Top Ten Favourite Game Characters

7. Barney (Half-Life series)

Half Life was rightly hailed as ground-breaking when it was released in 1997, partly due to its incredible opening sequence, and it’s at the end of the tram ride into the Black Mesa facility that you first meet “Barney”, who opens the door for you and then isn’t seen until Half-Life: Blue Shift, in which he is the protagonist. He later appears in the Half-Life 2 series as a member of the resistance, and the fact that he owes Gordon Freeman a beer for saving his life becomes a running joke between the characters.

In the US, “Barney” is a name associated with bumbling policemen, and the character was originally designed as a prototype for hostile security guards before being promoted to a main character. His character model was later chosen by Ian Chisholm for the lead role of John Rourke in the award-winning “Clear Skies” series of machinima, set in the Eve Online universe.

“Great job, Gordon! Throwing that switch and all, I can see your MIT education really pays for itself.”

6. Ken Rosenburg (Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, GTA: San Andreas)

The Grand Theft Auto series of games had some pretty colourful characters, but few that could be described as “lovable”. Ken Rosenberg is a Jewish lawyer that you meet early on in your career in Vice City, having just escaped from prison. He’s got a big deal going down, and your first assignment is to help him. Of course, it all goes horribly wrong, and you soon get the impression that Ken’s interest in the illicit goods being traded goes beyond the financial…

Ken supplies you with most of your starting missions, as you work to pay off the debt incurred by the failure of the first mission. He’s your lawyer, and can be heard bailing you out of jail if you get caught by the police (“Tommy Vercetti doesn’t even own a gun!”). Ken is probably based on David Kleinfeld (played by Sean Penn) in the movie Carlito’s Way. Beyond the physical similarities – the frizzy hair and Seventies suits – both characters’ behaviour goes steadily downhill as their coke habits get worse and worse.

“Do I look like I can intimidate a jury? I couldn’t intimidate a child, and believe me, I’ve tried.”

5. Tychus Findlay (Starcraft 2)

Tychus Findlay is the perfect foil to Jim Raynor’s flawed but heroic rebel. Jim and Tychus go way back – Tychus is the old friend you can’t bear to leave behind even though you’ve grown apart.

Sealed inside his marine armour to keep him loyal to his Dominion masters, Findlay is the devil on Raynor’s shoulder – his hard-bitten cynicism and search for profit at odds with Raynor’s near-bulletproof idealism, despite the many setbacks to his cause.

Findlay is a large part of Starcraft’s II’s comic relief, but there’s no escaping his dark nature – It’s no surprise that the two old friends finally come to blows, and Jim has to sacrifice his friendship for the greater good.

“Oh I dunno, some white knight kinda guy, came charging down to save her colony, maybe? Damn, Jimmy – you never could read the ladies.”