Gordon Freeman wins the Gamespot "Greatest Video Game Hero"

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TotallyFake

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Jun 14, 2009
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Christemo said:
i agree, i dont think he belongs there. sure, his actions are great, but hes as bland as non space marines gets.

my personal choice for this award would probably be Soap MacTavish. he has characterization, and he actually saved the world from Zakhaev´s nuclear strike.

im not saying this as a COD4 fanboy, but think about it. he saves the bloody world, and survived the incredibly cruel ending.
Soap has charactrization? He's a silent protagonist, the same as Gordon. Although this will change with Modern Warfare 2 (Kevin McKidd ftw!) you can't really say he has characterization in CoD4.
 

Sparrow

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I don't know. If any mute should win an award is should bd Isacc Clarke from Dead Space. Bugger being under opression like Gordon, this guy surivived a ship full of zombies, in space, with pretty much no help, using maintenance equipment as weapons.

Oh, and his girlfriend commited suicide, his captain died, his female friend betrayed him and he had to save the world for an alien invasion.

Ahem, sorry about that. I just quite liked that game. Also, why hell didn't Mario win?
 

Crux2

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Aug 3, 2009
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I do like Gordon, and I'm not opposed to silent protagonists in general but I find it hard to think of them as leading heroes of the industry. Games like Half Life and CoD are fantastic but they dont earn that praise through their protagonists.

It's even gotten a little weird with HL now. Gordon isnt just a joe-everyman or a placeholder name for a some boxart guy - he is central to the plot and the other characters try to interact with him in a way that, for me at least, is increasingly hard to reconcile with Freeman keeping his trap shut.

He may be an icon of one of the greatest games in our time but that doesnt make him a great character on his own.
 

entwinex

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Gordon is a sucky character really, but so were all the Nintendo characters in the later rounds ..people just voted for their favourite game, or the game/character they disliked less.
 

setvak

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Dorian6 said:
setvak said:
Gordon Freeman is an interesting character
How so? He doesn't talk, you never see his face outside the box art, he's never given a backstory, he's never characterized, he has no personality, his motives are never clear.

In what way is he an "interesting character?"

He's barely a character at all.
He's "interesting" in that he's characterized through the NPCs' near-reverence for him ("The One Free Man, etc. etc.), his ass-kickery contrasted with his nerdy appearance, and to some extent the fact that he doesn't say a word through the whole game. I'd take him over a space marine any day.

But again...I felt a MUCH stronger connection with characters such as Wander (Shadow of the Colossus), Daxter (Jak & Daxter series...right), Lucas Kane (Indigo Prophecy/Fahrenheit), and even Nico Bellic (if you can't guess, I'm sorry), just to name a few.
 

GuerrillaClock

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He won because of the same reason Turbine won the March Madness thing: his fanbase was able to mobilise more effectively than anyone else, because of the 'Gordon needs you!' Steam message, or because they just liked the games rather than the character.

There are certainly characters who epitomise the archetypal 'hero' much more than Freeman, such as Link.
 

geldonyetich

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The vote was so close enough [http://www.gamespot.com/greatest-video-game-hero/vote/index.html?battle_id=63] that I'm inclined to believe Link would be more of a universal greatest video game hero. Reason being that there's a lot of people out there who might own a console but not a PC, that have played Zelda but have never played Half Life, and people who own a PC are more inclined to be browsing the net to encounter a GameSpot poll.

It is interesting to consider that they're both silent protagonists. Maybe players would rather the characters they play in games just shut up.
 

kannibus

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Sep 21, 2009
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KeyMaster45 said:
You guys do realize that gordon only won because Valve plastered "GO VOTE FOR GORDON ON GAMESPOT AND WE'LL GIVE YOU DISCOUNTS ON STUFF WITH HIM IN IT!!" all over steam right? Before valve started bribing people to go vote for him the gamespot community was going to vote the Mario Bros in as greatest game heroes. Or so I've read in the steam forums after the dust settled.

By a very long shot he's not the greatest game hero, and fer f's sake its gamespot just another website in millions running a giant poll that no one really cares about.
You know, back in old country, we call that "electoral fraud". GO TEAM DEMOCRACY!.

But I digress.

I'm actually not too bent out of shape about Freeman winning it. I mean, it was either him or Mario and the latter has just been whored out to so many games, genres etc. that I really don't put much stock in the brand any more.

I was, to tell the truth, cheering for The Duke, Samus, Garret and Earthworm Jim. Guess it goes to show what I know.
 

Cowabungaa

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The Infamous Scamola said:
Damn. If only /b/ didn't suck so hard nowadays, the outcome could've been so much more lulzy.

R.I.P. Bob and Bub.
So true, this is so predictable, and here I am thinking /b/ was all about randomness.

No of course I don't agree with this, I love HL2, I love it to death, it's one of my best (if not the best) singleplayer experience I ever played. But mister Freeman isn't much of a main character, heck he's nothing, an empty shell that caries a gun, that's all.

I would've voted for Nathan Drake, but he lost to Pikachu...fucking Pikachu!! Why is it that all the characters with depth drop out of contests like that so quickly? Sam Fisher lost to brawn-no-brain-Kratos, Drake to a fluffy critter, Garret from Thief from a frog, the list goes on. I hate it when nostalgia takes over.
 
Mar 17, 2009
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Assassinator said:
The Infamous Scamola said:
Damn. If only /b/ didn't suck so hard nowadays, the outcome could've been so much more lulzy.

R.I.P. Bob and Bub.
So true, this is so predictable, and here I am thinking /b/ was all about randomness.
Yeah, I don't think you get where I was getting at.
 

toapat

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Mar 28, 2009
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mattag08 said:
So Gamespot does their annual match up where people vote on their favorite heroes from video games. And Gordon Freeman wins yet another such contest. Does anyone else think this is bullshit since Gordon Freeman isn't even really a character? He has almost zero characterization, limited dialogue, and a one-dimensional personality. His achievements are...well...surviving some fucked up experiments, I guess?

So what makes Freeman the "Greatest Video Game Hero"? Please enlighten me because I'm stupefied.
because he is that fucking awesome.
and he is characterized by the scientists around him, if you pay any attention.
plus when you are a scientist and able to fight off equally equiped soldiers, its worth pointing out
 

Trotgar

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Sep 13, 2009
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Space Spoons said:
Gordon Freeman won because he has whatever personality and traits you want to him to have. Voting for him is basically voting for yourself.
That applies to quite a many games.
 

PrototypeC

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Apr 19, 2009
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I don't care, as long as Mario didn't win. Does anyone else hate that guy and all his stupid little friends?

If it's not on the NES, I don't want to play a Mario game. That's also because I beat Mario 64 senseless and then accidently sold the cartridge.