Let's have a little talk about our favorite BioWare characters. After some thought I made a list of my top 10 along with a little explanation as to why. After you read my list, make your own and post it, if you're so inclined. Happy reminiscing!
10. Sir Roderick Ponce von Fontlebottom, the Magnificent Bastard (Jade Empire)
"Percival! Fluff my travelling trousers!"
The stuffy English adventurer played by the peerless John Cleese is one of the reasons why I love Jade Empire. It's more than just his ridiculously awesome name. I mean, his breastplate has a cheese fork on it! He constantly argues with the scholarly philosophers of the Jade Empire of the cultural differences of East vs. West, and whenever he loses the arguments he simply shoots his opponent with his gun. How awesome is that? The whole segment with John Cleese as Roderick Ponce von Fontlebottom the Magnificent Bastard is a pure joy to experience, and I couldn't help but imagine Sir Lancelot from Monty Python and the Holy Grail standing in his place . You take up Roderick's intellectual and physical challenges, and if you win you can claim his awesome arquebus named "Mirabelle" as your own. The introduction of a gun to the world of magic and martial arts pretty much has the effect you'd expect. BANG!
9. Bastila Shan (Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic)
"Fun? FUN?! Your idea of a good time is driving me up the wall?!"
I maintain that, despite all the awesome work Jennifer Hale has done for BioWare, this is by far her best performance. A brash, arrogant British Jedi with Kate Beckinsale's face is a straightaway ticket to an awesome love interest, and Bastila delivers (even if you never see that freaking kiss). The fact that your romance with Bastila can play out in two extremely different ways, and is tied together with the end of the story is an excellent twist in an already awesome game. The BioWare devs paid a lot more attention to the Bastila romance than the Carth romance and how it would fit in the overall story, I think. Some intrepid modders have even made Bastila susceptible to female advances as well...
Bastila is responsible for making me be a sucker for chicks with British accents.
8. Tali'Zorah vas Normandy nar Rayya (Mass Effect series)
"I've watched you for so long, and I would have never imagined that you would ever see past...this."
If there was a fairytale princess in Mass Effect, it would be Tali'Zorah vas Normandy nar Rayya... at least to me. This princess just happens to be packing a shotgun. Tali is brave and plucky, but she also has a vulnerable and emotional side that gave her a nice character dichotomy, especially in Mass Effect 2. Tali's loyalty mission in ME2 also helped round out her character by exposing some deep flaws for her. She is utterly convinced that the Quarians need to go to war with the Geth and reclaim the Quarian homeworld, despite both races needing to be at full strength to fight the coming Reaper invasion. This was one of the times when I found myself favoring Legion's perspective in some regards over Tali's. What struck me most about Tali's romance option is that it mirrored a past relationship of my own."Looking past the mask" to find a girl who is head-over-heels in love with you is a powerful experience when you first encounter it, and I was happy to see it again in Tali's case. I also like to think that it was a relationship two games in the making, and it made it seem much more genuine than the relationships in the first game. They just seemed too...rushed.
I'm looking forward to seeing how Mass Effect 3 will finish the story Tali'Zorah and William Shepard.
7. Dr. Liara T'Soni (Mass Effect series)
"So tell me what you want, Shepard. What are you fighting for?"
Tali was originally meant for this spot on my list, but that was before the recent "Lair if the Shadow Broker" DLC for Mass Effect 2. With this new installment, which can be a nice transition between Mass Effects 2 & 3, Liara was fleshed out for me as one of the most complex characters in the series, with the most pronounced character arc of the entire cast. From the naïve, shy scientist you rescue in the first game, she eventually matures into a driven (some would say ruthless) information broker and biotic expert in the two year hiatus between the Mass Effect games. She pursues a vendetta against the powerful and enigmatic Shadow Broker for kidnapping both Shepard's corpse and her Drell friend Feron two years before.
Despite my "canon" playthrough has Tali as my romance, I'm definitely considering starting up a long term Liara relationship on a different playthrough. For all those who remained true to Liara before this newest DLC: kudos. Here's your well-deserved reward.
6. Sun Li, the Glorious Strategist (Jade Empire)
"It does me good to know that you have kept the basics at heart. And...THE FLAWS!"
Is some ways, the plot twist in Jade Empire was even better than Knights of the Old Republic. Your kindly old master, who had raised you as his own and taught you everything you knew, whom you and your friends were trying to rescue up to that point, was supposed to be grateful that you rescued him from the grasp of the evil and corrupt Emperor. Instead, he betrays and murders you. He steals the power of the Water Dragon again, and takes your Spirit Amulet to hasten his deification.
Few episodes in gaming stunned me as when Master Li betrays you. Then, as you wander in the realm of the dead, everything begins to fall into place. Everything that Sun Li had done for the last 20 years, and some of the events of the game itself, had led up to this moment. You were merely a pawn in his grand strategy of wreaking revenge on his brother the Emperor, and taking the Water Dragon's power for himself. He went from a father-figure to an insidious villain in a single stroke. I honestly don't think a gaming betrayal had affected me as much as Sun Li's. When you finally confront him, his promises of immortal glory in his new world order-if you submit to death-was a unique step that BioWare had taken in conflict resolution. It was a game where you could choose to lose. Sun Li is a truly unique and fantastic villain.
5. Minsc (& Boo) (Baldur's Gate series)
"Minsc will lead with blade and boot! Boo will take care of the details." *squeak!*
Baldur's Gate 2: Shadows of Amn can be a dark, grim game if you let it get to you. Fortunately, you need look no further for much needed comic relief than the goofy hulking berserker Minsc and his pet hamster Boo, whom Minsc is convinced is a "miniature giant space hamster". Whatever that is. Minsc and Boo are some of the most iconic characters in any BioWare game. Minsc is constantly striving to be a great hero, and wants to kill evil with his giant sword in many creative, ass-kicking ways. He also refers to Boo's "wisdom" on many occasions. For a character with an Intelligence of 6, he'd better! If you go against his decided brand of heroism, Minsc tells you: "Feel the burning stare of my hamster and change your ways!"
And as for Boo, he's a part of a nice little easter egg. Just look for the pet shop on the Citadel in Mass Effect 2 to see how. While on the subject of comic reliefs...
4. HK-47 (Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic series)
"Statement: My thoughts exactly, master. One dead meatbag, coming up!"
The hilariously evil version of Minsc, HK-47 is more bloodthirsty, more biting, more over-the-top, and funnier than the berserker could ever be. Always quick to interject into a conversation with a smartass quip or with input on how to kill the person you're talking to, the assassin droid gave my Light Side Revan a hilarious glimpse of the evil world that he was missing. HK-47 lived for killing things, and it didn't matter what it was. Stuffy and indignant out of battle and murderously malevolent in it, he was always in my party, despite my own alignment. His stories of all the past masters that died gruesome deaths because of him were all wickedly funny. In terms of the original KOTOR, I can think of no complaints for HK-47. He's the perfect comic relief.
And who doesn't love their enemies being called meatbags as they are taken out at 120 meters with an Aratech sniper rifle with a tri-light scope?
3. Jon Irenicus (Baldur's Gate 2: Shadows of Amn)
"Silence, dog. You have no purpose but to die by my hand."
Sometimes, a villain is SO villainous that you can't help wanting to be that villain. That was just the case for Jon Irenicus, the main antagonist in Baldur's Gate II and greatest villain the BioWare has ever devised, in my opinion. Superbly voiced by Shakespearean actor David Werner, Jon Irenicus' malevolence is top-notch. This cold, calculating spellcaster deals out death faster than a nuclear bomb (and some of his spells might even look like one too), even single handedly taking on army of opposing wizards at the same time.
The opening dungeon of the game is his prison/lab/fortress that you must escape from, and the level alone shows Irenicus' depravity. You see slaves, wicked servants, half-mad clones, portals to other dimensions, and a former friend left forgotten in a state of half-death on life support. I've never seen a better exposition as to "this is who you face" than this . As you track Irenicus through the course of the game, he visits you in dreams and argues his own twisted worldview and the reasons why you must lose yourself in your heritage. And I found myself agreeing with him more often than not, even as he rationalized his tendency for indiscriminant slaughter . And I hated myself for it.
Irenicus' motive was what almost every villain wants: revenge and power. He ultimately wants to kill a god and take his powers. However, the presentation of his character is what really put him in a new class of villainy. From the opening presentation of his lair, to eventually fighting him in Hell itself, Jon Irenicus proved to be the perfect example of a sick, calculating, brilliant villain. I've yet to see a villain quite as "good" as him.
2. Darth Revan (Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic)
"Savior, conqueror, hero, villain. You are all things, Revan..."
And that quote from Darth Malak pretty much sums up Darth Revan. We all know the plot twist in Knights of The Old Republic. Yeah, you're an amnesiac Sith Lord and Malak's old master. Oh shit. Putting a character of your own creation that you thought was just a random soldier/jedi into an entirely new position was one of the strong-points of Revan's story. Obviously most people take this revelation in stride with the morality they've had up to that point, but I have a friend who played a Light Side character, then switched over to the Dark Side once he found out about his past. It's one of the rare points in even rarer decision-based RPG's where a total character break from past morality is integrated into the story itself. People can switch from being a goody-goody to an asshole all the time, but there are almost no points in such RPG's where such a break is...encouraged.
While Revan was also one of the stock BioWare mute protagonists, there was also a lot of humor in many of Revan's lines, mainly with HK-47 dialogues. It just took a bit of imagination to flesh them out a-la Mass Effect, and they actually gave Revan a voice in combat. Using that, you can try transposing that into, but there are some aspects of that format that didn't work, like when Revan will say something sarcastically but it can be confused to be said in earnest. Still, this is a minor gripe. Overall, Knights of the Old Republic and Revan are legendary parts of Star Wars, and it's little wonder that Darth Revan is ranked by IGN as the 12th most important Star Wars character of all time, beating out the likes of Jabba the Hutt, C-3PO, Qui-Gon Jinn and Emperor Palpatine, and is himself just behind Lando Calrissian, of all people!
http://www.ign.com/star-wars-characters/12.html
1. Commander Shepard (Mass Effect series)
"I should go..."
BioWare truly broke the mold when they came up with the idea of Commander Shepard. Here was a character that you could build from the ground up in almost every regard, from gender to face to background, and then give him/her a voice for every single choice in the game. Seriously, I'm not sure exactly how long they had Jennifer Hale and Mark Meer in the recording studio for Commander Shepard, but I bet it must have felt like an actual full-time job. The addition of vocals to choice-based RPG's was pioneered in Mass Effect, and (I think) came close to perfection in Mass Effect 2. The only thing they could have done better is having multiple characters talk at once, and not the back-and-forth style all the time.
Anyway, the addition of a voice made my time with Shepard that much more immersive and appealing. It truly felt like a I was living Shepard's life, and it also made Shepard into a fuller character overall, even if it was with the mindset that you built by your actions. And that is why Shepard is my favorite BioWare character of all time: the utter customizability of his/her story, coupled with a continuation of your custom mindset over multiple games (that is, if you want it that way. Going renegade in Mass Effect 2 after a paragon Mass Effect is fun too) is testament to BioWare's peerless ability to tell a good story through gaming. And right now, Commander Shepard's story is the one that I'm eagerly awaiting the conclusion to in 2012. And then I'll make another Shepard and play an entirely different way. And it will be just as awesome as my first playthrough. Not many games ( let alone serieses, for that matter) can boast that.
Thanks a lot for reading. Now, make your own lists of your favorite BioWare characters! I'm interested to see who you like most from this iconic studio.
10. Sir Roderick Ponce von Fontlebottom, the Magnificent Bastard (Jade Empire)
"Percival! Fluff my travelling trousers!"
The stuffy English adventurer played by the peerless John Cleese is one of the reasons why I love Jade Empire. It's more than just his ridiculously awesome name. I mean, his breastplate has a cheese fork on it! He constantly argues with the scholarly philosophers of the Jade Empire of the cultural differences of East vs. West, and whenever he loses the arguments he simply shoots his opponent with his gun. How awesome is that? The whole segment with John Cleese as Roderick Ponce von Fontlebottom the Magnificent Bastard is a pure joy to experience, and I couldn't help but imagine Sir Lancelot from Monty Python and the Holy Grail standing in his place . You take up Roderick's intellectual and physical challenges, and if you win you can claim his awesome arquebus named "Mirabelle" as your own. The introduction of a gun to the world of magic and martial arts pretty much has the effect you'd expect. BANG!
9. Bastila Shan (Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic)
"Fun? FUN?! Your idea of a good time is driving me up the wall?!"
I maintain that, despite all the awesome work Jennifer Hale has done for BioWare, this is by far her best performance. A brash, arrogant British Jedi with Kate Beckinsale's face is a straightaway ticket to an awesome love interest, and Bastila delivers (even if you never see that freaking kiss). The fact that your romance with Bastila can play out in two extremely different ways, and is tied together with the end of the story is an excellent twist in an already awesome game. The BioWare devs paid a lot more attention to the Bastila romance than the Carth romance and how it would fit in the overall story, I think. Some intrepid modders have even made Bastila susceptible to female advances as well...
Bastila is responsible for making me be a sucker for chicks with British accents.
8. Tali'Zorah vas Normandy nar Rayya (Mass Effect series)
"I've watched you for so long, and I would have never imagined that you would ever see past...this."
If there was a fairytale princess in Mass Effect, it would be Tali'Zorah vas Normandy nar Rayya... at least to me. This princess just happens to be packing a shotgun. Tali is brave and plucky, but she also has a vulnerable and emotional side that gave her a nice character dichotomy, especially in Mass Effect 2. Tali's loyalty mission in ME2 also helped round out her character by exposing some deep flaws for her. She is utterly convinced that the Quarians need to go to war with the Geth and reclaim the Quarian homeworld, despite both races needing to be at full strength to fight the coming Reaper invasion. This was one of the times when I found myself favoring Legion's perspective in some regards over Tali's. What struck me most about Tali's romance option is that it mirrored a past relationship of my own."Looking past the mask" to find a girl who is head-over-heels in love with you is a powerful experience when you first encounter it, and I was happy to see it again in Tali's case. I also like to think that it was a relationship two games in the making, and it made it seem much more genuine than the relationships in the first game. They just seemed too...rushed.
I'm looking forward to seeing how Mass Effect 3 will finish the story Tali'Zorah and William Shepard.
7. Dr. Liara T'Soni (Mass Effect series)
"So tell me what you want, Shepard. What are you fighting for?"
Tali was originally meant for this spot on my list, but that was before the recent "Lair if the Shadow Broker" DLC for Mass Effect 2. With this new installment, which can be a nice transition between Mass Effects 2 & 3, Liara was fleshed out for me as one of the most complex characters in the series, with the most pronounced character arc of the entire cast. From the naïve, shy scientist you rescue in the first game, she eventually matures into a driven (some would say ruthless) information broker and biotic expert in the two year hiatus between the Mass Effect games. She pursues a vendetta against the powerful and enigmatic Shadow Broker for kidnapping both Shepard's corpse and her Drell friend Feron two years before.
With Shepard's help, they track down and defeat the Shadow Broker's agents and eventually the Shadow Broker himself. Once he is defeated, Liara assumes the position as the new Shadow Broker! At the moment of her triumph, her tough exterior cracks and she breaks down, her "humanity" comes through again. She looked like she was sacrificing her own life in taking up the Shadow Broker's mantle, and in many ways she was. Her old life is over now, and she will perpetually operate a galaxy-wide web of information. She also joins you on the Normandy following the operation, and you reminisce about the past and think about the coming war with the Reapers. It was perhaps one of the most "real" dialogues I've seen in the game. "Lair of the Shadow Broker" was a story full of utterly believable dialogue and banter that stood head and shoulders over the rest of the conversations in the game. THAT IS REALLY SAYING SOMETHING.
6. Sun Li, the Glorious Strategist (Jade Empire)
"It does me good to know that you have kept the basics at heart. And...THE FLAWS!"
Is some ways, the plot twist in Jade Empire was even better than Knights of the Old Republic. Your kindly old master, who had raised you as his own and taught you everything you knew, whom you and your friends were trying to rescue up to that point, was supposed to be grateful that you rescued him from the grasp of the evil and corrupt Emperor. Instead, he betrays and murders you. He steals the power of the Water Dragon again, and takes your Spirit Amulet to hasten his deification.
Few episodes in gaming stunned me as when Master Li betrays you. Then, as you wander in the realm of the dead, everything begins to fall into place. Everything that Sun Li had done for the last 20 years, and some of the events of the game itself, had led up to this moment. You were merely a pawn in his grand strategy of wreaking revenge on his brother the Emperor, and taking the Water Dragon's power for himself. He went from a father-figure to an insidious villain in a single stroke. I honestly don't think a gaming betrayal had affected me as much as Sun Li's. When you finally confront him, his promises of immortal glory in his new world order-if you submit to death-was a unique step that BioWare had taken in conflict resolution. It was a game where you could choose to lose. Sun Li is a truly unique and fantastic villain.
5. Minsc (& Boo) (Baldur's Gate series)
"Minsc will lead with blade and boot! Boo will take care of the details." *squeak!*
Baldur's Gate 2: Shadows of Amn can be a dark, grim game if you let it get to you. Fortunately, you need look no further for much needed comic relief than the goofy hulking berserker Minsc and his pet hamster Boo, whom Minsc is convinced is a "miniature giant space hamster". Whatever that is. Minsc and Boo are some of the most iconic characters in any BioWare game. Minsc is constantly striving to be a great hero, and wants to kill evil with his giant sword in many creative, ass-kicking ways. He also refers to Boo's "wisdom" on many occasions. For a character with an Intelligence of 6, he'd better! If you go against his decided brand of heroism, Minsc tells you: "Feel the burning stare of my hamster and change your ways!"
And as for Boo, he's a part of a nice little easter egg. Just look for the pet shop on the Citadel in Mass Effect 2 to see how. While on the subject of comic reliefs...
4. HK-47 (Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic series)
"Statement: My thoughts exactly, master. One dead meatbag, coming up!"
The hilariously evil version of Minsc, HK-47 is more bloodthirsty, more biting, more over-the-top, and funnier than the berserker could ever be. Always quick to interject into a conversation with a smartass quip or with input on how to kill the person you're talking to, the assassin droid gave my Light Side Revan a hilarious glimpse of the evil world that he was missing. HK-47 lived for killing things, and it didn't matter what it was. Stuffy and indignant out of battle and murderously malevolent in it, he was always in my party, despite my own alignment. His stories of all the past masters that died gruesome deaths because of him were all wickedly funny. In terms of the original KOTOR, I can think of no complaints for HK-47. He's the perfect comic relief.
And who doesn't love their enemies being called meatbags as they are taken out at 120 meters with an Aratech sniper rifle with a tri-light scope?
3. Jon Irenicus (Baldur's Gate 2: Shadows of Amn)
"Silence, dog. You have no purpose but to die by my hand."
Sometimes, a villain is SO villainous that you can't help wanting to be that villain. That was just the case for Jon Irenicus, the main antagonist in Baldur's Gate II and greatest villain the BioWare has ever devised, in my opinion. Superbly voiced by Shakespearean actor David Werner, Jon Irenicus' malevolence is top-notch. This cold, calculating spellcaster deals out death faster than a nuclear bomb (and some of his spells might even look like one too), even single handedly taking on army of opposing wizards at the same time.
The opening dungeon of the game is his prison/lab/fortress that you must escape from, and the level alone shows Irenicus' depravity. You see slaves, wicked servants, half-mad clones, portals to other dimensions, and a former friend left forgotten in a state of half-death on life support. I've never seen a better exposition as to "this is who you face" than this . As you track Irenicus through the course of the game, he visits you in dreams and argues his own twisted worldview and the reasons why you must lose yourself in your heritage. And I found myself agreeing with him more often than not, even as he rationalized his tendency for indiscriminant slaughter . And I hated myself for it.
Irenicus' motive was what almost every villain wants: revenge and power. He ultimately wants to kill a god and take his powers. However, the presentation of his character is what really put him in a new class of villainy. From the opening presentation of his lair, to eventually fighting him in Hell itself, Jon Irenicus proved to be the perfect example of a sick, calculating, brilliant villain. I've yet to see a villain quite as "good" as him.
2. Darth Revan (Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic)
"Savior, conqueror, hero, villain. You are all things, Revan..."
And that quote from Darth Malak pretty much sums up Darth Revan. We all know the plot twist in Knights of The Old Republic. Yeah, you're an amnesiac Sith Lord and Malak's old master. Oh shit. Putting a character of your own creation that you thought was just a random soldier/jedi into an entirely new position was one of the strong-points of Revan's story. Obviously most people take this revelation in stride with the morality they've had up to that point, but I have a friend who played a Light Side character, then switched over to the Dark Side once he found out about his past. It's one of the rare points in even rarer decision-based RPG's where a total character break from past morality is integrated into the story itself. People can switch from being a goody-goody to an asshole all the time, but there are almost no points in such RPG's where such a break is...encouraged.
While Revan was also one of the stock BioWare mute protagonists, there was also a lot of humor in many of Revan's lines, mainly with HK-47 dialogues. It just took a bit of imagination to flesh them out a-la Mass Effect, and they actually gave Revan a voice in combat. Using that, you can try transposing that into, but there are some aspects of that format that didn't work, like when Revan will say something sarcastically but it can be confused to be said in earnest. Still, this is a minor gripe. Overall, Knights of the Old Republic and Revan are legendary parts of Star Wars, and it's little wonder that Darth Revan is ranked by IGN as the 12th most important Star Wars character of all time, beating out the likes of Jabba the Hutt, C-3PO, Qui-Gon Jinn and Emperor Palpatine, and is himself just behind Lando Calrissian, of all people!
http://www.ign.com/star-wars-characters/12.html
1. Commander Shepard (Mass Effect series)
"I should go..."
BioWare truly broke the mold when they came up with the idea of Commander Shepard. Here was a character that you could build from the ground up in almost every regard, from gender to face to background, and then give him/her a voice for every single choice in the game. Seriously, I'm not sure exactly how long they had Jennifer Hale and Mark Meer in the recording studio for Commander Shepard, but I bet it must have felt like an actual full-time job. The addition of vocals to choice-based RPG's was pioneered in Mass Effect, and (I think) came close to perfection in Mass Effect 2. The only thing they could have done better is having multiple characters talk at once, and not the back-and-forth style all the time.
Anyway, the addition of a voice made my time with Shepard that much more immersive and appealing. It truly felt like a I was living Shepard's life, and it also made Shepard into a fuller character overall, even if it was with the mindset that you built by your actions. And that is why Shepard is my favorite BioWare character of all time: the utter customizability of his/her story, coupled with a continuation of your custom mindset over multiple games (that is, if you want it that way. Going renegade in Mass Effect 2 after a paragon Mass Effect is fun too) is testament to BioWare's peerless ability to tell a good story through gaming. And right now, Commander Shepard's story is the one that I'm eagerly awaiting the conclusion to in 2012. And then I'll make another Shepard and play an entirely different way. And it will be just as awesome as my first playthrough. Not many games ( let alone serieses, for that matter) can boast that.
Thanks a lot for reading. Now, make your own lists of your favorite BioWare characters! I'm interested to see who you like most from this iconic studio.
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