PC Gaming's Best, And Worst, Characters

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The humble PC has given life to countless imaginary people. But which could have leapt from the pages of a far-fetched George Eliot novel, and who was the creation of a lonely coder sitting in the dark with a half-concealed erection?
As we count down the 10 best and worst characters in PC gaming the only rule is we're only allowed one character from each game (or else Half-Life 2 would take over, and this issue of PC ZONE would become a complete Valve love-in). So join us as we praise the worthy, and damn the emotionally void.

NUMBER 10

THE BEST

Carla Valenti (Fahrenheit): The plot goes off on one in Fahrenheit, but the subtly acted charms of NYPD investigator Carla never fade - whether she's sparking dialogue off detective partner Tyler or pacing around her flat brooding on an unsolved case.

Her steady, believable nature holds the game together as affairs get progressively loopier - only stalling when she gives in and jumps the bones of a killer who's literally stone cold. Still, one of the few ladies of the videogame world who you could take home to meet your parents.

THE WORST

Psycho (Crysis): Who thought that Call of Duty 2, with its potato masher-obsessed cockneys, could be beaten in terms of pure Brit-accent wrongness? And why another Londoner? What's wrong with a supersoldier from Dudley?

Psycho is the worst of the clichés on show in Crysis, narrowly beating the gruff general and Prophet the even gruffer squad leader, in terms of pure bloody-minded naffness. Just who needs this barrage of 'bollocks!' from a resident East End barrow boy? And what does he do that's so 'psycho' anyway? While he's bitching we're the ones running around throwing Koreans into the sea...

NUMBER 9

THE BEST

Garrett (Thief series): He's a quiet man by nature, but when master thief Garrett cracks open his yaw it's usually to let slip a wonderful piece of situational sarcasm. A medieval Sam Fisher of sorts, his attitude is cynical, and his pre-level monologues are rife with dry, smirking humour that marks him firmly in our books as a cool dude.

Outside of this, his ability to stash so many candelabras and paintings under his cloak is admirable. And he's got a mechanical eye too, and he's amazingly modest about it. If we had a mechanical eye we'd probably tell everybody, all the time.

THE WORST

Marcus Fenix (Gears of War): When you're some of the last remaining humans on the planet Sera capable of stopping the deadly Locust Horde, the last thing you want is to be bothered with is grumpy whining.

Marcus Fenix is a mish-mash of Deckard from Blade Runner and Eeyore from Winnie the Pooh, constantly lamenting the situation and grumbling at any levity and delighting only in the occasional profanity. Desperately in need of a hug, or maybe a tug, Fenix is the least likeable hero since Billy Zane played The Phantom.

NUMBER 8

THE BEST

LeChuck (Monkey Island series): Guybrush Threepwood and Stan the Used Ship Salesman were stars, but it was the evil Pirate LeChuck who became the poster boy/ghost/zombie/demon of the Monkey Island series.

Whether he's partying on his ghost ship with his skeletal shipmates, chasing the heart of Governor Marley (she told him to "drop dead" - so he did) or brilliantly turning out to be Guybrush's bullying older brother in the depths of an amusement park pirate ride at the close of Monkey Island 2, LeChuck is one of gaming's great undead heroes. "I laugh at you and your puny voodoo tinkerings!"

THE WORST

Sam Fisher (Splinter Cell series): Once a great, iconic character - now one in freefall due to a genuine lack of imagination on the part of his creators. The man was barely identifiable to begin with, a fairly plain superspy with no particular agendas.

With the later games, Ubisoft have crowbarred in some misguided depth. His daughter dies (we don't know her), that makes him all depressed (he throws his goggles into the sea), and makes us feel like we're controlling a great big sulking sod for the rest of the game.

Fisher is currently in the malaise of Brosnan Bond, or the god-awful recent series of 24, he stopped being a human long, long ago and it's now genuinely difficult to care about him.

NUMBER 7

THE BEST

Max Payne (Max Payne series): The game is a relatively mindless shooter wrapped in a veil of cinematic spectacle, but the titular character's setup - his downfall - is one of the best motivations for level after level of slow-motion death dealing we've ever known.

Prancing about in his guilt-ridden nightmares, unable to reach his wife and child before they're viciously murdered - these might've been rubbish levels, but they gave an extra dimension to his character, something games of this ilk can rarely achieve.

He might be a film noir cliché, but Max Payne is a relatively unique specimen in games, with a superb script and suitably smooth voice acting to match.

THE WORST

Xana (Dark Messiah): The Might & Magic universe isn't known for its big laughs, and Dark Messiah is no comedy. Full of names like Phenrig, Menelag, and Kha Beleth, this is earnest high fantasy that should only even attempt carefully considered comedy that springs naturally from the characters of the cast.

Xana is a weak attempt - a dirty wee sex-obsessive who lives inside your brain, trying to get you to be naughty and talking like Hattie Jacques before she passed the sex-kitten baton to Barbara Windsor. She was entertainment, fair enough - but with Xana, you only ever felt like you were laughing at the game and the scriptwriters, not with them...

NUMBER 6

THE BEST

Mortimer 'Morte' Rictusgrin (Planescape: Torment): Everyone has a friend they don't really like - an abusive arsehole who lives to see you suffer, but who you still like having around. Mortimer Rictusgrin - Morte to his friends - is exactly that guy... well, head.

He's a sarcastic, lying and stunningly witty flying skull. By the end he accepts the blame for the lives he's destroyed (including repeatedly causing the death the immortal, amnesiac Nameless One - your character) but is redeemed through his friendship with you. Amongst a pack of memorable characters, Morte is the one you love Planescape for.

THE WORST

Tommy (Prey): As much as we share Tommy's sceptical stance on the dualism of body and spirit, we like to think that we're open-minded enough to change our minds, should we find ourselves using that very spirit to navigate a gravity-mangled spaceship.

And any justifiable doubts about the afterlife should be wiped out after you've been taken there a number of times, and bestowed with magical powers that you immediately start using. Although Prey has a number of memorable moments, the Cherokee-in-denial and protagonist Tommy provides precisely none of them. You know a character has failed to engage you when you gleefully kill your own love interest.

NUMBER 5

THE BEST

Alyx Vance (Half-Life 2 and Episodes): On the upside, Alyx is a strong female character who is well-realised, scripted, and acted. Although her jokes can fall flat (naming the zombines, for example), that's only human, and the times where you trigger one of her hidden phrases in Episode One made you feel like you were fighting alongside someone you actually liked.

Hardy bullet sponge that she is, you still felt protective, and when she pranked you with her torch, you really did want to slap her. In Episode Two she may as well have been replaced with a talking keyring that says "Thank goodness you're alive", "I thought... for a minute..." and "This way!", but the final sequence reminded everyone why they cared so much...

THE WORST

Prince of Persia (POP: Warrior Within): Whose idea was it to have the Prince regress into an angst-ridden teenage state? The same dead-eyed idiot who messed up Sam Fisher we suppose, trying to increase his appeal by making him 'edgier', 'hip' and 'eternally tormented'.

The prince has gone 'bad', he's 'rogue', and he's got 'problems' he doesn't want to talk about - look, just check his MySpace. He was embarrassing at the best of times, but the latest game pushes the envelope by delivering dialogue that's on par with that bit in Spider-Man 3 where Peter Parker went emo. Still, it made impaling him on spikes that little bit more fun.

NUMBER 4

THE BEST

Sander Cohen (BioShock): Rapture is full of mad bastards, but our favourite is this particular mad bastard - whose underlying theme is that of the inflated artistic ego (or Ayn Rand or something clever like that).

We're introduced to Cohen's madness with a brilliant scene in which a tortured pianist struggles to bang out Cohen's masterpiece without fault - ultimately failing and incurring the full brunt of Cohen's lunacy.

Andrew Ryan lead the best scene, Atlas has the best lines, Tenenbaum was a vision of maternal loveliness juxtaposed with unethical genetic experimentation (everything got juxtaposed in BioShock), but Cohen's relentless theatrics in the face of desolation bowled us over.

THE WORST

Matt Baker (Brothers in Arms series): Brothers in Arms, ostensibly, is a delicate and touching tribute to the men who fought and died for our freedom in World War II. But Matt Baker never seems to be a real person, more a banal rose-tinted Apple Pie-ism.

The way he talks as he wistfully stares out of a plane is like he's on Dawson's bloody Creek, while cutscenes are like watching members of an obscure cult coughing up the more mundane parts of a dictionary. The games may be well meant, and you can't fault the historical accuracy, but if the American GIs that kept on chasing after your gran during WW2 had voices this cloying then the reason she refused to put out is clear.

NUMBER 3

THE BEST

HK-47 (KOTOR series): "Shall we find something to kill to cheer ourselves up?" Easily the highlight of the KOTOR series, even if they buggered up his storyline in The Sith Lords, HK-47 is a cheerfully insane assassin droid. The roots of his madness, brilliantly relayed as you delve into his memory banks, lie with yourself, because you corrupted him as Darth Revan.

With a cheery aristocratic tone, and with a love of the word 'meatbag', you also feel a strange empathy for him: not least when he is unwillingly fitted with the HK Protocol Pacifist Package in KOTOR 2.

"Conclusion: There was a brief moment where I felt like I almost understood why some meatbags choose peace and friendship over a high-powered blaster carbine."

THE WORST

Kyle Katarn (Dark Forces and Jedi Knight series): He's bearded, he's boring, he's bland and his name is Kyle Katarn. He was originally a genuinely interesting character in the Han Solo mould working for the Imperials before jumping ship when he found out they'd tortured his dad.

But somewhere along the line the decision was made to give him Force powers - and with Force powers comes great responsibility, the emotional resonance of cardboard and the worst beard in videogaming. Star Wars may have started out in the '70s, but that's no reason for its gaming icon to dress like a beige-obsessed disco cowboy.

NUMBER 2

THE BEST

GLaDOS (Portal): Since its release in The Orange Box, a massive truck full of gushing plaudits has backed up to Portal, opened its doors and swamped the poor game in overwritten analyses and tearful commendations. People didn't just enjoy the absurdity of the Weighted Companion Cube: it descended into a embarrassing internet-wide competition of 'who can fall in love with it the most'.

In the middle of the cake-led catchphrase madness, it's almost possible to forget that Portal contains the perfectly-metered, and lyrical voice of GLaDOS. Her descent from the disinterested compliance to a set of mysterious protocols into the hysterical, desperate - and hilariously childish - boss that you tear to pieces is one of the most finely controlled mental breakdowns since American Psycho.

GLaDOS is the humorous, clinical, savage and poignant heart of Portal. Without her, the Companion Cube would remain unloved and unpersonified, and there'd be no-one to sing that song. There'd also be a lack of idiots thinking that saying "the cake is a lie" makes them as funny as the game, but you take the rough with the smooth.

Without GLaDOS, Portal would be an entertaining and well-respected puzzler. But it wouldn't have had everyone tearing their nuts off and screaming how much they loved it the most.

THE WORST

Martin Septim (Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion): When it was revealed that Patrick Stewart and Sean Bean would be lending their voice talents to Oblivion, we thought we'd have seen the end of the soulless, monotonous verbal dirge that spews from the gobs of the game's moronic residents.

Captain Jean Luc Picard's bleak rendition of Uriel Septim manages to make the Emperor look like a mad old pensioner, but he avoids this list by being killed off so quickly. Sean Bean's character sticks around far longer though, at all times sounding like a man incapable of emotion.

His script is a load of wank too, always going on about some rubbish nobody really cares about. Even when he turns into a giant ferocious dragon he's still a bit annoying, and embarrassing to watch - like if your dad turned into a massive mythical creature made of fire. He even talks about turning into a dragon like you'd talk about ordering a coffee.

"One grande cappuccino with an extra shot, and I'll be turning into a dragon to save the world - is there a discount for that?"

Sean Bean may have been a housewife's favourite in Sharpe, but stick him in a sound recording studio and he's reduced to a painfully dull oaf.

NUMBER 1...

THE BEST

SHODAN (System Shock series): Two robotic matriarchs in the top two positions? It can only speak to our male, fleshy weakness, and the thrill of being overwhelmed. The comparisons quickly run dry, however: Portal leaves everything to the imagination - System Shock has a strongly defined storyline. SHODAN provides you with a tormentor, an ally, a betrayer.

Her story is handled in such a remarkable way; her interaction with you completely natural within the immaculate storyline - it's easy to imagine the System Shock games as a movie, but it's the very best example of a filmic storyline playing better as a game.

SHODAN is the benevolent chip who had her ethical considerations hacked away, turning her into a passionate megalomaniac, and a casual liar. She's not mad - she's consistent and reasonable. She's just reasonable on her own twisted terms, which, with an inch of empathy, aren't even that twisted.

We've seen SHODAN at her most powerful and her most vulnerable, and although we never once suspected she'd reform and become a dutiful little AI on a mining vessel again, she never failed to be anything other than an enthralling and intelligent enemy and ally. She gets the top spot because she's every definition of awesome.

THE WORST

Norton Mapes (F.E.A.R.): Norton Mapes is a cancerous growth on the face ofthe first-person shooter. One minute you're nailing leather-clad goons to walls and watching arteries spray the walls with claret, the next minute you're standing on a carpet of baked cheese-flavoured snacks, listening to Carry On music and being talked at by IT support.

When a character's biggest gag is a belt buckle that says 'RTFM', at what point do you realise you're onto a bad idea? Apparently never, what with his magical bullet/explosion evading Lazarus act after F.E.A.R. and consequent reappearance in Extraction Point.

Based on the Dennis Nedry character from Jurassic Park, Norton Mapes is a blight on PC gaming. He stalls the game, he fails to amuse and he's a grotesque stereotype that ties obesity to surliness, duplicity and cowardliness.

PC Zone Staff