Best Female Video Game Characters of 2008 – Best of Article

Plenty of sites are doing there end of year “Best Video Games of 2008″ lists, but we thought we’d do something a little different. We’re going to look at the coolest female games characters that made an appearance in games in 2008.

Some are new faces, some are old favorites , but we think these ladies deserve some special attention. As well as the cooler female games characters, we’ve also got the wooden spoon awards for those ladies in gaming that just didn’t quite cut it this year, for one reason or another.

Let’s get to it…

	Zoey – Left 4 Dead Zoey is awesome, she’s the only female survivor in the brilliant Left 4 Dead (we wish there were more female characters!). Before the Zombie outbreak Zoey was a college student with a penchant for watching horror films when she should have been studying. This meant her grades sucked, but her knowledge of zombies was pretty cool. Handy really.
	Lara Croft – Tomb Raider: Underworld Lady Lara Croft returned to us this year in Tomb Raider: Underworld and the story followed on from her last adventure. This game is a hot bed of female characters and they’re all awesome, but none as awesome as Lara herself. Also appearing in the game are Amanda Evert and Jaqueline Natla.
	Daddy’s Little Girl – Fallout 3 You might think this one doesn’t really count because it’s down to your own choice, but we loved the fact you could choose to be male or female in Fallout 3, so much that it made our list. There’s nothing worse than the assumption the ‘hero’ should be male, so well done to Bethesda for thinking of us lady gamers.
	Kendra Daniels – Dead Space Kendra Daniels is a Tech expert that’s assigned to ‘help’ you on your mission through the mining ship USG Ishimura. You’ll hear her more than see her and we can’t say too much, but we liked her addition to Dead Space. Shame the masked character of Isaac couldn’t have had non gender specific name since we only see him suited up until the end of the game.
	Sparrow – Fable II Another game where you get to choose to play as a male or female hero Fable II & despite a few bugs turned out to be one of the hit games of 2008. Molyneux and team included the ability to play as a female hero and it really added to this title for us, after its predecessor only featured a male hero.
	Faith – Mirror’s Edge Faith not only gets a tip of the hat for being a female character, but also for being a Eurasian female character. Female gamers are still underrepresented in video games when it comes to playable leads, it’s even more rare we see anything other than the Caucasian hero, so kudos to faith for breaking that mold.
	Dr Tenenbaum – BioSock Yeah BioShock was out in 2006 on the Xbox 360, but it only hit the PS3 in 2008, thus making Dr Bridgette Tenenbaum a worthy recipient of this award. Despite the male hero at the center of BioShock, there is female content by way of the Little Sisters and also Tenebaum, a female character integral to the storyline.
The following female video game characters were unveiled in 2008. These characters get an honorable mention as female gaming characters that caught our eye when they were unveiled this year… Whether they’re cool on release or yet more boring eye candy for the male gaze remains to be seen. We think given the tom boyish look of the female character in Hydrophobia and Heavy Rain, these characters might actually be strong female game characters rather than being sold on sex alone. Sadly, though we mention Yakecan from Damnation, she looks more likely to fit the sex sells model of female video game character.. time will tell! Kate Wilson – Hydrophobia Female Detective – Heavy Rain Yakecan Damnation
	Maria Santiago – Gears of War 2 What a waste. The developers had the chance to really kick some ass with this character, but the story fell flat into a sea of “wife” and “victim”. Maria Santiago could have been a “survivor” and “ass kicker”, but apparently being used as a lame plot device to give the male characters story time is all she was worthy of.
	Meryl Silverburgh – Metal Gear Solid 4 You might be thinking WTF, why is Meryl of MGS4 on the wooden spoon list, simple, she’s now just another “wife” character. The tedium this brought to our brains on completing MGS4 made us wince. The pain in our brains hurt further given her choice of husband… I mean COME ON!
	Elika – Prince of Persia 2008 Ubisoft are well documented for their – sexist – gender specific game development and Elika is a prime example of how keeping a franchise ‘same same’ leads to inherent stupidity. Instead of releasing the Princess of Persia, or Prince of Persia: Elika, instead it was apt to release a title with a male playable hero who is constantly saved by the cooler female non-playable character. Disgraceful. Elika so should have been in the awards section and not the wooden spoon section.
Thanks for joining us as we looked at the best and some might say worst female games characters for 2008. Here’s hoping 2009 brings us more female games characters to talk about as well as some strong female games characters that don’t rely on showing flesh to get the job done!

3 Responses to “Best Female Video Game Characters of 2008 – Best of Article”

1. chamullo82 says:

   December 31, 2008 at 8:18 am

   Yeah go Faith number 1 coolest character this year!!! =)
2. Bri says:

   February 10, 2009 at 3:52 pm

   Not sure how I missed this.
   Great list, I think Zoe is cool and I didn’t know she liked zombie movies. That is a cute touch.
   Lara Croft must be on ever top list of characters =^-^=
3. Crimson Jupiter says:

   February 27, 2009 at 6:45 am

   I disagree on Faith, because even for the fact that choosing an eurasian female character is a nice move, i found her annoying, like all the other characters in the game. I still liked the game though, bcause of it’s innovative gameplay.
   I also disagree on Elika. I loved the “relationship” between the two characters. Very good any funny dialogues and fantastic voice acting. For that reason alone Ubisoft deserves praise. I see nothing disgraceful about these choices.