Top Ten Favourite Game Characters

4. Kain (Legacy of Kain series)

From his first appearance in 1996 action-RPG Blood Omen, Kain was a different kind of protagonist. The game opens with his murder and transformation into a vampire, a fate that ultimately sees him driven on a quest to return balance to the land in the hope of restoring his own humanity in the process.

Kain’s character and pathos is driven by a strong script and outstanding voice acting from Simon Templeman. He’s a true anti-hero, quenching his bloodlust on the essence of his even more corrupted enemies. However, in the end, Kain succumbs to the temptations of power, damning the world of in the process and leading to his role in following games as a godlike force for evil.

“You dare speak to me of conscience? Only when you have felt the full gravity of choice should you dare to question my judgment!”

3. Stan (Monkey Island series)

Stan is one of the few characters that appears in every single Monkey Island game, popping up in a variety of dubious businesses and basically getting in the way of Guybrush. With his giant hat, hideous checked suit and constant chatter, Stan is the epitome of everything that’s wrong with salesmen.

Despite this and his terrible dodgy businesses we can’t help feel a little bit sorry for him. In The Secret of Monkey Island he gets punched into the sea; in Monkey Island 2: LeChuck’s Revenge he gets nailed into a coffin by Guybrush; and in The Curse of Monkey Island, Guybrush buys life insurance from Stan, then gets a death certificate to cash in. It’s only in Escape from Monkey Island that Stan gets away without being hurt; Guybrush kind of makes up for this in Tales of Monkey Island by sending some moths to shred Stan’s famous outfit.

It’s this combination of sleazy salesman that would sell his own grandmother and victim to Guybrush that makes Stan such an endearing character.

“I’d stand on my head to make you a deal.”