10 of the Most Iconic Video Game Characters

We all know Mario, Sonic and the like, and while they're certainly iconic, they're also the products of marketing boards who wanted them to be iconic. This article is more about the characters who became loved accidentally, the video game characters who, if they played rock music, would have been inaugurated into the Hall of Fame a long time ago. In their day, like the Beatles, these guys were bigger than Jesus.

I think the safest thing we can do is go for a top ten list, and see where it leads us.

#10 The Galaxian Mothership:

You remember these guys. Actually, I'm hoping you do, otherwise I'm showing my age a little. They sat at the top of the screen, watching you destroy their minions, but only deigning to attack you with an escort if at all possible.

Reason they're an iconic video game character: They were, as far as I'm aware, the first example of a crossover into another videogame. Remember the bonus fruits in Pac-man? If you were astonishingly good at memorizing how to complete levels, the mothership appeared for your delectation. Not that many people generally got that far, but I've seen screenshots, it happened. No, really.

#9 The Pong Paddle:

Had to be included, really. This cheeky chap and his counterpart were so popular, machines reputedly were out of order on a regular basis because they were overstuffed with quarters.

Reason they're an iconic video game character: Simply the design. Look at it, so sleek, so simplistic, almost minimalist. In an age of snazzy 3D rendered graphics, there's something to be said for something so elegant. It's almost minimalist, in a secretly ironic way. #8 Sinistar:

Alright, more people are going to remember this one than Galaxians. Barring the odd early attempt like Gorf, this was the first arcade game to speak back to you. Well, boom across the arcade at you, to be exact. "I LIVE!", Sinistar would cry, and "RAWR!", or "RUN, COWARD!". And the first time you heard it, you were very tempted to.

Reason they're an iconic video game character: C'mon, how many videogames actually insult you in public?

#7 Miner Willy:

This is probably less of an iconic videogame character if you grew up outside the UK. But if you didn't, and owned (or knew someone who owned) a Sinclair ZX Spectrum, this little guy was probably the first memorable hero you had on your system. Star of Manic Miner and the sequel, Jet Set Willy, these were also probably also the first platform games you ever played, too.

Reason they're an iconic video game character: You identified with Willy. After all, you lost count of the number of times you sent him plummeting to his death because you missed a platform by a fraction of an inch. You hated him for missing, and sending you back to the start of the level (or worse, the game), but you loved him too, and felt bad for him.

#6 Pac-man: I had to include him. After all, you can't talk about iconic video game characters without a mention. He had the lot; t-shirts, keychains, board games. His own cartoon show. Hell, he had his own hit single (Pacman Fever; in retrospect, you weren't missing much if you haven't heard this). If that's not an iconic, I don't know what is.

Reason they're an iconic video game character: Oh, please. Every knows his yellow pie shaped-body. There are undiscovered tribes in the amazon untouched by western civilisation who know who Pacman is. His image is graven into the hieroglyphs on the Pyramid of Giza. Angels cry when he dies and makes the 'wheeeeeeeeuuuu wark wark' noise.

#5 The Sentinel:

The eponymous nemesis of this rather quirky game, released on pretty much any microcomputer that existed in 1986, Geoff Crammond's The Sentinel was a battle of nerves, where you, the unseen first-perspective hero, had to try and climb from the lowest platform on the 3D level to the highest, all the time being careful not to be seen by the Sentinel. This was done by absorbing surrounding objects for energy like trees and boulders, and creating new ones to gain height, and... well, it's all a bit complex. There's a flash version over here, and showing is far easier than telling sometimes.

Reason they're an iconic video game character: His sheer relentlessness. For a game with no real time limit or score, and 10,000 levels to conquer, you'd still find yourself scrabbling for the correct keys, moving desperately across the grid in the vain hope of not being seen. The Sentinel haunted people's dreams.

#4 Q*Bert:

Video game designers were clearly on acid throughout most of the 1980s: This is the only possible explanation for games like Bubble Bobble (where dinosaurs trapped monsters in bubbles, only to burst them so said monsters would turn into fruit), and it's certainly the only explanation for the surreallist nightmare that is Q*bert. Even the the name (I presume the '*' element is pronounced with an epiglottal click, much like those tribes along the Amazon do) is bizarre and otherworldly.

Reason he's an iconic video game character: I honestly have no idea. He's a... round, fuzzy thing, with two limbs and a nose that looks like a vacuum cleaner attachment, who jumps around a cubist pyramid avoiding snakes doing impressions of coiled springs. Nevertheless, he's easily one of the most memorable and recognisable video game characters around. If you have to ask why, you'll probably never know.

#3 Rockford:

The hero of Boulder Dash, another game which appeared through every system in the world simulatenously in the 1980s, was one of those 'collect and run' type games. You dug a series of tunnels through soft earth, collecting diamonds, and avoiding boulders. It sounds simple, but the avalanches a novice player could cause could be nothing but spectacular.

Reason he's an iconic video game character: Rockford was one of the first video game characters I ever saw with an idle animation: If the player didn't press any keys or wiggle the joystick for a certain amount of time, he started showing his impatience. His eyes would blink, he'd look from side to side, and start tapping his foot. It made Rockford seem almost alive. Which, of course, merely multiplied the pathos when you sent him to his death under 60,000 tons of falling boulders. Or worse still trapped him without actually killing him, leaving him confined in a tiny space with no hope except the violent death of explosive suicide.

#2 Black Mage:

Final Fantasy, of course, was the very first in a series of interminable games which made Squaresoft executives so rich they had to hire two people apiece to hold their trousers up, lest the weight of their money drag them downwards. But at this stage of development, the games had a certain innocent charm, and nothing had been seen like them on the market before. Black Mage was one of the many heroes you could choose for your party, and was generally popular for the wide range of destructive spells he could hurl at enemies.

Reason he's an iconic video game character: Like John Travolta, Black Mage didn't really become iconic until long after everyone thought his career was dead. His Pulp Fiction renaissance was a webcomic known as 8-Bit Theater, and I only wish this article would get as many hits as Brian's website does. He's on T-shirts, mouse mats, and all over the Internet. Black Mage has gone from being a simple, characterless 8-bit sprite to being a smelly, unloved, homicidally violent engine of mass destruction, bent on destroying the world and everyone in it, starting with his friends. And we all love him to bits for it.

And finally...

#1 The Nethack '@': - A world of ASCII maps, all explored by you, the heroic adventurer, designated by a humble @ sign. That's it. No fancy graphics, no plain and boring graphics, just a single symbol. And yet, he's probably responsible for more college study hours being lost than any other single game character.

Reason they're an iconic video game character: The Nethack community has sent literally millions of these poor fellows to their untimely deaths. Their lives could have been spend hanging around in email addresses, bothering no-one, but no. You had to hit that floating eye, or quaff from that fountain. After all that genocide, I think Mr. @ deserves a little recognition, don't you?