20. Duke Nukem

First appeared in: Duke Nukem (1991)

You could say that Duke is just a tongue-in-cheek pastiche of the hard-as-nails cinematic macho men seen in the likes of Commando, Rambo and Die-Hard. Not necessarily invulnerable but bigger, badder and more muscular than you ever thought possible; a man-mountain that men want to be and women want to bed. Sure, you could say that. And you'd be right. But 15 games later and Duke has become his very own man, the characters he was designed to imitate and poke fun of writ large on the gaming landscape. Film might have Schwarzenegger, but Gaming's got Mr Nukem, and who needs Arnie when Duke's in town with a shotgun to fire and a cigar to chew on?

His catchphrases alone (a number of which are shamelessly ripped off from Bruce Campbell in Army of Darkness) make him one of the best action characters ever devised: "Now you see me.... now you're dead", "It's my way or... hell, it's my way!", "There's only two ways this is gonna end, and in both of them... you're dead." Well spoken, sir.