Pikachu is probably waaaay more iconic especially amongst normies and the younger people too. You’d be hard pressed worldwide to see anyone who didn’t know about the little yellow rat
I'm a bit confused how it’s even this close. Aren't there a ton of Mario titles? Are the sports, party games, and rpg/paper Mario/Mario & Luigi games included in that total?
Their definition of iconic is so off. If I were to poll even a groups like totally random gamers that play > 40 hours a week, the number that don't recognize Donkey Kong is near 0. I wouldn't be shocked if the annoying owl from Zelda games polled higher than Kiryu Kazuma.
I mean even Cloud Strife is more iconic than Lara Croft. It's the first character people think of when they think of the absolutely massive Final Fantasy library.
You gotta remember that Lara Croft was used to advertise everything from cars to credit cards back in the PS1 days. I can see an argument for her being "the most iconic" back then.
Now it has to be Mario or maybe Pikachu/Pokémon in general.
I don't think that's true, I'm pretty sure Tomb Raider was in the mainstream a lot more than Crash ever was. Crash doesn't have a blockbuster movie. Regardless if quality, people who weren't gamers knew about Lara Croft.
Is a movie the measure of being iconic? Or even general public awareness? I don't think so. There's a Rampage movie but I think, e.g., Samus is more iconic than any of the characters in that film.
Sony pumped out multiple commercials for Crash Bandicoot and were clearly trying to push him as the face of PlayStation when the system first came out. Some commercials had references to Mario, suggesting they saw Crash as PlayStation's Mario. I don't recall anything like that for Tomb Raider.
Tomb Raider's ultimately had more sales though, especially with the newer games, so you could be right. I still think Crash was more influential in establishing the PlayStation brand, and I find Croft too generic to be "iconic."
Thanks for actually providing reasons for your disagreement, by the way.
Edit: I guess I wrote known quantity when originally the discussion was about being iconic. Bad choice of words.
This might be because this is British (as BAFTA) and so top spot goes to the hot British chick looking at the list seems a lot of recent games than anything older.
Like I'd have added in Ezio from Assassin's Creed when they were good instead of a Baldur's Gate 3 pick.
Like how Alan Turing is supposedly a father of computer science despite the only thing he's known for, the universal computer, being predated by superior Lambda calculus.
In the war he just tweaked the Polish Bomba design and made many mistakes that led to relying on the Americans to decode four rotor Enigma messages.
There's no there there. But the guy was undeniably British and gay, so he gets boosted by both.
Assassin Creed games were quite exemplary up to Assassin's Creed Unity. You can make an argument it's not a very good game, but on a technical level there still isn't a single game made today that rivals Unity in terms of graphics and AI density with that level of animation polish in an open-world environment. It's actually quite embarrassing how far we've regressed since then when it comes to open-world density.
As far as actual good gameplay is concerned, Assassin's Creed 2 - Rogue were all really good games (more or less). For a short while Ubisoft had a stranglehold on intuitive open-world, on-foot traversal, but then in typical Ubisoft fashion they shot themselves in the foot with both over-saturaton and by going woke.
What are you talking about? The platforming "parkour" was mediocre hold button to move. The stealth was nowhere near good. The combat was "counter to win" nearly single button boring.
Nothing abiut asscreed's gameplay was outstanding in any way. The open world was good, but that shit is just set dressing and it popularized "collect 100 random bullshits on the map" as a replacement for real content. Those games were genuinely mediocre on the gameplay front.
Gameplay is king. Story is queen (chez is a faggot). Graphics are nearly meaningless in comparison.
Depends on the Assassin's Creed, since Ubisoft went through various iterations of "gameplay" quite a bit from 1 up through Rogue. My personal favourite was Assassin's Creed 3 because it was the first and last game with the control scheme that it had. While parkour was admittedly simple, the changing of the seasons and the use of trees made for some very interesting environmental trekking, as deep snow meant it was difficult to trek on the ground and so using the trees became essential for moving more fluid, especially when being chased.
But the real highlight for me with Assassin's Creed 3's combat was that you couldn't just rely on 'B'/Circle to counter everything (I thin it was 'B'/Circle? Or was it X/Square?). Anyway, you couldn't just counter everything -- different weapons had different counters, and so there is a bit of a rock/paper/scissors effect to the weapons and countering, or you had to use certain attacks to weaken enemies before you could finish them as they would dodge/counter your moves. Enemy was besting you in swordplay? Use a gun. Enemy keeps firing at you from a distance? Throw an axe. Enemy keeps throwing you around? Use darts.
The combat in that game was so layered and complex that I had a ton of fun experimenting with different weapon combinations. Plus, being able to string enemies up using the rope dart from the tree branches was awesome, just the same being able to customise the digital pad for your own weapon/gadget profile was super useful for creating your own combos. That was another first and last feature in the Assassin's Creed games.
Rogue had the best seafaring mechanics, but it had some really dumbed down combat mechanics like AC4. Unity had some really cool parkour with some amazing set pieces and unrivaled art direction, but the combat wasn't great. Individually there were definitely a lot of drawbacks to the AC titles, but the sum of their parts made for a good experience depending on what you were looking for out of a gameplay experience.
If you'd asked me to bet on it before. I'd have put every dollar on the chick from Last of Us, so at least a bit surprised. Cool to see Agent 47 get some love.
Baldurs Gate 3, really? I haven't even tried it and probably won't. I know about beast sex already, and just based on it's age I assume it's otherwise an MTX live service fest
It does surprise me. I assume any popular new game is full of them. Cosmetic stuff I'm not sure I really care about either way in the end. "High fantasy" or whatever you'd call it has so many games I could play in history, there's just no reason to bother with a questionable game.
I dream of those triangle torpedo boobs to this day. I wonder how much of it is due to all the cosplaying. Back in the 90s every attractive woman seemed to cosplay as her
Duke, unfortunately, has fallen off just about as badly as Lara. There hasn't been a new Duke Nukem game since 2011. At least Tomb Raider had the rereleases of the original games this year, but it's still a dead franchise as far as any new games go.
BAFTA started the diversity mandates in award ceremonies trend.
BAFTA is an independent British organisation that promotes and rewards excellence in film, games and TV. Learn about its awards, events, initiatives, membership and news.
More like "promotes and rewards left-progressive extremism in film, games and TV"
That list has to be a troll of some kind. Lara #1, Agent 47 #3, Sackboy #5, 2 characters from BG3, Ellie from Last of Us but not Joel.
the poll was engaged with by over 4,000 players from all over the world.
Since they wanted the most iconic video games characters ever, it would have made more sense to choose non-gamers, and just ask them "Can you name this video game character?".
In 2015, Nintendo confirmed that their Mario character was indeed named after Segale. Segale told The Seattle Times in 1993, "You might say I'm still waiting for my royalty checks."
Mario games sold worldwide = 800 million
Tomb Raider games sold worldwide = 95 million
But muh strong and independent woman (especially the new version with less tits and more bitchiness)
Lara Croft really embodies how we’ve fallen. In no sane world should “make her unpleasant and take away the rack” have actually been made.
You can see it everywhere, especially in longstanding franchises like Halo. Cortana got more and more clothed and uppity as the series went.
And fatter
I was skipping through that new star wars TV series and it was mostly women yelling commands at cucked men from off-screen.
Mario is a very strong argument. Despite Sonic winning the most-searched analysis, I'm still going to nominate Pac-Man as the most iconic.
Even his very nature is more iconic and recognizable than any other video game character to the broader public.
Regardless, Croft is lucky to reach the top 10, let alone the #1 spot. That's crazy talk.
If you say "it's the Pacman shape", everyone knows what you're talking about. He's also so simple anyone can draw him.
Both his in-game and mascot character designs have that timelessness to them that sticks with you.
Pikachu is probably waaaay more iconic especially amongst normies and the younger people too. You’d be hard pressed worldwide to see anyone who didn’t know about the little yellow rat
I'm a bit confused how it’s even this close. Aren't there a ton of Mario titles? Are the sports, party games, and rpg/paper Mario/Mario & Luigi games included in that total?
If they wanted to know "which game sold the most", they would not need to conduct a poll.
Mario leans towards an "every man" persona, he's just a guy doing a job, not flashy or bold. A lot of people might not associate that with "iconic".
And which scene is more iconic?
This: https://i.imgur.com/S8RXljF.jpeg
Or this: https://i.imgur.com/4hTXZDX.jpeg
Because one of them made more than 10x the box office of the other (~4x if you account for inflation)
Not really a Mario fan, But its Mario.
I would say Mario, Pikachu, and Link easily beat her.
And Master Chief, Gordon Freeman, Sonic, Marcus Fenix, Pac Man...
Donkey Kong, Minecraft Steve.
Their definition of iconic is so off. If I were to poll even a groups like totally random gamers that play > 40 hours a week, the number that don't recognize Donkey Kong is near 0. I wouldn't be shocked if the annoying owl from Zelda games polled higher than Kiryu Kazuma.
I mean even Cloud Strife is more iconic than Lara Croft. It's the first character people think of when they think of the absolutely massive Final Fantasy library.
LOL. She shouldn't make the top 25, maybe 50.
You gotta remember that Lara Croft was used to advertise everything from cars to credit cards back in the PS1 days. I can see an argument for her being "the most iconic" back then.
Now it has to be Mario or maybe Pikachu/Pokémon in general.
Even back then, Crash Bandicoot was more of a known quantity than Lara Croft.
This is completely false.
I don't think that's true, I'm pretty sure Tomb Raider was in the mainstream a lot more than Crash ever was. Crash doesn't have a blockbuster movie. Regardless if quality, people who weren't gamers knew about Lara Croft.
Is a movie the measure of being iconic? Or even general public awareness? I don't think so. There's a Rampage movie but I think, e.g., Samus is more iconic than any of the characters in that film.
Sony pumped out multiple commercials for Crash Bandicoot and were clearly trying to push him as the face of PlayStation when the system first came out. Some commercials had references to Mario, suggesting they saw Crash as PlayStation's Mario. I don't recall anything like that for Tomb Raider.
Tomb Raider's ultimately had more sales though, especially with the newer games, so you could be right. I still think Crash was more influential in establishing the PlayStation brand, and I find Croft too generic to be "iconic."
Thanks for actually providing reasons for your disagreement, by the way.
Edit: I guess I wrote known quantity when originally the discussion was about being iconic. Bad choice of words.
I'm going to guess that BAFTA isn't going to pick a character that's big in the gaming world and not necessarily outside of it.
It all depends on how "iconic" is defined.
Not even close lol
This simply isn't true.
Even more telling that there is 2: the sassy twink vampire and a super secret emo. What is worst is both of them aren’t as popular as Karlach.
This might be because this is British (as BAFTA) and so top spot goes to the hot British chick looking at the list seems a lot of recent games than anything older.
Like I'd have added in Ezio from Assassin's Creed when they were good instead of a Baldur's Gate 3 pick.
Like how Alan Turing is supposedly a father of computer science despite the only thing he's known for, the universal computer, being predated by superior Lambda calculus.
In the war he just tweaked the Polish Bomba design and made many mistakes that led to relying on the Americans to decode four rotor Enigma messages.
There's no there there. But the guy was undeniably British and gay, so he gets boosted by both.
I didn't know this. Thanks.
Pick one
Don't care, I'll defend 2, Brotherhood, revelations and Black Flag as great games.
The rest, very hit or miss. Even the first one as it didn't balance the grind well.
Assassin Creed games were quite exemplary up to Assassin's Creed Unity. You can make an argument it's not a very good game, but on a technical level there still isn't a single game made today that rivals Unity in terms of graphics and AI density with that level of animation polish in an open-world environment. It's actually quite embarrassing how far we've regressed since then when it comes to open-world density.
As far as actual good gameplay is concerned, Assassin's Creed 2 - Rogue were all really good games (more or less). For a short while Ubisoft had a stranglehold on intuitive open-world, on-foot traversal, but then in typical Ubisoft fashion they shot themselves in the foot with both over-saturaton and by going woke.
What are you talking about? The platforming "parkour" was mediocre hold button to move. The stealth was nowhere near good. The combat was "counter to win" nearly single button boring.
Nothing abiut asscreed's gameplay was outstanding in any way. The open world was good, but that shit is just set dressing and it popularized "collect 100 random bullshits on the map" as a replacement for real content. Those games were genuinely mediocre on the gameplay front.
Gameplay is king. Story is queen (chez is a faggot). Graphics are nearly meaningless in comparison.
Depends on the Assassin's Creed, since Ubisoft went through various iterations of "gameplay" quite a bit from 1 up through Rogue. My personal favourite was Assassin's Creed 3 because it was the first and last game with the control scheme that it had. While parkour was admittedly simple, the changing of the seasons and the use of trees made for some very interesting environmental trekking, as deep snow meant it was difficult to trek on the ground and so using the trees became essential for moving more fluid, especially when being chased.
But the real highlight for me with Assassin's Creed 3's combat was that you couldn't just rely on 'B'/Circle to counter everything (I thin it was 'B'/Circle? Or was it X/Square?). Anyway, you couldn't just counter everything -- different weapons had different counters, and so there is a bit of a rock/paper/scissors effect to the weapons and countering, or you had to use certain attacks to weaken enemies before you could finish them as they would dodge/counter your moves. Enemy was besting you in swordplay? Use a gun. Enemy keeps firing at you from a distance? Throw an axe. Enemy keeps throwing you around? Use darts.
The combat in that game was so layered and complex that I had a ton of fun experimenting with different weapon combinations. Plus, being able to string enemies up using the rope dart from the tree branches was awesome, just the same being able to customise the digital pad for your own weapon/gadget profile was super useful for creating your own combos. That was another first and last feature in the Assassin's Creed games.
Rogue had the best seafaring mechanics, but it had some really dumbed down combat mechanics like AC4. Unity had some really cool parkour with some amazing set pieces and unrivaled art direction, but the combat wasn't great. Individually there were definitely a lot of drawbacks to the AC titles, but the sum of their parts made for a good experience depending on what you were looking for out of a gameplay experience.
Doom guy or no one. I'm biased but so are they.
If you'd asked me to bet on it before. I'd have put every dollar on the chick from Last of Us, so at least a bit surprised. Cool to see Agent 47 get some love.
Baldurs Gate 3, really? I haven't even tried it and probably won't. I know about beast sex already, and just based on it's age I assume it's otherwise an MTX live service fest
It does surprise me. I assume any popular new game is full of them. Cosmetic stuff I'm not sure I really care about either way in the end. "High fantasy" or whatever you'd call it has so many games I could play in history, there's just no reason to bother with a questionable game.
I'm surprised it wasn't Diana from the Hitman games that got on the list.
The BAFTAS are full of shit pumped out by pricks.
Mario and Sonic alone say hi.
I dream of those triangle torpedo boobs to this day. I wonder how much of it is due to all the cosplaying. Back in the 90s every attractive woman seemed to cosplay as her
There were plenty of magazine ads featuring her back then too.
By that measure, Misty, the second gym leader of the Pokemon franchise, should clearly be the most iconic video game character.
I know Duke Nukem isn't the most iconic, but dammit I would have at least given him an honorable mention for being such a badass.
Duke, unfortunately, has fallen off just about as badly as Lara. There hasn't been a new Duke Nukem game since 2011. At least Tomb Raider had the rereleases of the original games this year, but it's still a dead franchise as far as any new games go.
I can't believe that they misgendered poor Lara Croft!
Lara is one of those characters who show how retarded and contradictory feminism is at its core. Nothing but female histrionics
Mario, Sonic, Pac-Man, and Pikachu are the first four names that come to mind in under 60 seconds.
BAFTA started the diversity mandates in award ceremonies trend.
More like "promotes and rewards left-progressive extremism in film, games and TV"
That list has to be a troll of some kind. Lara #1, Agent 47 #3, Sackboy #5, 2 characters from BG3, Ellie from Last of Us but not Joel.
Since they wanted the most iconic video games characters ever, it would have made more sense to choose non-gamers, and just ask them "Can you name this video game character?".
My top 10 most iconic, assuming I have to pick max 1 from any series:
Sonic The Hedgehog, Mr. Pac Man, Mario Mario, Pikachu, Link, pretty non-contentious top-5 I'd say, then...
Minecraft Steve, Cloud Strife, then probably Samus Aran and Laura Croft, and finally Pheonix Wright (simply because of meme crossovers, "OBJECTION!").
Lara Croft is cool and all, but somehow, I just don't see her being more Iconic than the Italian Plumber from Brooklyn...
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