This was a triumph / I'm making a note here: huge success.

Because I'm bored beyond belief and had an sudden inspiration, here is my

Favourite video game characters of all time in no particular order.

GlaDos  from Portal and Portal 2

This really needs no explanation, right? She may have the very best lines in the history of video games, ever. Priceless gems like:

• "Well done. Here come the test results: "You are a horrible person." That's what it says: a horrible person. We weren't even testing for that!
• "He's not just a regular moron. He's the product of the greatest minds of a generation working together with the express purpose of building the dumbest moron who ever lived. And you just put him in charge of the entire facility. [slow clap] Good, that's still working."

I don't think that I have ever laughed when playing a video game as much as I did when I played Portal 2. And I sort of really love how they redeemed GlaDos in the end. (Oh, wait. Spoiler alert, I guess?) I sort of really might have cried a bit when she said that Chel was her best friend and then played some syrupy Spanish turret opera for her. And I'm also very giddy of the fact that she is a she. As in ex-woman current science crazed robot. So, GlaDos, you will always have a very special place in my heart.

Still alive.

King of All Cosmos from Katamari

If you haven't ever heard of Katamari, you are obviously a moron. It is a game where things with tube shaped heads and cone shaped bodies roll around a ball, and everything big enough sticks to it. When ball gets bigger, you can pick up bigger things. (Like planets and giant squids and sumo wrestlers. You know. Ordinary stuff.) It is all very cheery and colourful.

Then add bipolar and megalomaniac king who somehow fucks the whole universe up and leaves the mess for cylinder head who is supposedly his son, The Prince and his seemingly endless flock of cousins while he sleeps for the whole duration of the Katamari Damacy and bitches about everything. 

Oh, and did I mention that he is totally fabulous?

Gorgeous and knows it.

Varric from Dragon Age II

Yes, yes, I know, DAII is complete shit compared to Origins and the plot was actually three separate little plots glued together (it was) story didn't have any major elements that would have gave it depth and meaning, like in DA: O (True), but I stand by my opinion that the followers were ten times better than in DA: Origins, except for Anders, that bitch. They are caricatures, definitely, but they make me feel like screen writers have really put effort into their backgrounds and attitudes. (Unlike scary slave-followers in Skyrim; most of whom have about three lines that they will contently say over and over again 'till I freak out and kill them. Is it really any wonder that I prefer raising zombies for my minions over hearing yet again "I am sworn to carry your burdens"?) I didn't like any of the Dragon Age: Origins characters half as much than I liked all the DAII followers. 

Why Varric then, and not Merril or Fenris or Aveline or whoever? Merril had that mirror business that she took way too seriously, Fenris just man angsted through whole game, (but I'm ready to forgive a lot for that voice. If that voice could be made into liquid and bottled, I would bath in it.) Aveline had too strict morals, Isabel needed to learn that sexual innuendos will get boring after a while... and they all have that one tick that makes them totally freak out and, I don't know, blow up buildings maybe (Oops spoilers. Anders you bitch.)

Except for Varric. Varric is just cool and unfazed through it all, he has some moral backbone but not too much, and he prefers using his wits instead of just butting his head against things he can't change until he has hell of a headache. (Anders I'm looking at you) He is my DA II bro for life.

Also, chest hair.

John Marston from Red Dead Redemption

If I could, I would make an ode titled: O, John Marston, the only male video game protagonist who isn't 30-something white brunette. Except he is brunette. And white. And male. And I'm not really sure about his age. Moving on! What I mean is that he really isn't from that same cookie cutter than virtually every other video game protagonist. He really seems like he has seen life, been to places, gotten tired of it all and settled down, and then been dragged back to everything he wanted to leave behind. He is being blackmailed and used by the very people who have been the villains of his whole former life, but he does their bidding anyway, with honor and poise. Because it is the right thing to do. 

Only thing I ever resented in John Marston was Jack Marston. 

You don't want to mess with him.

Shaun Hastings from Assassins Creed (all of them) 

I have very complex relationship with Assassins Creed as a game series. Because I know that they are not the best games I have ever played. They don't have best plots or best game play or best graphics. But they are the only game that will make me go batshit insane every time I get that new AC game to my hands, and the only game that I hate coming to an end so, so much. Every time I get to the end of one of them, I sit there, watching the credits mind reeling for the fact that even if I can play it again and complete the rest of the small side quests, it won't be the same again as the first time I got that game through. And I'm devastated. Until they announce the next game. 

So I had to include it in this list somehow. Luckily, we have the sassy history geek with an British accent. I have adored that guy from the first time he said to Desmond: "Hi, Desmond. Go away." He is one of those guys I look at and think to myself: one day, I want to be just like him. He has a passion for history. He doesn't put up with any bullshit. On the minus side, he is about the only character in the whole series worth mentioning (Except for Da Vinci, who is worth mentioning because he is Da Vinci. I adore him, too.) 

So, I will wait for AC III eagerly partly because I want to bother Shaun again for ten minutes in hopes he will say something new to me like he did in AC II if I remember right. I was very upset when I didn't get to do that in Revelations.

Hello. Go away.

+ 1: Character I absolutely hated so much that I couldn't be bothered to play through otherwise good game.

Cole Phelps from L.A Noire

Cole Phelps is a textbook example of what happens when what I think I am clash with the character I'm supposed to play as. I liked the concept and execution of L.A Noire, I liked the period of time it was set in, hell, I even loved the soundtrack to bits. But. None of that helped, because I cringed every single time the character that was supposed to be me opened his mouth. He was stuck-up and tense (and figured out the crimes much slower than I did.) When I wanted to accuse the suspect of lying, he shouted at suspects face and behaved violently. That was so opposite of what my own behaviour would have been in a similar situation, that it made me feel slightly ill. He is good character, and I wouldn't have minded him if he wasn't the protagonist, but as it were, the character made it really difficult to get into the game. 

And the problem could have been resolved, if they would have given player a bit more free reins and an option be a bit less goody-two-shoes. You can't even properly run over people with car in this game for fucks sake!

Killjoy since '47