Xana and the Worst Characters

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Angelspit
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Xana and the Worst Characters

Unread postby Angelspit » 25 Feb 2008, 19:42

Seen in a compilation of the best and worst characters of PC gaming at <a href="/http://www.computerandvideogames.com/ar ... mes.com</a> is Xana of Dark Messiah of Might and Magic:



<i>"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..."</i>



Joining her are other Ubisoft icons such as The Prince of Persia and Sam Fisher. The best characters are SHODAN, HK-47, Alyx Vance and LeChuck, among others.

If you would like to take a look at the original page visit this link:
https://www.celestialheavens.com/1203968546
I'm on Steam and Xbox Live.

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Unread postby Elvin » 25 Feb 2008, 19:56

Good find Angelspit :) Have played a number of those games, Carla Valenti, Morte, Garrett, HK-47 were brilliant :D Also liked Max Payne's narration.
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Xana and the Worst Characters

Unread postby Infiltrator » 25 Feb 2008, 20:10

Yea I've seen the article. Although I wouldn't agree that the fat guy from fear was the worst in all games, he was annoying but there have been far worse..

And I <3 HK-47
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Unread postby Metathron » 25 Feb 2008, 21:11

Glad Monkey Island's got some recognition, though I actually think Guybrush was even more entertaining than LeChuck. Then there's Stan, Largo LaGrande, the three "men of low moral fibre" and many more. Actually, now that I think about it, Lucas Arts has got a bunch of dazzling characters to boast with, the purple tentacle from Day of the Tentacle comes to mind, not to mention Sam and Max.

Can't really comment on the other characters because I haven't played most of those games. The only ones I did play to some extent were FEAR (didn't get so far as to see the fat dude) and Half-life 2 (Alyx seemed nice, from what I had seen).

Some of the HOMM V campaign heroes could probably be worthy of entering the Worst list, but I guess they're too bland to be noticed even for that.

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Unread postby Angelspit » 25 Feb 2008, 21:16

Metathron wrote:(Alyx seemed nice, from what I had seen).
It was refreshing to see a female character with some normal clothes, and with more responsibilities than simply being a potential love interest for the main character. The voice acting was quite good too.

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Unread postby Humakt » 25 Feb 2008, 23:43

Interesting read, though I can't agree with this top 10 (but partially because I haven't played all of those games).

I think Martin Septim is solid enough, propably the least irritating voice you can hear in Oblivion. Instead of him, they could have picked up that Prince of Madness (Sheograth?) from the Shivering Isles expansion. He was really annoying.

I found character of Sander Cohen unremarkable and just disturbing at best. Andrew Ryan, or Atlas could have taken his spot.

I think Melissan (Baldur's Gate: Throne of Bhaal) deserves a spot in worst 10. I can't think of more irritating voice and the moment you saw her in ToB, you knew she was up to no good. Yet you couldn't do anything to reveal her laughable plot.

I'm glad Max Payne, Morte, GLaDOS and Alyx got the position in top 10 though.
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Xana and the Worst Characters

Unread postby Moragauth » 26 Feb 2008, 14:22

1) Kha-Beleth is an awesome name.

2) Irenicus had a great voice. :D

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Unread postby ThunderTitan » 26 Feb 2008, 16:17

Kreia deserved a spot too... too bad for her HK-47 is so lovably sociopathic.
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Xana and the Worst Characters

Unread postby arturchix » 26 Feb 2008, 17:09

Hah hah, Alyx Vance is one of the best characters? The forced girlfriend of poor Gordon? Oh well...
I found character of Sander Cohen unremarkable and just disturbing at best. Andrew Ryan, or Atlas could have taken his spot.
Second that.

BAD23ro

Unread postby BAD23ro » 26 Feb 2008, 20:27

--- ;|
Last edited by BAD23ro on 19 Oct 2010, 23:11, edited 1 time in total.

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Xana and the Worst Characters

Unread postby Ya5MieL » 26 Feb 2008, 20:42

I would add Glotis (Grim Fandango), Sulik (Fallout 2), Minsc (BG),Max (Sam and Max), and Namus (HC) to the list of best characters :P

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Unread postby Tress » 26 Feb 2008, 21:27

Imo its very bad and subjective article. One guy comes and says what is lame and whats not. Alyx vance as best char 0.o Excuse me shes flat 1 dimensional char that is gamedevs always put in some position so gordon can see how she climbs house and so on, and of course damsel in distres role(while there can be drawn alot of similarities with leanna) Shes one of most cliche chars ever. I would prefer our messiah sucubus every day. At least she was intresting concept.
Phenrig, Menelag, and Kha Beleth,
Dont see any problem with thees names for fantasy. They are no better or worse than any other fantasy name. Only thing i consider as bad tone for nameing is when her is named to refer to something too much.
Imo that article brings just simply subjective view of author. Sam fisher as worst by same time alyx best (fisher at least is develpod character with his own beliefs, he chats about unrelated stuff and such ,things are what makes character developed). Sorry cant take such post seriously unless they are protecting themselves from angry mob of half life fanboys.
P.s Not adding Sarevok or any character from baldurs gate - blasphemy

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Unread postby Meandor » 26 Feb 2008, 21:47

I know that most "Top 10 x" doesn`t make much sense, but top 10 of worst characters feels even worse :disagree:
...

BAD23ro

Unread postby BAD23ro » 26 Feb 2008, 22:13

Meandor wrote:I know that most "Top 10 x" doesn`t make much sense, but top 10 of worst characters feels even worse :disagree:
Indeed and I feel sorry for Prince because I love that character :(

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Unread postby ThunderTitan » 27 Feb 2008, 08:48

I played 10 min into Warrior Within (came with my video card)... i don't know about the other games, but in that one he was one whiny emo b*tch...


And the article wasn't complaining about the names, the guy just said those names where a sure sign that the game world was High Fantasy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_fantasy

And while Alyx is just a mouthpiece for exposition most of the time there are moments where she shows an interesting personality... for a FPS char anyhow.
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Xana and the Worst Characters

Unread postby Ravenheart87 » 27 Feb 2008, 11:04

Yeah, the Prince should be a goth murderer... Killing emos. Then himself. Now THAT would be a good game.



Alyx was quite OK. Much better than the two b*tches from Dark Messiah. Still, I think one of the best (anti)heroes was Caleb, from Blood. And he had a nice bariton too. And a pitchfork....:)



Ya5Miel: instead of Sulik (Fo2) I would choose Dogmeat (Fo1)... Or Killian Darkwater, he was a good guy too. I hope we'll see characters like them in the next Fallout game.

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Unread postby Humakt » 27 Feb 2008, 13:30

Xana was awful but I liked Leanna in Dark Messiah. Good "damsel in distress" theme isn't common enough anymore. Sexist characters like Xana seems to be much more common in games and multimedia in general nowadays, unfortunate as it is.

And Prince of Persia: Warrior Within is pretty good game even though I liked style of Sands of Time more. Prince himself isn't successful character.
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Xana and the Worst Characters

Unread postby Ravenheart87 » 27 Feb 2008, 14:37

I dunno, I liked the old PoP much better. On monochrome monitor.:)



Indeed, Humakt, everyone is making sexist charactersm 'cause they mean business - what do you think, how can you get the attention of teeneger jerks, who are hanging on their computer/console 24hours a day? Who needs style, if they are already satisfied with naked polygon-boobs? Hope Duke Nukem returns soon, though he was a mix of everyone cool (for example: Ash Williams), but he was cool.

Speaking about Baldur's Gate, I can't wait to play with Dragon Age. Bioware knew the way, how to make good characters in RPGs. Unlike japanese, who make most of the protagonists cool, cold, and give them some extreme looking sword and crazy hairstyle. Last character I liked in a japanese RPG was Laguna in FF8 - but I liked Locke in FF6 better.

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Unread postby Meandor » 27 Feb 2008, 17:29

Unlike japanese, who make most of the protagonists cool, cold, and give them some extreme looking sword and crazy hairstyle. Last character I liked in a japanese RPG was Laguna in FF8 - but I liked Locke in FF6 better.
Play more Jrpgs then.
...

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Xana and the Worst Characters

Unread postby Ravenheart87 » 27 Feb 2008, 17:49

Played Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy I-IX, and a few others, saw enough animes, to get fed up with the stereotype virgin b*tch heroines and cool-guy-with-big-swords heroes/antiheroes, and their tragedies.

Please don't feel offended: I didn't say that all jRPGs suck. I just don't really like them anymore. Especially, because the RPG part is missing from many of them.


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