I'm probably not going to be able to comment much on your top-ten women in games.  I only have time for one game, and believe me WoW takes a lot of time.

But my own vote might be...

Last edited by JD
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Guest post by "Samantha"
Hmmm... it has to be limited to games we played THIS year?

Like JD above, I spend a lot of time playing WoW.  So two from WoW would be: Lady Jane Proudmoore who tried to reason with King Varian not to go totally anti-orc nutso. My second from WoW would have to be Sylvanas for defying Thrall and making the huge land grab knowing the rest of the horde would be against her.

Non-WoW..hahaha, Nancy Drew! My daughter enjoy playing the ND games together.

Also, I'm SURE I played Metroid at some point this year, so I have to say Samus Aran.

MERRY CHRISTMAS! Happy Holidays! Joyful December! and  Prosperous and Smiley New Year!

Guest post by "Ayra"

Whoa... Ellet is a pretty bold choice from Valkyria Chronicles, but your reasoning makes a lot of sense, and I definitively can't disagree with it. In Valkyria Chronicles I'd still give my personal vote to Rosie, but I certainly respect your pick

Regarding pick #10, 8 and 7, well... I haven't actually played any of those games so I won't comment on them!

Nancy Drew certainly has come a long way from the early days. Granted, she was always more independent than many young women were "supposed" to be, but I'm pretty pleased with the computer game versions of her.

Ayra, I love Rosie, of course, but I think it is one thing to have courage when you're lugging around a machine gun and another when all you have is a pen and a notebook.

I don't play World of Warcraft (or any other MMORPG) so I'll have to take people's words on those characters.

Samus is, of course, always awesome, but I didn't play any Metroid games this year.

Guest post by "Daedalus"

Afraid I'm going to have to cry foul over a few points you've brought up in your nomination of Lightning.

Firstly, final fantasy 6 did arguably have a female lead, Terra, a half human and half esper and one of the other central characters was also female; Celes who had her own little bit of the game after everything broke apart, final fantasy 6 also had an ensemble cast and while we were introduced to a relatively strong male main character in Locke, I still consider him a secondary character as we started out with Terra, several of the main plot points concerned her directly and she had a personal connection to hte main villain, she had to come to terms with being part-esper and what that meant in this world that essentially used them as magic fuel, she was burdened with massive powers almost beyond her control and she had to do all this as a teenager to boot, hell, even Squeenix recognsied this and brought her on as the hero to represent her game in FF-dissidia .

What's notable is that when we lost the party we had gathered when the world fell apart, it was Celes, that gathered them again, meaning that both she and Terra were together the most important members of the cast, and they far predate Lightning as strong female leads, even if they both did have to be rescued at times... but then again so did other members of the ensemble cast.

I could go on, but I think that's enough to get the discussion rolling, I just couldn't let it pass without comment...

Guest post by "finiteHP"
Came in here to post about Terra being the first female lead in a Final Fantasy, but Daedalus beat me to it. Everyone I've talked to that has played FFVI agrees that Terra is the main character. Not only is she the first party member to show up, she's also the one that has the biggest connection to everything that is happening.

I have been schooled. Indeed, Terra of Final Fantasy VI does predate Lightning. Still, I believe that my choice of Lightning as number five stands. So many female leads in JRPGs tend to be either clueless little girls or shrewish bimbos its nice to see one that is capable and strong.

Guest post by "Ayra"

Happy new year!

I've never played Primal (Or seen more than the box art) so won't comment on that one!

Elena wouldn't have came to mind, but... It's a great pick, so thumbs up on that one!

Regarding the whole Terra/Celes thing, I personally view Terra as the lead in the first half, Celes the lead in the second half. Considering that Terra is actually an optional character in the 2nd half of the game, I definitively can't see her as the "one main character". But that's just semantics I suppose!

I definitively agree that it's nice to have a strong female main character like Lightning... Although I can't say I liked the game much. I haven't finished it actually (I think I have still like 25-40 hours to go actually), although I probably should someday... Story was interesting, but the battles felt extremely tedious and not worth going through after some time. I'll give it another try sometime.

If I had to give my own #1 based on games played this year... I'd say female Commander Shepard from Mass Effect. Lenneth Valkyrie from Valkyrie Profile would get my all time vote though, with Nel Zelpher from Star Ocean 3 at #2.

Guest post by "J"
I agree with you Beyond Good and Evil was awesome and I did not know they were re-releasing it. I hope steam gets it so I can get it on my computer. Last I heard the reason the sequel is going to be a while because they are keeping the development team small to keep it pure and up to par with the first one

Guest post by "SoySauce"
I would have liked to see GlaDos on this list, even if she technically doesn't have a gender. Still a very nice, well-considered list.

Ayra, very good call on Shepard. As you can see, I agree with you there and made femShep my #1 choice.

J, as far as I can tell, Beyond Good and Evil HD is only going to be available on the PS3 and 360. But if it sells well, it isn't hard to translate from the 360 to Windows so, hopefully it'll show up on Steam.

Soysauce, I considered GlaDos but, unfortunately, I played Portal in 2009, not 2010. Otherwise she might have made the list.