Niko Bellic - GTA IV
I appreciate Rockstar trying to move away from mutes, movie characters and racist stereotypes with their protagonist but Niko fell short of the grit and pathos they tried to give him. I got more sick of hearing "Dooring the voor..." than I did "Vant to go bowling, Caa-sin?" Niko's story was simple; he came to Liberty City to track down a man he suspected of betraying his unit during the Yugoslav Wars but without any kind of footing in the big city, he turned to crime to make his way. Niko is just too inconsistent though. One minute he's nearly crying because he is remembering the tragedy of the war, the next he is beating men to death for neglecting a protection payment to a small-time mob boss. He talks often about justice and wanting to leave his life of violence behind but then immediately just becomes an ultra-violent anarchist who punishes minor offenses with vengeful reckoning.
I'm not talking about how he acts in cut-scenes and then what I, as the player, make him do. The in-game characterisation of Niko is what I'm talking about. For example, early in the game you are asked to kill a Russian mob boss named Mikhail Faustin. Niko does not want to do this, even refuses at first, but reluctantly agrees when informed that his own death was also ordered and by killing Faustin himself, he and his cousin, Roman, will be spared. So we have a reluctant assassin who is killing to protect his kin and yet, when Niko walks into the club where Faustin is, he walks up to him and screams "I'M GOING TO F**KING KILL YOU! YOU BROUGHT THIS ON YOURSELF!!" Niko himself didn't even think Faustin deserved to die when the hit was placed, and now this? That kind of inconsistency is seen throughout the entire game and it makes Niko, well, a twonk. I cannot like him because the game keeps forcing a vague and cliché backstory to make me sympathise and then flips the coin and makes him the very thing he purports to hate.
As one-dimensional and borderline racist as CJ was in San Andreas, at least he was a fully realised, well-written and consistent character with motives we not only understood but witnessed first hand. Niko was just a bad centre to an otherwise spectacular game.
High Elves - Any The Elder Scrolls Game
I hate High Elves. Like, this is a testament to how well realised and brilliantly crafted Bethesda's fantasy world is, that I actually have racist thoughts about a specific bunch of Elves. High Elves can all go and sing songs in the dairy! Seriously, I loathe them. Bunch of arrogant, stiff-lipped Banana Watchers. I hate their whole attitude and their beliefs and their ridiculous notion that they are better than Men. Ha! I know Guar that are more worthy of power than the High Elves. I hope they all die.
However, since I fudging love The Elder Scrolls, I have played as High Elves in the past and will reluctantly do so in the future too. I do this to get as full an experience of the game as I can but it makes my skin crawl to do it and they usually end up being rubbish because, even though they are technically me, I cannot stand to see a High Elf become powerful or wealthy and so I end up playing the game in a way that is much more difficult than it usually is based entirely on my own, ridiculous prejudice. That's like salt in the wound of being a High Elf in the first place, that I'm a crap High Elf! Can't stand them. And you just know they'd all vote Tory too, which makes me hate them more.