one man show” and more of a team-player. This change brings in space for Isaac Briggs, his fellow Cell-operative and confidant.
Isaac Briggs is an operator with Fourth Echelon. He initially was a former CIA officer and his expertise included tradecraft, advanced weaponry, stealth, sniping, armed and unarmed combat tactics. He accompanies Fisher on many missions, and brings to the game a different ‘by-the-book’ attitude compared Fisher’s narrow minded approach. However, his sections are only playable in a first person mode. We all know his importance in the game, just to name a couple incidents (without trying to spoil it for you) — the bomb-defusal scene in Majid Sadiq with Sam and the main antagonist, Briggs role here proves to be very beneficial.
4. Edward Kenway
Assassin’s Creed IV marks a huge step up for the franchise, not only because this edition made up for all the wrongs that were in Rvelations and Assassin’s Creed III, but also the main character Edward Kenway has a totally different mindset from the series, not bound by the Creed, but pursuing wealth and fortunes by any means necessary.
From his opening kill, which leads him as a disguise into the ‘Order’, we see his desire for gold to only grow. After getting his own ship, Kenway sets off pillaging fellow cargo ships and reinforcing his legion. He also starts off the game having mastered the art of dual-cutlasses, which allows rope-swing invasion of a nearby ship. How can a gamer not like this sort of ferocity, rawness and come on….pirates!
3. Booker DeWitt
If you look up the word “badass” in the dictionary, you’ll find a picture Booker DeWtitt. He personifies the ultimate good “bad guy”. DeWitt is the main character in BioShock Infinite. If he’s not saving Elizabeth, he’s out taking on countless numbers of the city of Columbia’s more disturbed citizens.
From the picture itself you can tell that he is not only has a good dressing sense, but also is a taciturn and serious man, who feels deep regret for atrocities and wrongdoing committed in his past. While Booker is often surprised, and sometimes frightened, by objects and situations encountered in Columbia, he is quick to adapt, which is more than enough to earn him a spot on this list.
And all that needs to be said about Mr. DeWitt can be summed up with this quote of his–“One thing I’ve learned: if you don’t draw first, you don’t get to draw at all.”
2. Trevor Philips an Michael De Santa
Trevor’s history is best described in his own words–“grew up in five states, two countries, fourteen different homes, eight fathers, three care homes, two correctional facilities, one beautiful, damaged flower of a mother” and has “served time, my country, your country and myself.”
He had a violent father and a condescending mother that were the root cause of his long list of violent outbursts. There is just too much to mention about this character, but the one of the most memorable scene is the realisation that he was going to board a plane (already in mid-air) with another plane!
Michael is a gangster-turned-family-man-turned-gangster-again. He too had a bad childhood and used to be a quarter back in college till he was forced to quit due to his temper. He eventually became a criminal and was the brains behind robberies which were associated with Trevor.
Another true character in himself, Michael ticks all the check boxes of being a dope gaming character. His life too can be summed up in his own words–“I pay you to listen to my problems. I’m rich. I’m miserable. Half the time, my kids can’t stand me. The other half, my wife is cheating on me. I kill people without remorse, Doc. Hell, I’m pretty average for this town, really.”
1. Ellie and Joel
Here to take the top spot in the search for the most awesome gaming characters of 2013 are Ellie and Joel from The Last of Us. Both characters portray phenomenal qualities which compliment each other.
Although Ellie is the secondary character in the game, she is a crucial and vital character to the development of the game. She is a fourteen-year-old survivor who is mature beyond her years as a result of her environment’s circumstances. She does show genuine concern and emotion, for instance when Tess sacrifices her life for both Joel and herself.
Ellie also cares greatly for Joel when she cares for him when he was injured, just as he has cared and sheltered her throughout their story, indicating Ellie now views him as a “father” to her and she’s willing to do everything she can to keep him alive even if that means risking her own life in the process.
Joel’s character is best described by Naughty Dog’s description of him:
A brutal survivor with few moral lines left to cross. Joel, now in his late 40s, has been hardened by the ravages of the fungal pandemic that has devastated civilization as we know it. He’s lost friends, family, and everything he valued in life. Living in one of few remaining military-controlled quarantine zones, he operates as a black market smuggler, dealing in contraband, taking numerous de-humanizing jobs over the years to survive in this new post-pandemic world. Joel’s conscience slowly dwindles away as he shuts down his emotions to cope to his new life.
Joel first didn’t really get along with Ellie, but slowly grew fond of her and goes to vicious ends to keep her safe , for instance he tortures two of David’s men to find out Ellie’s whereabouts, going so far as to kill them after gaining the information he needed.
Whether being selfish, or not wanting to lose another ‘daughter’ to the whim of another, Joel chose to save Ellie and try and start some semblance of a normal life again. It is speculated that his decision to massacre everyone inside the facility in Salt Lake City, is to cut all loose ends, to ensure that no one will have the knowledge of Ellie and thus no one will go after her in the future.
These characters appeal so much to us because of their resemblance to ours. The more relations a character has, the easier it is for us to identify with them. Joel and Ellie both are characters that interact with various other characters and are put in an assortment of situations which bring out varied reactions in them, which like mentioned earlier, only makes it easier for us to recognize them for the versatile, adaptable and human-like characters they portray.
Well this was our list of top 5 gaming characters of this year. Let us know if we’ve missed any, or if you think someone else deserved a spot on this list.
