Top 10 Best Video Game Girlfriends

03. E'lara (Hunted: The Demon's Forge)

A couple of points that really need to be made with respect to the game Hunted: TDF are its basic features which, far from being the unwieldy mish-mash that critics predicted, instead offered players a very tightly-flowing game play system that started with co-operative play then jumped to local (LAN-based) and online co-op and multi-player.

This was incredibly important to the whole girlfriend consideration because it established the very social nature of the game, its story, and game play in terms of her character.

Its massive semi-open-world environment was just made for exploration and discovery - and that fits very nicely with the combination of beauty and mystery that is E'lara - a rare and almost extinct elven woman who was instant death in a dozen ways.

Put it like this - while her specialty is ranged combat using her bow, small weapons, and the more traditional edged weapons - she is also instant death at close-range. E'lara, it is widely held, is one of that rare breed of warrior who could easily win a knife fight in a phone booth!

Unfortunately while the game begins more or less up-beat, events rapidly grow somewhat pear-shaped, as the companions find themselves trapped within a chain of events that included the dangerous enemy called Wargar (a sort of orc-like warrior breed), demons, and a very suspicious death spirit named Seraphine.

The shocking part to all this is that despite the fact that TDF was always intended to be about the characters of E'lara and Caddoc somehow the focus ended up being placed upon the story itself and partly on the world in which it unfolds.

That is unfortunate because the true treasure of this title is the relationship between the player and E'lara for the most part - the rest of it was really just the vehicle to enable that relationship - and the mistaken emphasis upon the supporting elements as the primary focus failed to engage curiosity and interest.

The reason that was bad - and is largely responsible for the decidedly negative impression that TDF acquired via word-of-mouth - is because for the most part the potential player base that would have really enjoyed the game ended up not being exposed to it as a result.

If we are totally honest, with E'lara taken out of consideration what we end up with is little more than a swords and sorcery story.

In general terms there exists a large number of much better multi-player games out there, and some of them have just as many elves and dragons as this one, so failing to put the emphasis on E'lara was to be the downfall of TDF.

With that in mind, and turning to the matter of E'lara as video game girlfriend material, there is something of a classic appeal to her.

Forgetting for now that she is one of the more unattractive examples of the nearly-extinct race of elven-like humanoids, the fact that her particular genetic map turned out a creature whose shape and presence tends to trigger all sorts of positive emotional reactions in your typical human (male AND female) what we have here is a very strong candidate for a girlfriend.

You know how poets use terms like 'haunting beauty' when they are describing a truly exceptional babe? We are pretty sure that when they say things like that, it is E'lara they are imagining.

It is often the case that appearances can conceal flaws - but in the case of E'lara those flaws happen to include a potentially white-hot temper that, combined with the ability to perpetrate serious violence presents flaws that basically prove the rule that you should take care in what you wish for.

You don't want to make this elven woman angry - because ticked-off she is instant death in about two-dozen different ways - remember that comment about her being able to win a knife-fight in a phone booth? Well, just because it is called a cheese knife doesn't mean it can't cut other stuff!

So as long as you remember not to make her mad, this well-constructed classic blonde beauty is just as likely to make you the happiest man on the planet - especially considering her intentional focus on living in the moment rather than for the past of the future - than is otherwise the case.

Take all of the above into consideration and what we end up with is the third best choice for video game girlfriends!