Rather it be the chosen one or the tortured soul, people usually feel more connected to one than the other. Is it the Hero (the one you actually play with the whole game and venture with on the journey) or the Villian (the one who wants to conquer you, the land, the world or destroy it).

Heroes and Villians arent so Black and White anymore, not to mention theres tons of Hero and Villian archetypes: Do you like the not-so-bright but the strong hero? or The cool and suave villian?, etc.

So whats your fave? and why?

Mine: Villian! You play with the hero for the whole game and the bad guy only has to make an appearance once and you know he's going to be trouble.He could give a long, philsophic speech that makes the player question his own agendas or look you in the eye and burn down your village, either way the Villian has very little screen time compared to most on your journey but when he's on the screen he makes the most of it.And well... I have a natural attraction to bad things and doing the opposite of the law... sooo.... Lol

Someone said one day that a story is only as good as its villain.

I'm tempted to agree for the most part. A lot of great games actually have heroes that won't even speak up.

The Hero is rather a tool to put you, as a player, in context. Its generally a good approach to have you experience the game from within.

A lot of games actually give your hero a personality, but its easy to be cheesy with that.

So in essence, I like the villains a lot.

My favorites, however, are as follows:

- The Hero that is, undeniably, a villain (see House of Cards for example, where the protagonist is clearly not an angel by any stretch).

Because the Hero is fundamentally bad (or at least, not inclined to do good for the sake of it), the narrative has to somehow make you care about them, despite their flawed logic. Though you couldn't possibly agree with them on principle, being in their shoes for a while makes you understand their twisted logic, and you get to experience a part of their history, understand their motives, share their successes and failures.

These characters are extremely hard to "paint" right, but I particularly liked Kain from Legacy of Kain (Blood Omen). This guy was out for revenge with absolutely no other consideration, and it made for an interesting game regardless. I particularly liked his witty comments on bosses he'd kill and keep trophies of: "Poor Napraptu, I knew him well........ not really".

Other games also allow you to experience your darker side. While the Hero has no clear definite personality and is controlled mostly just by you (see Fallout for example), you get to do "not nice things" just for the sake of it. It's interesting to interact with the game on these terms, as a human being, seeing how the game rewards/punishes you for your urges/curiosity.

- The anti-hero that somehow isn't either the hero nor the villain, but ends up being some kind of unreliable sidekick (CT's Magus, FF4's Kain, etc.)

Because of genre staples, most characters are stock characters (holy hero, evil villain). Having strong support cast with unclear allegiances (with shifting loyalties based on their own history and depth of character) is fun to watch evolve. You'll notice that a lot of great stories have these "wildcard" characters.

An Anti Hero is a good medium to bring to the table.With all the varying heroes and villians, Anti heroes walk the line in the middle, doing what they want.They may not want the big frosting cake at the end but they sure as hell will enjoy the party.

Conduct a long string of practice murders, and then wrap it up by killing the main boss/father/authority figure. Is that the actions of a hero? Since no one can think of any other plot for a video game, good guys do it too and simply claim 'those guys' are barbarian-mutant-zombie-robot-aliens. Yep, clearly heroic and good by comparison.

Bioshock:Infinite and The Last of Us both dispense with the sordid amount of distasteful fakery necessary to claim that such actions are heroic, and just cast the player as a villain.

That's a really good point. But in a shooter is there anything else the hero could do besides mass bullet carnage? I guess stealth games are a little different: In Metal Gear you could be completely stealthy and just focus on the boss fights and in Dues Ex you could avoid most confrontations with the right dialouge.

define "hero" and "villain"

when i was in school, i had some kind of cult/art-classes where the (writers of our) textbook considered celebrities heroes,

while my teacher in german considered a guy who went to his work every day to provide for his family even though he hated his job a hero.

A main character i like is the one from Mad Max(movie) because he is there for himself, will help the weaker on occasion, as long as they leave him the fuck alone.

(and pretty much acts the same to the bad guys)

Why ? i m a bit like that. I can relate to him and i would probably help him if he was real, and so i would not mind controlling him in a game and ""helping" him virtually.

and i think most other people also want a main character they can relate to, for some that may be a character that goes out to save his village

(i don't think anybody realy loves his country so much to realy relate to saving his country, countries are too big)

Hero tales are what society(the greater good) wants you to believe, because it benefits them, but nobody realy enjoys being the hero,

since the hero usually has to sacrifice something for the greater good, be it comfort, safety or something else

They 're also popular because they give you an excuse to do whatever you want to.(kill all the aliens, because they're trying to kill humans, while in reality the aliens are just repopuloting the earth and the player likes to shoot stuff.