It's Taxes

It’s hard to pick just one favorite protagonist, but since I have to, I’m going with Mass Effect’s Commander Shepard. Naturally I played the games as FemShep, and I love that Shepard’s character is just a no-nonsene kind of leader who gets stuff done. The sad part is that I imagine a lot of the character’s great development was based in practicality since the same dialogue and storylines had to be shared with the male version of the character, but I’ll take what I can get. It was nice having a strong female lead in a game that didn’t have a bunch of tropey emotional/historical baggage or scenes that compromised her as a character.

©2007 EA/BioWare

I almost gave this one to Handsome Jack from the Borderlands series, but then I realized that I couldn’t overlook the evil clown that is Kefka from Final Fantasy VI. This guy just exuded pure, over-the-top evil without remorse. You can’t really beat a guy who aspires to become a god and actually succeeds. Also, his laugh will haunt my dreams for all time.

[(source)](http://kotaku.com/5976002/why-final-fantasy-vis-kefka-is-the-best-video-game-villain-of-all-time)

This was a tough choice, but I’m going to go with Final Fantasy X. I didn’t even play it, but I remember being riveted while a friend played on the PS2 years ago. I just wanted him to skip all the dumb combat sections and get back to the awesome cut scenes. Maybe it was just the novelty of it at the time, since that was the first fully voiced game I’d seen, but I do remember thinking that it was a whole new level of storytelling in games.

©2001,2013 Square Enix

Recently I picked up Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2, so that’s what I’ve been playing lately. I’ll admit this is not one of the better games I’ve played, but there’s something addictive about this series that I can’t really put my finger on. Like Destiny, despite the game’s flaws, I really like the core gameplay and just love turning my brain off for a while and smashing some face. I only wish they could figure out how to make multiplayer functionality less onerous. The awkward UI for setting up a team and trying to play with friends is way more difficult than it should be.

©2016 Dimps/Bandai Namco

Due to the frenetic nature of the gameplay, it’s a little hard to capture a screenshot of actual fighting. So here’s a shot of my Saiyan girl, Sarada, after winning a match.

So I’ll admit I kind of fail on today’s challenge. I actually can’t remember the last time I had a gaming-themed wallpaper on my desktop. On my laptop that I’m currently writing this post on, I’ve had this Avatar Won (from Legend of Korra) image as my desktop for the last couple years. I actually don’t see or change my wallpaper very often because I rarely have so few windows open that I can actually see my desktop.

[(source)](http://dctb.deviantart.com/art/Avatar-State-409878019)

Trying to remember the last gaming wallpaper I used… I think it was something related to Pokemon Omega Ruby & Alpha Sapphire back when those games came out, but I can’t really recall.