20 Greatest Video Game Heroes Of 2012

By Todd Eisenhauer / December 28, 2012

9. Clementine (The Walking Dead)

Clem is what ties the whole Walking Dead experience together: she's cute and smart and even funny all at once, but most of all, she's brave. She get's scared like a kid would, but overcomes these fears in an effort to learn and be able to take care of herself. Like Chuck said, everybody is simply alive now, there is no weak or smart or strong, and Clem is not little anymore - she's a person and she needs to be taught how to continue on if anything happens and she gets separated from everybody else. Telltale Games gambled the whole experience of their game on Clementine and how players would react and care for her and it payed off big time. We all fell in love and wanted to protect her like she was our own. No game has made an attachment with me like that and it seems like most players felt the same.

8. Martin Walker (Spec Ops: The Line)

Set in a ravaged and sand blasted Dubai, Spec ops will draw you into the mindset that it's just another brown shooter, but it is so much more. This particular post is difficult to make without spoilers but I'll do my best - Martin Walker is a man that would just as easily fall into this list as it would a top villains of the year list. He is trying his best to do what is right, but as the events turn out in the way they do, you can hear the pleading confusion in his voice. Things in Spec Ops feel very off from the start, and that only escalates as Walker and his group of three search desperately for what happened to Colonel Konrad and the 33rd battalion. It will make you think about the actions you are employing as it all leads up to a white hot ending. Are you really helping these people and soldiers?