[GOTY] Best NPC Companion Nominees

The GameSparked Team
GOTY 2012

A game is often made or broken by how good the supporting cast of characters is. A strong friend or helpful ally can make a fun game great, and a weak, unhelpful, or even downright annoying companion can make the experience suffer. Here is GameSparked’s nominees for the best friendly faces who have helped us along our journeys or were simply along with us for the ride.

Cain (Binary Domain)

Cain is a robot that doesn’t mind reminding you that he’s French by saying the odd French word here and there. He’s polite, loyal, versatile, and hilarious — all you could ever want in a companion. Also, he’s quite the impressive driver.

The Darkling (The Darkness 2)

Like any good friend would, the Darkling is always there to fart on, piss all over, and drop The People’s Elbow on all of the corpses that you lay to waste. He also brings with him some of that witty, British charm.

Nick (Lollipop Chainsaw)

Nick is the ever suffering boyfriend of Juliet Starling. Despite just being a head, he plays the straightest straight man possible to Juliet’s family’s ridiculousness. Even in the extreme circumstances of losing his entire body and surrounded on all sides by zombies, he brings a lot of dry humour and sarcasm to the table, and, for the most part, keeps a cool “head.”

Adams and Lugo (Spec Ops: The Line)

Adams and Lugo are loyal soldiers and strong friends. They follow Walker wherever he goes and are good at what they do. They contrast and play off each other very well, Adams being loyal to a fault and concerned for the well being of the people of Dubai, and Lugo always appealing to the group’s sense of decency and doing his best to keep his friends out of harm’s way.

Dr. Vahlen (XCOM: Enemy Unknown)

The XCOM project’s head of research staff, Dr. Vahlen, is a cold, analytical person. More than any soldier, weapon, or commander, she is the aliens’ worst enemy. She strives for furthering her research by any means as a method to defend earth from whatever threatens it.