Top 10 Greatest Dead Girlfriends in Video Games By AdamThomas  [19 more lists]

OK, so if you didn't play Dead Space 1, you're REALLLY behind the times. I mean, I've already put out my fair share of spoilers and everything, but damn, if you didn't play the first game, the intro of the sequel (the attached video) cements the fact into your brain: Nicole is Dead.

It's a big reveal of the first game that Nicole, the girl Isaac Clarke's been trying to reach and actually works with the whole second half - is just a figment of imagination brought on by an evil red rock of doom.


Besides, it was pretty obvious that she was a ghost gal even before the reveal. The only other entity that could possibly want to made whole as much as she did would be a fraction.

The funny thing is, despite having such a big handicap, you know like not existing anymore, Nicole still makes her way into the sequel, a lot.

Most of Dead Space 2 concerns the major sub-plot of Isaac dealing with his guilt over Nicole's death in his mind. We find that he blames no one but himself over it, and with the mental icepick that the marker already drove into his brain, he's pretty sure he can't get rid of the world's nastiest version of an imaginary friend.


Outside of Drop Dead Fred of course.

The way the game deals with their relationship is fairly novel, and an impressive bit of story telling since we're talking about a character who died before the first game even began.

It's a smart bit of storytelling from Visceral games, and almost makes up for their boobatrice of Dante's Inferno.

Almost.

Every Silent Hill game takes us on a wonderful magical journey, one filled with enchantment, blessed adventures that warm our hearts and make us better people. They're such bright and cheery tales that one would expect no less than unicorns and rainbows to appear in the next installment featuring a maincharacter who only wants to cuddle puppies!


Yay!

Oh wait, no. They're all games that explore the horrifying inner demons of protagonists filled with deep guilt, unforgiven sin and maddening paranoia, and if you aren't scarred a little bit for life after them, you might have probably already lost a bit of your soul, probably due to a bad relationship that the game itself is echoing.

Or you are playing Silent Hill 4: The Room.


Which also had a horrifying movie adaptation. Just in a different way.

If you haven't played through Silent Hill 2, let's just say that Maria, and who or what she represents . . . pretty much takes the cake on girls that are f**ked up beyond all recognition.

If you have though . . .

SPOILERS . . . sigh . . .

HOLY F**KING GOD.

Isaac dealing with Nicole in Dead Space 2 was all about a guy dealing with the death of his special lady friend, but it ain't got s**t on James Sunderland's tortured psyche.

Throughout the game James runs into Maria, an eerily accurate double for his dead wife, and she keeps dying, often as a result of a direct encounter with Pyramid Head, who most likely represents Jame's own conflicted feelings of guilt and lust. But this is no mere self-loathing out of an unhappy circumstance that the man assigns unnecessary guilt over.

He damn well should feel guilty. After you see this it's rather hard not to feel that way.

Heck, I think Silent Hill 2 probably brought a lot of ideas to bear on the men that played it. It probably made us better men who try to think a little less selfishly about the women we love.

I just wish it didn't also have to give us night terrors to do so.

So here we are. You knew this was coming.

I mean geez I even built it up in that Rachel item, and then there's the image icon for the damn list itself . . .

I mean come on. A list like this, and you think Aeris . . . Aerith . . . screw it, I'm going with Aeris, doesn't end up here?

Of course she does!

If nothing else, the death is historic. Though other characters had died in other games before this, and even on other Final Fantasy games (see Rachel above, also Tellah, Anna, others), she seemed the first to really affect a huge majority of gamers.


Or force them to be more juvenile, as the case may be.

I guess it's probably because she was not only a playable character, but a damned important one. You almost assuredly had her in your party, she was naturally suited to healing your team, and in critical boss battles, what could be more important? She was cute and good natured, and was in many ways, the group mascot of the ragtag team that was trying to stop the big bad emo kid with a sword longer than his his name.

I'll admit, it was a fairly bold move by Square, and in the context of the plot, it works on a few different levels, and can actually move you.

But I think the reason this goes down in history has less to do with that, than just its exposure.

For a lot of people, FF7 was their first RPG. It seems like it was THE game to bring the RPG, and specifically the JRPG, to the masses. Before then, RPGs were seen as the nerd domain they rightfully were, and only folks who would dress up as their characters would be the ones to play them.


Like these fine folks.

But then FF7 was all like ""We're so cool. We don't even want to be on that ""kiddy"""" console no mores!"

Everyone ate it up. If you hadn't yet been face to face with a character dying that you actually knew and grew to care about, you were in for this event's nasty wake up call. But it was also kind of like when Superman died. All the folks who were new to the scene thought it was monumental, and an epic and gave it way more credit than it was worth. Anyone who had actually been around the block though, was probably fairly unphased.

Sorry to burst your bubble Aeris fans,


Or stab you through the heart I guess.

But it's the truth.

So despite it's popularity, Aeris' death isn't the most meaningful or important in any one game series, it's just the most well known.

You want a dead girl who actually means something?

Look no further than Shadow of the Colossus.

I mean, well, just look at it it!

It's a beautiful moving portrait to human travails of love and the willingness to be blind in that state. Yet it's also a complete mystery, and very intriguing. It's subjective to its core.

Why else do you think THIS is the game that every time some wannabe Ebert comes around decrying games as lacking artistic merit, SotC is the go-to game for developers and fans to collectively shout a very mature-sounding and often way too long-winded, ""Nu-uh poopyhead!"


It's not just 'cause they like to hang pictures of the game in museums, I'll tell you that much.

In a lot of ways, the maiden that Wander carries into the Forbidden Land seems like just another fridge girl. I mean after all, we know literally nothing about her, not her name, not her story. We know it was about a sacrifice, but not what that was about or really why. hell, we don't even know what the hell the relationship between her and Wander is.

Is she his sister? Cousin? Friend? Lover?

Dunno. I don't really think it matters. It's both the crux of Shadow of the colossus, and at the same time, needless information. What matters here is what the ""hero"" is willing to do for her.

This is what the entire rest of the game illustrates beautifully, not through long winded exposition, and not through a build up of emotion only to yank your heart out from your chest, but through action. Which of course, is the best way to illustrate importance in a game, since you know, you're actually doing it.

Her death drives Wander on, and we don't know why he's so willing to damn himself for her sake. It's this untold lack that adds to the mystery and the bedevilment, and somehow even makes everything that much more powerful.

A strong case for ""less is more"" and active video game story telling. Whomever this Maiden was will confound us, but it made a boy want to go beyond his own limits on a journey we could all enjoy, and yet also mourn at the same time. She may be another way of using a woman's death as a simpler motivation for a male lead, but even in that case, she might be the world's best example of how to do it right.

Now that's a feat.

However, I don't think it's the biggest feat. That belongs to The Boss.

It seems like a lot of people missed MGS3. But if you did, then that's a huge shame, because MGS 3 is in a lot of ways, the best in the series.

It seems odd that such a beloved series would have such a drop-off rate. I wonder if we can pin down the reason why?

'Tis a perplexing state of affairs that may take but a fortnight to solve . . .

Oh wait! I know!

It's probably due to the mass confusion and hatred that MGS 2 inspired in fans!


This guy caused the hatred. The long winded, convoluted ending caused the confusion; also Dr. Octopus as President.

Now I have played through MGS 4, and yeah, certain things that were kind of trashy in MGS 3 were fixed in 4, like the massively improved camera. But in terms of characters, the cast of MGS 3 carried the day.

Sure it was another crazy assortment of bad-ass commandos with ridiculous themes and names, but it also had a few gems in there that shined above and beyond the rest.

Who can forget the purposely confusing yet ever so satisfying battle with The Fear? How about the grand duel with Ocelot, and his evolution as a marksman? Or one of the most variable sniper duels yet seen when confronting The End? Or the epic Shagohad/Motorcycle chase with Volgin? All these were grand moments worthy of the best action movies, games, and well, all media.


Plus one of the sultriest Metal Gear girls yet!

But what it all comes down to, is The Boss.


Who is a bit older, but if she'd let you, you'd probably still hit it. Total BILF.

At the start of the game, The Boss is your superior officer, commanding Snake on his mission to rescue a scientist out of Soviet Russia. However, she betrays Snake and her country and almost sparks a nuclear war in her act of switching sides at the culmination of this short mission.

So Snake is sent back in, and is given a few objectives, one of which is to kill his former mentor and lover, The Boss. A woman who he just doesn't know if he can kill, and not even out of longing or attachment, but just on a skill level. She's more deadly than all of the rest of her hit squad combined.

So Snake completes most of his mission, and it all comes down to one of the most amazingly executed battles in the history of gaming, let alone just the Metal Gear franchise.

After it's over, much is revealed, and you come to learn that every single intention of hers, every single action she's done and descision she has made, was always for the greater good. She never stopped being a true patriot, and knew that the greatest point of a hero was to lay down one's life.

And you're forced to do it.

In a cruel play of their hand, Kojima and crew leave the final gunshot on the mortally wounded woman entirely under your control. You have to pull that trigger and end her life.

I know it took me a while. I just didn't want to do it. But there really wasn't another option. She got her hero's death.

But this my friends isn't entirely the end of her tale.

No, in fact, by the end of MGS 4, the "final" game in the series (though we are getting a new spin off featuring the pretty-boy everyone loves to hate, though he's all ninja'd out now), we come to learn that not only did The Boss' death affect players, it was just about the most important event in the entire MGS saga.

That's quite a feat for a series of games that has spanned over twenty years in its telling. But it's the truth. I'm only not getting into it now because it would TAKE FOREVER to explain properly, and yeah, this is going on forever already.

This makes her easily the most important character in this series, and considering its importance in the world of gaming, the most important dead woman in the medium. At least so far.

So, as Snake did himself, we salute you.

You pulled it off.