2. Heather Halley - Para-Medic (Metal Gear Solid 3)
What We Should Have Got: What could be easier than playing Para-Medic from Metal Gear Solid 3? She's an adorable nerd who won't stop pestering Snake with trivia about movies, but officially she's supposed to instruct him how to fix his wounds. Heather Halley should have infused the character with a simple buoyancy and enthusiasm. Snake and Major Zero mention how she never stops talking, and it's obvious that she's a little bit comedic. There should be a little flirting, a little chemistry, and a little silliness.
Why It Matters: Para-Medic is the one we're supposed to call when we get injured - which means we probably just had a stressful fight moments before. From a game design perspective, Kojima knows how tense we get as we sneak around deadly obstacles for hours at a time, and a support character like Para-Medic was his way of giving us a bit of relief any time we felt lonely. Call her up, hear about some old classic movie, and get tips on how to repair yourself. Not only does she remind us about the world outside the mission (which helps us relax) but because this is set in the past, she gives us a real historic perspective on the culture of the era. Done correctly, players should be eager to call her up so they can hear what she has to say.
What We Got: This is probably the single worst performance in the Metal Gear series. It boggles the mind how stale Heather Halley's performance was, considering how effortless it should have been. Her sleepy, nonchalant attitude turns Para-Medic into a paradox: chipper, rambling, nerdy, but somehow sullen and half-hearted at the same time. It doesn't make sense, does it? It's a shame, because with the Para-Medic character, Hideo Kojima was clearly aiming to please fans who loved the original Metal Gear Solid - with naive, adorable Mei Ling and her Chinese proverbs - and disliked the nagging girlfriend we were stuck listening to in Metal Gear Solid 2. Even the biggest fans of MGS3 tend to forget Para-Medic exists, which is proof enough that Heather Halley phoned it in, so-to-speak.