A character duality is when two characters share similar features; be it in physical resemblance, personal attributes, or even story purposes. The term can sometimes apply when two characters are on opposite sides of a cast – one is a villain, the other a hero, but they are both so closely interconnected and have more in common than the game will at first reveal.
This kind of dual-relationship lends itself extremely well in the character development of both, and is often a common theme in many RPGs. In the following list, I will count down my Top 7 favorite female character dualities.
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While we were assembling our list of the best comic book games we noticed some strange patterns. For one thing, Spiderman or the X-men are in pretty much all of them. Isn’t it odd then that the Spiderman and X-men game kind of sucked? And why can’t DC make a good game for once?
We’re hoping the upcoming DC Universe Online for PC and PS3 changes all that, but we’ve been burned before so we’ll reserve judgement for now. On with the list!
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If there’s one thing that’s been established in a video game, it’s that you can rarely succeed without donning a full-bodied, hi-tech armored suit of some kind. Sometimes these very suits define the character; they are such iconic symbols that one immediately knows the game that they are from. In even rarer cases, the entire suit is ALL you know of the character, covering every inch of their body in every single game they’ve been featured. No face to put to the name, just an image of one badass suit.
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When a company is sitting on a goldmine, you wouldn’t expect them to want to do anything else. SquareEnix has Final Fantasy; Nintendo has Mario, Zelda, and Metroid; Bungie has Halo; Valve has Half-Life. Sometimes these companies will take a brief step away from those franchises and make a game that goes relatively unnoticed, or, if it does gather a great deal of exposure, eventually fades from the forefront due to a lack of support and consistency.
Perhaps the sequels are not on par with the prior games. Or perhaps the companies just give up on them entirely after the first. Whatever the case is, here are the top 10 games or franchises that I feel deserve a revival.
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Sequels are an interesting aspect of the gaming industry. Lately, it seems, the public has been subjected to a barrage of nothing but sequels; Metal Gear Solid 4, Grand Theft Auto IV, Soul Calibur IV, Call of Duty 4, Halo 3, and the list goes on and on. Let’s not forget the list of games soon to be released: Resistance 2, God of War 3, Final Fantasy XIII, Fable II, Fallout 3, Far Cry 2…you get my point yet?
I don’t blame the developers, though; I blame the consumers (including myself) who continue to buy into the trend of rehashed products with spruced-up graphics. I mean, why spend $50-60 on a game you don’t know about when you could just fork over that cash for a sequel that you know will be about as good as its predecessor?
Still…there are those rare occasions where a sequel is absolutely necessary, in such cases where a developer wants to tell an epic, grand story that would take far too long for one game. In this list, I will count down my top 10 most anticipated sequels that need to hurry the hell up.
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When one plays any current action game, the heroes generally fall into one of the following categories; super-soldier, godlike being, physically-dominant warrior, The Hulk. It’s almost a “Get Out of Jail Free” card to portray the main character as one of these stereotypes. Imagine how the Metal Gear series would’ve panned out if Snake wasn’t such a badass?
Granted, Snake is one of very few that fall into this cliché and yet still remains an extremely well-developed character. Others, such as Kratos or Marcus Fenix, remain shallow and one-dimensional figures, possessing pure brute strength and little emotion or regards for anything else.
In this list, I will count down the 5 Most Unlikely Heroes that dare to step away from this over-used practice and shine based on their own personal merits and offbeat surprises.
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Main characters of video games are often of the humanoid-variety: You have your Clouds, and your Links, and your Dantes, and your Master Chiefs, and so on. Far too often are the minor characters of such games overshadowed by them, much more in the cases where those minor characters aren’t even human. Or even if the main characters themselves, are, in fact, non-human. That is why it will be my pleasure and privilege to present to you the top 10 video game characters, throughout the span of video game’s existence, that are not humans, but in fact, animals.
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In the most recent years of video games, it would seem a common practice to feature one of the antagonist characters sporting their fair-colored hair in one style or another. Some would argue that it has become the pivotal requirement for a villain for future-games all because of the most famous one there is, the iconic Sephiroth.
Like him or not, his infamy has become the cornerstone of fair-haired villains; it is like him that others strive to become. That is why, in this list, I will present to you the Top 10 Fair-Haired Villains that are not Sephiroth. While not all of them fulfill the traditional “villain” role, those that do not still hold an antagonistic spot in the game’s cast; yet all of the following names have the one, most important thing in common – light hair.
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Ah the side-scrolling beat ‘em up, the game where you took on the might of 100 enemies by yourself, picking up Iron bars, swords and god knows what else in order to get closer to the big guy and end the whole street war. But which were the best? Good question, what follows is a fan list, be warned, there is only one game per franchise, so if your individual favourite is missed off, it is not because its awesomeness isn’t known… It is just that another game of the franchise is more awesome!
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Ah – The Mech. Mecha. Giant Robot. Android. Many names, one genre. There is something about Mecha games that draws anime fans, teens and the general action gamer. Is it the guaranteed over sized guns, huge explosions, awesome battles or a combination of the above?
Being a gamer since the days of the Atari 2600(and yes, I still have it) I’ve seen MANY different types of games come and go. Some successful, some not so successful. Some games just blew me away, some left me crying for more. Not all mecha games featured giant robots, huge explosions or oversized guns – but they got the job done regardless. This list is my top 10 picks in the Mecha genre of gaming, dating from the 1980’s to present.
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