7 Times Video Game Companions Were Better Than Real Friends

4. Murray - Escape From Monkey Island

True friends challenge us by asking us the big questions in life. What’s our purpose? Where did we come from? Will George R.R. Martin ever finish the next Game of Thrones book?

So, dear reader, here's one for you: Can someone still be considered a friend if, (a) they want nothing more than to kill you, (b) they tell you so at every available opportunity, and (c) they’re just a head… or to be more accurate, a skull?

We first meet Murray shortly after our cannon fire removes the reanimated skull from the rest of his skeleton. The self-entitled Demonic Skull drifts towards hero Guybrush Threepwood on a piece of flotsam, in what becomes a stapled microcosm for the rest of the series. No matter where Guybrush goes, be it a voodoo swamp, a cursed carnival or the belly of a whale, Murray, despite his lack of a body, will find you… and insult you every chance he gets.

Yet despite Murray’s insistence that he is evil incarnate and, once he retrieves his body, will set about exposing you and the entire Caribbean to an eternity of agonising torture, he always comes through for our hero Guybrush. Whether we’re trapped or searching for hope, Murray always has a habit of turning up when we need him the most, ready to help us escape.

With friends like that, we can all put up with some charming (read: threatening and terrifying) banter.