Today is the NFL Draft. Yep, right, I don’t care either, and I am a sports fan. Instead, we’re going to hold the inaugural Kotaku Video Game Draft. Because if you’re going to spend three hours indoors today looking at a screen and pondering a trivial event for a shoulder-shrugging, what-did-that-prove result, you might as well do it up right.
So the NFL has 32 teams, and we have 32 pickers. Twenty-four are commenters (this is what that announcement earlier in the week was all about). Eight others, myself included, are random people I selected (OK — my friends) to spread out the variety of picks. Drafters could select any character from any game, any platform, any era, all time.
The only limitation was that you could not draft a character created by a player in an MMO. I made an exemption for Leeroy Jenkins but no one took him. The characters did not have to be human or even organic. NPCs were also permissible.
We randomized the draft order and ran our picks in the middle of the week. The draft follows in three groupings, Picks 1 to 10, 11 to 20, and 21 to 32.
First up, picks 1 to 10. Drafters are commenters unless otherwise noted. I let the #1 pick have more space to write seeing as how this is the declared best video game character, at least according to the draft.
1. PQ Crash selects MEGA MAN“Dr. Light’s Variable Weapons System gives Mega Man his greatest skill: the ability to copy the powers of his defeated enemies. Yes, Mega Man needs to destroy his opponent first in order to gain a new skill, but his laser rocket arm — known as the “Buster Cannon” — serves him well as his default (and initial) weapon.
“Mega Man is also highly coachable — namely because he’s a robot. His synthetic structure also negates any possibilities of “character issues.” Granted, Mega Man might revel in the fact that he uses Dr. Wiley’s own weapon designs against him, but who wouldn’t love to use irony as an offensive tool?”
3. Lon Lopez, Moronlife.com selects MIKE TYSON from Mike Tyson’s Punch Out!
6. Chris Ballard, sports writer, selects TOMMY EULER, pitcher from Hardball! (Apple ] [) “Chosen for purely selfish reasons (and a close call over the backboard-shattering Celtic from ‘Larry Bird vs. Dr.J’). Over hours upon days upon an adolescence of playing this game, often compiling entire 162-game seasons (complete, I’m embarassed to say, with pencil-etched stats), I made sure the All-Stars (my team) faced off against Tommy Euler as often as possible. Say 92% of the time. The reason? That big, fat, slow, wheelhouse-inhabiting curveball he tossed up there. It looked like your kid brother’s weakass wiffle hook, like Barry Zito’s junk this season, like sunshine-and-lollipops wrapped up into an interminably slow, eminently-timeable gopher ball. So I’ll go with my boy Euler. Not because he’s a badass but for the exact opposite reason. He was the Stuart Smalley of sports video games. He made you feel good abot yourself. ”
9. Scazza selects AFRO THUNDER from Ready 2 Rumble (Dreamcast) “Easily one of the most charismatic characters to ever grace the squared circle. From his agile movements to his witty verbal jabs, he could give you a whooping before he even throws a single punch. His trademark afro and smiley-faced boxing gloves really show just how much a manly-man he is. Just remember, if he hits you, ‘Somebody better call the doctorrr!’”Next: Picks 11 to 20.