We gave our readers the chance to vote for their favorite characters of the decade. Did your favorites make the list?

Our readers' choice poll has been up for weeks with votes flying all the while. Readers voted for characters created in the year 2000 to the present day. Nearly 70,000 votes were cast, with voters weighing characters on a scale of 1 to 10 points. These points were totaled and distilled into the Top 30 Readers' Choice Characters of the Decade (okay, 11 years) that you see below.

30. Max Payne (Max Payne)
29. Clank (Ratchet & Clank)
28. Jak (Jak & Daxter)
27. The Illusive Man (Mass Effect 2)
26. Alan Wake (Alan Wake)
25. Dominic Santiago (Gears of War)
24. The Boss (Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater)
23. Alyx Vance (Half-Life 2)
22. Claptrap (Borderlands)
21. Auron (Final Fantasy X)
20. Desmond Miles (Assassin's Creed)
19. Cole MacGrath (Infamous)
18. HK-47 (Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic)
17. Starkiller (Star Wars: The Force Unleashed)
16. Ratchet (Ratchet & Clank)
15. Sora (Kingdom Hearts)
14. Niko Bellic (Grand Theft Auto IV)
13. Dante (Devil May Cry)
12. Sam Fisher (Splinter Cell)
11. Andrew Ryan (BioShock)
10. Marcus Fenix (Gears of War)
09. Altaïr ibn La-Ahad (Assassin's Creed)
08. Captain John Price (Call of Duty)
07. GlaDOS (Portal)
06. John Marston (Red Dead Redemption)
05. Kratos (God of War)
04. Nathan Drake (Uncharted)
03. Ezio Auditore da Firenze (Assassin's Creed)
02. Commander Shepard (Mass Effect)
01. Master Chief (Halo)

Congrats to Master Chief for earning the top character of the decade from GameInformer.com readers! To see how the numbers panned out, check out the chart below.


This chart displays the point totals for the top 30 characters. Click on it to see a bigger version.

Write-In Winner

Readers also had the option to write in their favorite character who was not on the list of preset candidates. Many write-ins fell outside the criteria of the vote, appearing before the year 2000 (Solid Snake, Mario, Link, Gordon Freeman, Prince of Persia, Batman, Lara Croft). Other people wrote in characters that were already in the poll (Master Chief, Sora, Starkiller). Below are the top three write-in candidates that were embarrassingly not included in the regular voting.

1) Isaac Clarke (Dead Space)
2) Sackboy (LittleBigPlanet)
3) Revan (Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic)

Thanks to everyone for voting!