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

50. Gum (Jet Set Radio Future)

Let's get things off to a right start: we love Gum. She makes the leap from out-of-nowhere hardcore punk-rock girl in Jet Set Radio and into a real, deep, tour-de-force of a sci-fi punk-rock girl love-interest in Jet Set Radio Future. Not only that -- she's based on lead singer of Japanese punk-rock duo Guitar Vader, whose music pumps up the game's jam, as it were, and that's cooler than cool. The game won't tell you this in the credits. It's not publicized anywhere, and that's groovy by us. In this age of games going Hollywood, of people caring too much that Bruce Willis lends his vocal talent to a game that ends up being a work of garbage, it's nice to see appreciation this low-key. Especially when it's so gloriously cel-shaded and fashionably attired.

49. Samus Aran

Some people will call her the "first lady of videogames," and we've got to hand her props on the semantic level along. Yes, Samus Aran, star of Nintendo's Metroid series, is a girl. However, the original game's instruction manual's long, long storyline description hints only that Samus is a tough and rough bounty hunter; it's not until the end of the game, when she removes her suit, that we see she's really a woman. So, at the end, when it's all over, are we supposed to think, oh, she was a woman -- so that's why she was killing all those aliens? Give us a break. Making us hold out until the end to find out the protagonist's secret -- also her only character trait -- is a bit shameless. Then again, games were young, then.

Nobel Prize-winning author Gabriel Garcia-Marquez says that one should tell a fantastic story with a straight face. He also believes in putting all your secrets out in the open. He begins One Hundred Years of Solitude with the line, "On the day he faced the firing squad, Jose Aureliano Buendia remembered the day his father took him to discover ice." This moves us right into the story, and begins a flashback. It is because literature is aged, and refined, that it is able to tell such a story in such a way. Metroid, the "narrative" of which hinges entirely on one secret, is flimsy -- at best -- as literature.

Still, it's a hell of a secret -- one to rival any good horror movie secret (Sixth Sense, we're looking at you). It's just not literature. Not yet.

48. Bang (Clash at Demonhead)

We can't forget to mention this guy. Yet, the farther we get up the list, the more we neglect to think about him. So we're putting him here, just so he won't get lost. Bang -- Agent Bang -- is the spiky-black-haired hero of Vic Tokai's 1987 side-scroller Clash at Demonhead, for the Nintendo Entertainment System. This game not only featured cinematic cut scenes and a lighthearted, anime-style storyline -- it also let players choose their paths, and equip all manner of insane weapons. You could shop for items whenever you wanted. Bang himself also studied martial arts with an old guru, at times. What an exuberant little game, that Clash at Demonhead. What great bosses. What personality. It's lucky for us gamers that the first game to follow the anime style so closely also had such a darn intriguing hero.

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