Several years ago a popular gaming site started having hero battles where people could vote for their favorite game characters till one was crowned the victor. This was such a popular feature that they started doing it on a yearly basis, each time making it larger. Well these days Gamespot owns gametrailers and it was only a matter of time till they tried the same thing. Gamespots first video game popularity contest certainly looked slicker then anything gamefaqs had done in the past but it was obvious that it was their first time doing such a contest. First off the choices of who made the cut to be entered in the contest are questionable in some cases, with some characters leaving most to wonder "who the hell is this?".

Some of the characters I would have liked to see included would include Ashley Riot from Vagrant Story, Max Payne, Agent 47 from Hitman, Samanosuke from Onimusha, and Okami (seriously how did that wolf not make the cut). I understand why they only used one Final Fantasy hero, while it certainly is an injustice to the many great characters the series has enjoyed it also keeps the contest from being flooded by FF characters. Were they to include Cecil, Bartz, Squall, Zidane, Tidus, or even Vaan (lol) there is a good chance the contest would have boiled down to them vs. all the Nintendo mascots. While more intersting then the latter group dominating everyone for me a lot of people haven't played the FF games, especially those prior to FF X.

Voting options aside the contest was slickly presented with links to information about all the characters. Hopefully somebody decided to check out something great they had never played because they showed up in this contest. There was also the surprise upset of Bub & Bob beating out Master Chief. Prior to that there was a great comment system for each voting bracket where voters could shout out their support for their choice. Halo and 360 fanboys screamed so much and so hard that for the rest of the contest the comment function was removed. Had Master Chief made it through that round it's very possible that the final battle might have been between Mario and Master Chief. Similar things have happened on the gametrailers contests, I've heard that one year the L shaped tetris block actually came out on top.

But in the end these things are a popularity contest and that's it. Older folks like me will be disappointed when we see great game characters like Raziel lose a first tier Nintndo franchise but that's just how it works. Anyway, why did Gordon Freeman come out on top?

While the Half Life games are among the best shooters you could possibly play the character of Gordon Freeman doesn't really exist. In fact he's more of a non character, he never speaks a word and generally does what people tell him to. Maybe he won on the strength of the Half Life series, or maybe people just wanted to vote for somebody that shot aliens in the face as opposed to a plumber hopping on turtles while yelling "wahoooo!". The simplest answer is that as the lesser known heroes got weeded out the contest was boiled down to Nintendo mascots and a few others. For the most part there are three groups of people that voted for Mario 1)People voting for their nostalgic memories of their first gaming experiences, 2)Nintendo fanboys who think every Mario or Zelda game comes form a parting of the clouds and the hand of god, and finally 3) younger kids that recently played Super Mario Galaxy and thought it was the bees knees since their parent's won't be letting them play something like Half Life for another five years. If you don't fall into those three categories then you either voted for Freeman, didn't vote at all, or stopped voting after you favorite heroes lost to Mario, Link, or Samus. Maybe I'm way off, but that's my take on recent events.

Despite the definitive "all time greatest" suggesting that this is a one time affair I hope they do so again with a larger bracket. I hope they set things up so the popular nintendo mascots face off earlier keeping their numbers down and giving other characters a chance. Maybe split characters up by platform having a Greatest Nintendo Hero, Xbox Hero, PS Hero, and PC Hero. That would certainly keep the fanboy trolling to a minimum. Here's hoping for a second event next year, next time with more L block or companion cube!