The Digital People

Most of them have never blinked, moved their lips or even smiled and a few of them have never even spoken, but we love them all the same. From Mario to Snake, from Link to Master Chief, they’re the digital people who’ve captured our imaginations and our hearts.

Find out which pixelated people have touched our hearts, after the jump!

Most of them have never blinked, moved their lips or even smiled and a few of them have never even spoken, but we love them all the same. From Mario to Snake, from Link to Master Chief, they’re the digital people who’ve captured our imaginations and our hearts.

Mario: Even the fact that he’s been played by everyone from Captain Lou Albano to Bob Hoskins hasn’t managed to stop the red and blue Italian Stallion from the Land of The Rising Sun. For many gamers, Mario was the first digital character that they really developed a connection with, for some (myself included) it was his underdog brother Luigi. Either way the entire cast and crew of the Mario franchise has grown close to gamers hearts, yes, even you Iggy. Mario’s not just a mascot for Nintendo, he’s an ambassador for videogames, an icon for gamers everywhere, a symbol of our common heritage, and cherished and respected the world over.

Cloud and Aeris: Ho, ho, boy! At a time when many of us were angst ridden teens Squaresoft came along and gave us a hero we could all identify with, an angst ridden teen with a ludicrously huge sword and a chip on his shoulder. If you want proof of just how popular this reluctant freedom fighter is, do a google image search of the word “Cloud” and see what the first image is, it won’t be the puffy white things that float in the sky. And then there was Aeris, poor sweet, ill fated Aeris. Parents the world over must have been a little confused and perhaps even a little scared as they witnessed their kids bawling their eyes out at the death of a videogame character. The first time I saw that E3 2005 Final Fantasy VII tech demo with Aeris holding the bouquet of flowers in her hands, it just broke my heart.

Snake: Snake is real and almost tangible in a way that few videogame characters ever dare to be. Not only is he a layered, emotionally complex dude with more than his fair share sibling rivalry issues, but he also does something that few other franchise characters do, he ages. Face it, at some point in the future (possibly the near future?) whether it’s from a cold, hard bullet, or the ravages of time Snake’s going to die. He was born on the battlefield, and over time Snake has wrestled with his nature, with his genes and with his very fate. Whether his death will be a lonely one on some random battlefield, or on a quiet bed surrounded by what few friends he has remains to be seen.

Link: I have to admit, I never thought of of Link as a real character when I played the first few Zelda games, great as the games themselves were, he was always the generic questor fellow for me (didn’t help that I thought his name was actually “Zelda” for the longest time). But then his world came alive on the Nintendo 64 with the Ocarina of Time. As soon the game opened in the enchanted Kokiri forest, life was breathed into Link. From his summoning by the Great Deku Tree to the final battle with the hideous monster Ganondorf, Link undergoes a journey that sees him grow from a naive little boy, to a stalwart young warrior.

The Prince: Few characters have gone through such huge changes in such a short span of time. In the Sands of Time we listened to his quiet, egotistical, somewhat chauvinistic internal monologues. The words of a young naive Prince searching for glory and the favor of his fathers eye. In the Warrior Within, the Prince wrestles with being a man marked by death, an ordeal that changes him so fundamentally that by the time we see him again in The Two Thrones, he is a far different man than that young impetuous Prince of old. Tempered by the dark promises of fate and death he is a humble man, a stronger man literally struggling against his own inner demons. The Prince embodies a struggle which rages within all of us, the desire to be noble, humble and altruistic, and the lingering darkness that drives us to selfishness and arrogance.

Cortana: I know I’m gonna get flailed for not really adding Master Chief to the list instead, but here’s my reasoning. When you’re playing Halo you are the Master Chief, he is an extension of your consciousness and Cortana is your AI. But, she’s become so much more. Over the course of the first two Halo games Cortana developed a personality that endeared her to us all, humorous, concerned and maybe even a little sexy too. Which is why her slow descent into madness (apparently) has been hard to watch. Like Snake, Cortana’s end is near, and I have a bad feeling the Master Chief will play some sort of terrible role in her eventual demise. “I have defied gods and demons. I am your shield, I am your sword.I know you; your past, your future. This is the way the world ends.”

And now, as we step into the next generation we’re capable of rendering every pore, every bead of sweat, freckle and sorrow filled tear, you have to ask yourself, “will they be more real?” The simple answer is no, they wont, at least if they do it won’t be because of that, you see it’s not the pixels that make the characters, it’s the he(art). Of course this list is by no means definitive, everyone has characters that they love for whatever reason, as always we’d like to hear your favorites in the comments.