Lara Croft voted most iconic character ever

[Timmy]

I'm a little nonplussed by folks who don't think Miner Willy should be on a BAFTA list of iconic videogame characters...

It's the British Academy of Film and Television Arts awards, after all.

I agree. Have you noticed I wrote about "AFTA" instead of BAFTA in an earlier post?

Sometimes you just wonder why they need British funding at all.

Granted, most videogames are coming out of development sweatshops in the US or Japan these days, but that doesn't make Miner Willy/Manic Miner any less iconic in an 'of all time' sense. If Lara Croft - a more recent British character in a UK-made game, who had a massive marketing budget behind her - gets to be on the list, there's a place for our humble spelunker.

Is Lara still British nowadays? Isn't it already part of a US company now? (I don't know.)

These are some amusing assumptions. Do you really think there are many people under 40 on this forum?

That post was indeed meant to be amusing. As for your question, there might not be many people on this forum, but the many web scraping bots here are definitely all under 40.

[Lee P]

Wot no Bobby Bearing, Hickey the Kreezer or the scaredy cat from Jack The Nipper? Heresy! Sacrilege!

[HEXdidnt]

I may have shot down my own arguments here. Just asked my girlfriend - who is not a gamer unless you count The Sims or those rollercoaster games - to name a videogame character. Without the slightest pause: "Lara Croft".

[AndyC]

I may have shot down my own arguments here. Just asked my girlfriend - who is not a gamer unless you count The Sims or those rollercoaster games - to name a videogame character. Without the slightest pause: "Lara Croft".

Can't say I'm surprised, I think some people here have a very skewed version of what the general populace recognises in terms of video game characters.

Lara Croft pretty much birthed the idea of a main character that wasn't seen as just a simple avatar in the way Mario or Miner Willy would have been. She, even more than the Tomb Raider games, was a global phenomena. Heck the movie was even called Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, because Lara's name was more recognisable than that of the game she represented.

[Lee Bee]

I may have shot down my own arguments here. Just asked my girlfriend - who is not a gamer unless you count The Sims or those rollercoaster games - to name a videogame character. Without the slightest pause: "Lara Croft".

Then again, if you ask a woman, the answer may be more likely to be a female character - someone they can relate to. Maybe Lara Croft did so well in this poll simply because half the respondents were female? (Though Princess Peach and Joanna Dark are absent, so maybe not?)

I guess the issue of what's "iconic" really comes down to whether you're asking fans or the general public? If you're asking nerds like us and industry experts then, sure, you might expect Manic Miner to be recognised by the poll.

However, if "iconic" pertains to the perception of the general public, including women and the elderly (which I assumed it does) then that's a different story. Most of the world's population don't play games and if pressed could probably only name a couple of consoles such as "PlayStation" or "Game Boy". And unless they're of a certain age and live in Europe, they surely won't have heard of any 8- or 16-bit computers, including the Commodore Amiga, which was far more well-known around the world than the Speccy.

[Juan F. Ramirez]

Wot no Bobby Bearing, Hickey the Kreezer or the scaredy cat from Jack The Nipper? Heresy! Sacrilege!

Don't forget Kosmic Kanga!

[Mpk]

Nowadays, everybody wanna talk
Like they got somethin' to say, but nothin' comes out
When they move their lips, just a bunch of gibberish
And melonfarmers act like they forgot about Horace

[equinox]

How are Donkey Kong and Miner Willy not on the list at all? Why are deliberately generic characters like Agent 47, Master Chief and frickin' Steve from Minecraft even on the list?

Recency bias. It always happens with these "X of all time" polls.

Remember Undertale being voted the best game ever a few years back?

[Nitrowing]

Recency bias. It always happens with these "X of all time" polls.

Remember Undertale being voted the best game ever a few years back?

https://www.dailydot.com/unclick/undert ... game-ever/

[dvduk]

Pi-man cruelly overlooked, again.

Not all bad then

[equinox]

https://www.dailydot.com/unclick/undert ... game-ever/

Indeed I chose a bad example, but then why was it Undertale and not Manic Miner? Recency bias.

[Matt_B]

I'd think the key thing was that they polled 4000 gamers. You know what they're like. Of course they're going to pick the hot woman with the big tits.

The one I'm most surprised by is Agent 47 in third place. I've enjoyed some of the games in the series but the character is about as much of a blank slate player avatar as they come. Still, again, that's what the gamers seem to want these days.

[ParadigmShifter]

Undertale is a cult classic that inspired many many memes (mainly because of the fantastic music) so not surprised lots of people wanted to meme and raise its profile.

Obviously it looks WAY too hard for people of our age to play though lol Like angry birds on PCP?

Probably the biggest meme



Although I think it only gets that hard if you try and get the "bad" ending which is also an excellent critique of the RPG genre in general about how it's probably not a good idea to kill everyone you meet really.

EDIT: Actually I was thinking of spooky scary skeletons that appears to be a fan meme though?

[akeley]

The one I'm most surprised by is Agent 47 in third place. I've enjoyed some of the games in the series but the character is about as much of a blank slate player avatar as they come.

It's been also said about Master Chief earlier, but tbh I'm not sure where does this notion come from. Both these characters have very strong identity, (visual, at least) and the fact that they don't say much or that MC is wearing a helmet doesn't stop me (and clearly a lot of other people) from relating to him any differently than to Link or, indeed, Lara.

[Matt_B]

It's been also said about Master Chief earlier, but tbh I'm not sure where does this notion come from. Both these characters have very strong identity, (visual, at least) and the fact that they don't say much or that MC is wearing a helmet doesn't stop me (and clearly a lot of other people) from relating to him any differently than to Link or, indeed, Lara.

Sure, he's not the world's worst character or anything, but number three in the entire history of video games? Also, the Hitman movies are terrible. Not that the Tomb Raider ones are masterpieces, but I can at least see some non-gamers watching them. The idea that he's made any impact outside of video games is something I'd emphatically disagree with.

I'd think that it's more of an indication that they did some really bad sampling or their poll somehow got brigaded by a group of fans.

As for Master Chief, at least he's become an unofficial mascot of sorts to the Xbox, thanks to Halo being it's consistently best-selling series. That's worth a whole heap of extra recognition above what he's actually done in game, so a top ten spot seems justified on those grounds.

[AndyC]

It's been also said about Master Chief earlier, but tbh I'm not sure where does this notion come from. Both these characters have very strong identity, (visual, at least) and the fact that they don't say much or that MC is wearing a helmet doesn't stop me (and clearly a lot of other people) from relating to him any differently than to Link or, indeed, Lara.

I'm a big Zelda fan, but Link is absolutely the pinnacle of an almost character-less blank slate avatar (and quite intentionally so). 47 isn't quite that much of a blank slate, there is a lot of character back story, although it is mostly inconsequential to the games. I don't know if he belongs on the list, but I guess that sort of depends on how you want to define iconic. Is it purely as a visual representation? Is a well defined, fleshed out character important too? Is it impact on the world outside of video games? Notably Lara pretty much hits all those marks and more.

I do, however, think that its an odd argument to level at "modern gamers", that they somehow prefer more of a blank avatar than in the old days. As if we all somehow were deeply invested in the story of quite why multimillionaire Miner Willy had to tidy his own house before going to bed just because his housekeeper said so. Or why some sort of disembodied head wandered around a maze eating dots avoiding ghosts. Imagine just how different those games would be without such a strong character narrative driving them...

[akeley]

Sure, he's not the world's worst character or anything, but number three in the entire history of video games?

Ah, this point I can totally agree with. Somewhere in the Top 50, maybe, but no way he should be #3.

I was more refering to the idea that these are "blank slate" characters...well, this might or might not be true, but this quality itself shouldn't bar them from the top spots. So, again, MC does definitely qualify in Top 10 because of his overall impact, while Hitman is a bit silly, because he's nowhere that well known.

I'm a big Zelda fan, but Link is absolutely the pinnacle of an almost character-less blank slate avatar (and quite intentionally so). 47 isn't quite that much of a blank slate, there is a lot of character back story, although it is mostly inconsequential to the games.

As I said above, I think that the "blank slateness" is hugely subjective. Even if it's proven that's what the devs intention might have been (but tbh I think it's mostly a thing game journalists would say). Everyone percieves these things differently and so if you think that Link's muteness or lack of lengthy back story helps with immersion, it's fine - for me it's an extremely well defined individual (same as MC), just as some other non-blank one. For the record, I know about as much about Link as I do about Ms Croft, which is not a great deal.

[dvduk]

Was Master Chef from a cooking game?
Always wondered if it was a remake of Cookie?