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Guinness announces the Top 50 videogame characters of all time.

Do you agree with this list?

  • Yes

    Votes: 30 27.5%
  • No

    Votes: 79 72.5%

  • Total voters
    109
I swear Soap is only there for the "Soap Trusted You!" meme or something. Also, why does Modern Warfare get the luxury of having two characters from the same game taking up slots in the top 20? Seems really overrepresented.

The list is also missing notable "legacy" characters like the Space Invaders, Pitfall Harry, Sub-Zero/Scorpion, or Fox McCloud, and more recent "big hits that stood the one-console-gen test of time" like Minecraft Steve or Sans.

(This was all written before I realized that Naruto and Goku are on the list for god knows what reason. All credibility ruined.)
 

Y0ssarian

Banned
Trash. TWO Gears of Wars characters, no Ryu Hayabusa or Bayonetta. THREE COD characters? Who the duck is Ghost? Is that the dead guy from MW2?

Why is Jak in there (no Daxter either?)? The games are good but they haven't made a game in like 15 years and I doubt anyone gives a duck about Jak
 
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Deerock71

Member
Pikachu, the face of the largest franchise of any kind in the world, is 20. It could be argued he (it?) should be #1, and I don't even care for the franchise that much (9 year old obsesses over it, however).

EDIT- Just caught no Ryza. The whole list is invalidated now. :p
 
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01011001

Banned
38. Guybrush Threepwood (The Secret of Monkey Island, LucasArts, 1990)
39. Spyro (Spyro the Dragon, Universal, 1998)
40. “Ghost” Riley (Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II, Activision, 2009)
41. Goku (Dragon Daihikyoe, Epoch, 1987)
50. Sackboy (LIttleBigPlanet, Sony, 2008)

Animated GIF
 
Its a list. Like am I really gonna go YES KRATOS is a better character than Sonic!

I agree with it without even looking.

Edit.
I do have to say.

Shouldn’t Halo say Bungie, and Crash say Naughty Dog?

Or are we going by ownership. Then they should both say Microsoft.
 
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MrA

Member
Considering this is a list to settle stupid bar arguments, it gets the job it set out to do done,, create a silly list. besides we all know the best video game character is also britians greatest prime Minister Pitt the elder
 
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Now that I realize that anomality on this list, it dawned on me...

As a collective whole, much of what is on this list was of relevance in the mid-2000's.

Monkey Island is on this list entirely because of that "Tales Of" series. Naruto is on this list because that's when the dub of the anime peaked in North America.
Ryu is number 49 because this list may had been being written with a "lol fighting games are dead" mindset from before IV took off.
The sheer amount of CoD and Gears reps suggests a favoritism towards "dudebro" FPS culture which was at it's peak during this time.
Several game characters on this list were big in that time but are effectively dead IP nowadays. Looking at Sackboy and Eddie Briggs here especially.

This explains A LOT. They probably literally pulled this from an old writeup before the PS4 even came out.

Pikachu, the face of the largest franchise of any kind in the world, is 20. It could be argued he (it?) should be #1, and I don't even care for the franchise that much (9 year old obsesses over it, however).

The lack of Charizard is also really glaring, given how many Mario characters they crammed on the list. But I guess Mario was the only Nintendo one allowed to have multiple characters in it, since Zelda's only got Link up there.

Incidentally, in spite of what I proposed earlier, the lack of Mii on the list is ALSO glaring, considering Sackboy's presence.
 

March Climber

Gold Member
Soap is rated that high above those other characters?
Not sure I remember Captain Price or any protagonists from any CoD games.
I don’t know who tf are the COD characters.
I was nodding along and then this one made me laugh really hard. I can't remember a single thing he ever said.
I find this interesting. There are a ton of people out there who grew up on the 360 CoD games and have memorable experiences with them. One of the biggest complaints regarding the last few entries(Blops 3, Advanced Warfare, Infinite Warfare), from such a large community, was that they missed regular old Modern Warfare gameplay and characters like Soap and Roach, because they were getting tired of random celebrity cameo characters and the futuristic/WW2 versions of CoD.
 
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So we're well into the second page and nobody has pointed out that this poll is literally a decade old?

As in, the source article was written on Feb 16, 2011.

Come on folks, analyse these things better before going all knee-jerk.
 

Louay

Member
Top 50 videogame characters of all time

1. Mario (Donkey Kong, Nintendo, 1981)
2. Link (The Legend of Zelda, Nintendo, 1986)
3. Master Chief (Halo: Combat Evolved, Microsoft, 2001)
4. Solid Snake (Metal Gear, Konami, 1987)
5. Cloud Strife (Final Fantasy VII, Square, 1997)
6. PAC-Man (PAC-Man, Namco, 1980)
7. Lara Croft (Tomb Raider, Eidos 1996)
8. Gordon Freeman (Half-Life, Valve, 1998 )
9. Kratos (God of War, Sony, 2005)
10. Sonic (Sonic the Hedgehog, Sega, 1990)
11. Crash (Crash Bandicoot, Sony, 1996)
12. “Soap” MacTavish (Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, Activision, 2007)
13. Nico Bellic (Grand Theft Auto IV, Rockstar, 2008 )
14. Samus Aran (Metroid, Nintendo 1986)
15. Ratchet (Ratchet & Clank, Sony, 2002)
16. Nathan Drake (Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, Sony, 2007)
17. Captain Price (Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, Activision, 2007)
18. Kirby (Kirby’s Dream Land, Nintendo, 1992)
19. Marcus Fenix (Gears of War, Microsoft, 2006)
20. Pikachu (Pokemon Red/Green, Nintendo 1996)

What do you think?

The remaining 20 are:

21. Yoshi (Super Mario World, Nintendo, 1990)
22. “CJ” Johnson (Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, Rockstar, 2004)
23. Mega Man (Mega Man, Capcom, 1987)
24. Sam Fisher (Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell, Ubisoft, 2002)
25. Shadow (Sonic Adventure 2, Sega, 2001)
26. Jak (Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy, Sony, 2001)
27. Duke Nukem (Duke Nukem, Apogee, 1991)
28. Dante (Devil May Cry, Bandai, 2003)
29. Naruto (Naruto: Konoha Ninpoch, Bandai, 2003)
30. Altair (Assassin’s Creed, Ubisoft, 2007)
31. Zelda (The Legend of Zelda, Nintendo, 1986)
32. Sephiroth (Final Fantasy VII, Square, 1997)
33. Donkey Kong (Donkey Kong, Nintendo, 1981)
34. The Prince (Prince of Persia, Broderbund, 1989)
35. Ezio (Assassin’s Creed II, Ubisoft, 2009)
36. Leon S (Biohazard/ Resident Evil, Capcom, 1996)
37. Ash Ketchum (Pokemon Red/Green, Nintendo, 1996)
38. Guybrush Threepwood (The Secret of Monkey Island, LucasArts, 1990)
39. Spyro (Spyro the Dragon, Universal, 1998)
40. “Ghost” Riley (Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II, Activision, 2009)
41. Goku (Dragon Daihikyoe, Epoch, 1987)
42. Max Payne (Max Payne, Rockstar, 2001)
43. Jill Valentine (Biohazard/ Resident Evil, Capcom, 1996)
44. Princess Peach (Super Mario Bros., Nintendo, 1985)
45. Larry Laffer (Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards, Sierra, 1987)
46. Augustus Cole (Gears of War, Microsoft, 2006)
47. Bowser (Super Mario Bros., Nintendo, 1985)
48. Eddie Riggs (Brutal Legend, EA, 2009)
49. Ryu (Street Fighter, Capcom, 1987)
50. Sackboy (LIttleBigPlanet, Sony, 2008)

It seems their only criteria is to be from a best selling video game, rather than a character that's actually good. How can I tell this? There are TWO Call of Duty characters, and Marcus Fenix.
first 3 I agree, the rest though idk like Ezio should be higher.
 

Fbh

Gold Member
The top 10 reads like they had some intern who doesn't really play videogames come up with a list after 30 minutes of internet research.
Then again I wouldn't expect any different form Guinness.
 

GHound

Member
The age on this one really puts some things in perspective. The Vita had just been announced and the 3DS was a week or so away from releasing in Japan, the Wii U/PS4/XBO hadn't been announced yet and the Switch/PS5/Xbox Series weren't even something their respective companies were seriously thinking about at the time. Characters that were developed and became popular in the past five years are years from ever being conceptualized. The first Dark Souls is still 7 months out....

Feeling older all the time.
 
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zaanan

Banned
How did they miss Joel? He was a total badass and they pushed him hard in marketing PS4. Was it the golfing incident that did him in?

Actually this list is shit for missing Nathan Hale, best badass on PS3.

sgt-hale-resistance.jpg


Also no Isaac Clarke? Guinness can eat a dick.
 
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