Game characters with a good personality?

[cyber_andyy]

Lately I've been disillusioned with the story side of videogames. Characters are dull, generic and lifeless. I picked up SupCom2 and more of the same...until commander gauge came along. He was a breath of fresh air form me, quirky funny and with that spark of life. Maybe not that deep, I couldn’t really say, but he had a spark in him, which I've missed from loads of games.

So, which game characters have you noticed with that certain spark the makes them interesting?

Honourable mention goes to parts of AC2. Loved some of the people in that game

 

[Henrik Persson]

Mass Effect 2. Vast improvement over ME1, the characters are deeper and everyone has a specific mission that lets you get to know them fully. KOTOR is another good example. Hmm... I'm noticing a theme here, look to Bioware.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time

The main character is basically Errol Flynn.

 

[Jake0fTrades]

Josiah Reed from "Gun"
Atlas from "Bioshock"
Hollister from "Gun"
Thane from "Mass Effect 2"

There's a lot more but nothing comes to mind right now.

 

[Spaceman_Spiff]

I really liked Ezio Auditore, a badass nice guy who I could empathise with.

 

[Aerodynamic]

I loved Cole(both good and evil) in inFamous for some reason.

 

[Kollega]

The nine-character ensemble of Team Fortress 2. An annoying messenger boy, a crazy WW2 veteran, a pyromaniac of unknown properties, a perpetually drunk black Scotsman, a big shaved bear that hates people yet loves his gun, a Texan smart guy able to break law of conservation of energy, a Nazi doctor who is also a stoner, an Australian sniper who throws piss at people and lives in a van, and a magnificent bastard who seems to represent every Western-European nationality.
/thread


Ratchet also deserves a honorary mention, i think. He's young, cheery, expressive. Above all, he is *GASP* cute and huggable. Not common traits in today's characters.

 

[Hazy]

Nathan Drake of Uncharted.
He's smooth, witty, charismatic, and can hold his own in a gun fight.

 

[Zacharine]

Irenicus from Baldur's Gate 2.

 

[Raikov]

Irenicus from Baldur's Gate 2.

Thank god for people like you, who can appreciate a really good villain!

 

[Henrik Persson]

*cough*Bioware*cough*

 

[Tomster595]

Alyx Vance comes to mind

 

[Gigaguy64]

Fire Emblem 7's Matthew.
Such a cool guy with a kind personalty.
Heck all the Fire Emblem 7 characters had personality.

 

[Radeonx]

Nathan Drake of Uncharted.
He's smooth, witty, charismatic, and can hold his own in a gun fight.

I've begun playing the Uncharted series, and I quite like it.
He's pretty badass, too.

However, my favorite is, without question, Hector from Fire Emblem.
He was badass, blunt, and was the best main character you could get.

 

[Artina89]

Gene from Godhand is pretty cool and likable.

jet set radio characters, nothings dull about them!

This as well, Beat and Yoyo being my favourites.

 

[Katana314]

Many characters from Ace Attorney come to mind.

Manfred von Karma - The final antagonist of the first game. He is a legendary prosecutor that has never lost a case in 40 years, and it really shows from his extremely forceful personality. He does everything to scare you off the defense bench; when you ask to cross-examine a witness, he threatens to have you held in contempt. Unlike anyone you faced before, he is completely unphased anytime you find a fault in the argument, simply explaining again and again "No. You are wrong. And here's why." He makes everything you say look like a joke, and basically puts you at the edge of a Guilty verdict the whole time. His animation sprites fit him very well, basically showing he's just frustrated that your pathetic "concerns with the argument" are just delaying the trial past its intended length of One Minute.
That said, it starts to feel incredibly badass when, near the end of the case, you are making him recoil backwards in fear and sweat bullets.

Godot - A mysterious masked prosecutor who says he knows you, holding a massive grudge while failing to elaborate on anything. He is also obsessed with coffee. What I liked is that he's the right balance of serious and humor, especially since he's there for most of the game.

 

[Crossborder]

Sheogorath. It's just awesome to see how unstable he is. The thought that he could decide that you should die at every time just makes it more awesome.

 

[Disaster Button]

GLaDOS from Portal, if we count robots. She's funny, insecure, crazy, clever, lonely and is quite the mother figure even if it is in a slightly psychotic manner, she also has quite the beserk button. [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BerserkButton]

And Ezio from Ass2 was pretty good.