the insert credit cold fifty: videogame icons: compiled by tim rogers -- with a foreword by chris kohler, fulbright scholar

29. Dig Dug

Hello Kitty. We all know the name. We all think of something when we hear the words.

"Hello Kitty." It calls to mind either the image of a small child meeting a stray cat in a neighborhood alleyway, or a cute, clean, white cartoon cat with a bow in its head and a dress on its body.

Hello Kitty is clean Japanese character design sensibility at its purest. Hello Kitty was designed neither as a comic book character, nor an anime heroine, nor a videogame icon. She was designed as a character image for stationery, cosmetics, and clothing.

In very much the same way, Bandai's Dig Dug could have been a character image. Classic, with smooth, rounded body segments, Dig Dug is a hardworking little guy who navigates mazes full of baddies, using his air pump to clear out the inflatable enemies, and move on to another area . Add the fierceness of multiplayer combat to this addicting puzzle gameplay, and you come up with a character who could have been anything else, and ended up being so much more.

28. Master Chief (Halo)

Master Chief is the epitome of the "silent and deadly" character in a videogame. All these years, and designers have been feeding us the same lame-o story about characters in RPGs who don't talk. Crono, of Chrono Trigger, says Square, doesn't talk so that the player might "imagine" what he's saying, adding to the fun of the game. Or maybe the player can ad lib his own lines while playing, enhancing the experience? Well, we say that's bull. If we're supposed to supply lines for Crono, why can't we change who he is, or what he does? Why does he have to have so much personality?

Though Halo's Master Chief speaks a line of dialogue or two during cut scenes (and with the voice of the Cartoon Network robotic "Toonami" mascot and the English version of anime Cowboy Bebop's Spike Spiegel), his character is perfect and spotless. He's so clean and shiny that we can't even see his body -- he wears a slick green metal Marine suit. He's mostly a cyborg, programmed to kill the enemy and assist his ugly human Marine comrades. So it is that Bungie understands that a silent character has to be silent in personality as well as in words; only then can we, the person holding the controller, identify with Master Chief. Best robot-suited videogame hero of all time? Oh, without a doubt, yes.

Oh, and we provide our own lines of dialogue, too -- most especially in the multiplayer mode, where friends are known to call one another "Son of a bitch!" "Bastard!" or "Son-of-a-bitching bastard!" No wonder this one is rated "M" for "Mature."

27. Dan Hibiki (Street Fighter Zero series)

Dan Hibiki is murdered by Muay Thai kickboxing giant Sagat in Super Street Fighter II Turbo. His father, the legendary vampire-hunter Donavon Hibiki, squares off against the vampire Dmitri Maximoff in Capcom's other fighting franchise, Darkstalkers. Through the magic of continuity-respecting flashbacks, Dan is a selectable fighter in the Street Fighter Alpha series. And what a character he is.

Dan wears a pink gi. In the Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo series, Dan's attack gems are entirely red -- making any attack by Dan the perfect setup for a massive, slaughtering counterattack by his opponent. Dan's victory stance portrays him shaking a fist and weeping tears of joy. Dan is a joke to any self-respecting player, to be sure. In any game where he makes an appearance, it is only a hardcore master who can use Dan without losing heartbreakingly.

All the same -- this pink-uniformed, flamboyant, joyfully-weeping wannabe karate fighter is the son of a vampire-killer, and he himself is dead during his series' main continuity. This combination of joke and maturity is one that shines like a window into the Japanese design sensibility; Americans would think to have some digitized face jump out and yell "Toasty!" when one demonic ninja uppercuts another into a ceiling of spikes in Mortal Kombat II. The Japanese give us the conflicted Dan, and we give them our thanks.

[26-24]