Who are gaming's most iconic heroes? Cloud Strife? Solid Snake? Lara Croft? Spyro? (Scratch that last one.) Previous console generations have spawned iconic characters whose individuality has granted them both longevity and permanent places in the hearts of game fan's everywhere. While the first tentative steps online were made by consoles from the previous generation with both the X.B.Live and P.S.Network services (and their millions of eager subscribers) it's only really this generation that has seen networked (console) gaming become a truly massmarket phenomenon.

And here's the rub: with developers rushing to create games that match the current online kings in popularity will we see the end of the creation of similarly iconic character's? Who are the contenders from the current generation? Marcus Fenix? Nico Belic?

While I'm happy for my biggest adversary in any gaming session to be another person like me also hunched over their P.S.3, but in America or Europe, where are the new Sephiroth's? The new Revolver Ocelot's?

Perhaps it's no coincidence that the reportedly last outing for Solid Snake, Guns of the Patriots, was so suffused with death and the sense of things coming to a final end. Perhaps Hideo Kojima wasn't just marking the end of his fan-favourite franchise but also of an entire gaming era. What's one of the first things you see when you boot the game up? A graveyard.

The Tomb Raider franchise is ailing and reportedly facing yet another imminent reinvention. Resident Evil is ceasing to become, well, Resident Evil.

What do you think? Do you long to once again fill the boots of Jill 'The Master of Unlocking' Valentine? Or to enter Spyro's Lair?

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