My Game Informer List!
I'm making a new post because holy shit, having actually sat down to make my own list, and having tried to actually make it sort-of representative of this decade really brings out what a fucking terrible job they did over at GI! More on that in a second: First, my list.
~Now with badly done composite image~ (Thank you Pickle)
JAPANESE1. James/Pyramid Head (SH2)
2. Wander (SOTC)
3. Dante (Devil May Cry)
4. Bayonetta (Bayonetta)
5. Sora (Kingdom Hearts)
6. Lightning (Final Fantasy)
7. Minato Arisato (Persona)
8. Phoenix Wright (Ace Attorney)
9. Animal Crossing Character (Animal Crossing)
10. Etna (Disgaea)
11. The Prince (Katamari)
12. Professor Layton (Professor Layton)
13. Amaterasu (Okami)
14. The Merchant (RE4)
15. Raiden (Metal Gear)
WESTERN1. GlaDOS (Portal)
2. Alyx (Half-Life 2)
3. Heavy (Team Fortress 2)
4. Altair (Assassin's Creed)
5. Thrall (Warcraft)
6. A Sim playing Guitar Hero (Sims & Guitar Hero)
7. CJ (GTA San Andreas)
8. Kratos (God of War)
9. Revan (KOTOR)
10. Andrew Ryan (Bioshock)
11. Nathan Drake (Uncharted)
12. Master Chief (Halo)
13. Razputin (Psychonauts)
14. Tali (Mass Effect)
15. Sackboy (Little Big Planet)
Notable Omissions: Prince of Persia, Diablo II, Wind Waker, Beyond Good and Evil, Call of Duty, Modern Warfare, Gears of War, Counter-Strike, Runescape, Ratchet & Clank, Jak & Daxter, Baldur's Gate, Ninja Gaiden
Alright, so, as you can see I picked 15 Japanese and 15 Western games. My rules were to try to pick games that were not part of franchises that had been previously established, though I did make an exception for RE4 for being huge and for redefining the Resident Evil series as a whole and for being a pretty definitive third-person shooter. I did choose the Merchant instead of Leon to get around the created-in-2000-rule. I think my personal bias probably slipped in somewhere along the line, but definitely not as much as whoever made GI's list.
I cheated by combining Sims and Guitar Hero, but since neither have identifiable characters, I feel a person with a green diamond and a guitar hero guitar would be like, plenty sufficient. I cannot believe how those were overlooked! Well, yes I can - target demographics and the ghettoizing of casual gamers (ew, girls!) and the absence of recognizable characters, but as far as important games of the past decade go, those are massive. Supermassive. World of Warcraft massive. See also: Glaring Omissions.
Some of these I feel like I should justify - I chose Sora and Lightning as two separate categories because I think Kingdom Hearts has really defined what Squeenix has been doing for the past ten years, for better or for worse, and I chose Lightning because she does follow in that trend while being the most recent FF protagonist (and also adds another lady to the party, so hooray for that). I originally had Midna or Tetra slated in my list, but I eventually cut them in favour of Amaterasu - I did this because A) Zelda was established well before the 2000s, and while Wind Waker style took it in a new direction, there aren't really any characters I can include that aren't incarnations of past character, except for maybe Tingle and I don't even need to tell you what's wrong with that, and B) Midna is very recognizable, but Twilight Princess was not the huge new direction in Zelda games that the Wind Waker style was. Ultimately I opted for Ammy from Okami instead, because I thought that since I included Psychonauts on the Western list I should include a similarly niche but well-reviewed and very creative game on the Japanese list.
I picked Etna over Laharl because I think she's more recognizable and Laharl has stupid hair.
I picked Altair over Ezio because he came first. I also had to omit Prince of Persia for Assassin's Creed which totally sucks, but PoP definitely came before the 2000s even though they've been reinventing the series.
I chose Revan for my Bioware Protagonist because A) KOTOR came first and B) Revan wears a mask and robes. That's a nice little dodge on some of the issues that come up with a default shep - give Revan his/her mask and an ambiguous body shape and you're good. See also why I picked Tali, though I'd cut her for The Prince in a heartbeat.
Sackboy might be a questionable choice but he was the face of the PS3 for a long time and so, again, I include him. Though I'd also cut him for the Prince were he not disqualified on a technicality, sob.
ANYWAY, some stats on my list:
Sex
Female: 7/30 (3/7 Main playable character)
Male: 19/30 (16/19 Main playable character - heavy and thrall were both counted)
Ambiguous/Customizable: 4/30 (4/4 Main Playable Character - I included sackboy despite the "boy")
Race
White: 11/30
Not White: 4/30 (Altair counted as Arabic, though if you ask me he should only count for half a point)
Ambiguous: 10/30 (Customizable characters included - Raz also included on account of being orange with a blue father? Characters like Lightning and Sora are also here)
Nonhuman: 5/30
I can't really do a queer count, since I honestly don't know for a lot of these chars, but uh... Well, it isn't great, but it's definitely a bit better than what they had before?
Anyway, GIVE ME YOUR FINAL LISTS. AND YOUR THOUGHTS.
~Now with badly done composite image~ (Thank you Pickle)
JAPANESE1. James/Pyramid Head (SH2)
2. Wander (SOTC)
3. Dante (Devil May Cry)
4. Bayonetta (Bayonetta)
5. Sora (Kingdom Hearts)
6. Lightning (Final Fantasy)
7. Minato Arisato (Persona)
8. Phoenix Wright (Ace Attorney)
9. Animal Crossing Character (Animal Crossing)
10. Etna (Disgaea)
11. The Prince (Katamari)
12. Professor Layton (Professor Layton)
13. Amaterasu (Okami)
14. The Merchant (RE4)
15. Raiden (Metal Gear)
WESTERN1. GlaDOS (Portal)
2. Alyx (Half-Life 2)
3. Heavy (Team Fortress 2)
4. Altair (Assassin's Creed)
5. Thrall (Warcraft)
6. A Sim playing Guitar Hero (Sims & Guitar Hero)
7. CJ (GTA San Andreas)
8. Kratos (God of War)
9. Revan (KOTOR)
10. Andrew Ryan (Bioshock)
11. Nathan Drake (Uncharted)
12. Master Chief (Halo)
13. Razputin (Psychonauts)
14. Tali (Mass Effect)
15. Sackboy (Little Big Planet)
Notable Omissions: Prince of Persia, Diablo II, Wind Waker, Beyond Good and Evil, Call of Duty, Modern Warfare, Gears of War, Counter-Strike, Runescape, Ratchet & Clank, Jak & Daxter, Baldur's Gate, Ninja Gaiden
Alright, so, as you can see I picked 15 Japanese and 15 Western games. My rules were to try to pick games that were not part of franchises that had been previously established, though I did make an exception for RE4 for being huge and for redefining the Resident Evil series as a whole and for being a pretty definitive third-person shooter. I did choose the Merchant instead of Leon to get around the created-in-2000-rule. I think my personal bias probably slipped in somewhere along the line, but definitely not as much as whoever made GI's list.
I cheated by combining Sims and Guitar Hero, but since neither have identifiable characters, I feel a person with a green diamond and a guitar hero guitar would be like, plenty sufficient. I cannot believe how those were overlooked! Well, yes I can - target demographics and the ghettoizing of casual gamers (ew, girls!) and the absence of recognizable characters, but as far as important games of the past decade go, those are massive. Supermassive. World of Warcraft massive. See also: Glaring Omissions.
Some of these I feel like I should justify - I chose Sora and Lightning as two separate categories because I think Kingdom Hearts has really defined what Squeenix has been doing for the past ten years, for better or for worse, and I chose Lightning because she does follow in that trend while being the most recent FF protagonist (and also adds another lady to the party, so hooray for that). I originally had Midna or Tetra slated in my list, but I eventually cut them in favour of Amaterasu - I did this because A) Zelda was established well before the 2000s, and while Wind Waker style took it in a new direction, there aren't really any characters I can include that aren't incarnations of past character, except for maybe Tingle and I don't even need to tell you what's wrong with that, and B) Midna is very recognizable, but Twilight Princess was not the huge new direction in Zelda games that the Wind Waker style was. Ultimately I opted for Ammy from Okami instead, because I thought that since I included Psychonauts on the Western list I should include a similarly niche but well-reviewed and very creative game on the Japanese list.
I picked Etna over Laharl because I think she's more recognizable and Laharl has stupid hair.
I picked Altair over Ezio because he came first. I also had to omit Prince of Persia for Assassin's Creed which totally sucks, but PoP definitely came before the 2000s even though they've been reinventing the series.
I chose Revan for my Bioware Protagonist because A) KOTOR came first and B) Revan wears a mask and robes. That's a nice little dodge on some of the issues that come up with a default shep - give Revan his/her mask and an ambiguous body shape and you're good. See also why I picked Tali, though I'd cut her for The Prince in a heartbeat.
Sackboy might be a questionable choice but he was the face of the PS3 for a long time and so, again, I include him. Though I'd also cut him for the Prince were he not disqualified on a technicality, sob.
ANYWAY, some stats on my list:
Sex
Female: 7/30 (3/7 Main playable character)
Male: 19/30 (16/19 Main playable character - heavy and thrall were both counted)
Ambiguous/Customizable: 4/30 (4/4 Main Playable Character - I included sackboy despite the "boy")
Race
White: 11/30
Not White: 4/30 (Altair counted as Arabic, though if you ask me he should only count for half a point)
Ambiguous: 10/30 (Customizable characters included - Raz also included on account of being orange with a blue father? Characters like Lightning and Sora are also here)
Nonhuman: 5/30
I can't really do a queer count, since I honestly don't know for a lot of these chars, but uh... Well, it isn't great, but it's definitely a bit better than what they had before?
Anyway, GIVE ME YOUR FINAL LISTS. AND YOUR THOUGHTS.