Top Ten Telltale Heroes #5

#5: Nima Cruz (Jurassic Park: The Game)

The Walking Dead may have been the game that got Telltale into the spotlight, but they were making games long before Lee and Clementine came along. To that end, I thought it best to give a spot to a character from the first Telltale Game I ever played. With most of the cast being playable at one point or another, I had plenty to pick from: Billy Yoder, with his fantastic dive from hero to villain; Jess Harding for her sassy attitude; even to Oscar Morales for his general badassery and being the only human to slay a raptor in one on one combat. Ultimately though, I had to go with the closest thing this game had to a protagonist, the anti-hero Nima Cruz.

A native to Isla Nublar, Nima was taken from her home at a very young age, due to the corrupted corporation InGen wanting to use the island for their own purposes. Fate ends up bringing her back to her former home as a mercenary, hired by Biosyn to recover the embryos Dennis Nedry failed to steal. When Murphy’s Law rears its dinosaur head, Nima is trapped on the island alongside the other survivors, and must work with them not just to survive, but to get the embryos back. For they are the key to her getting a proper life for her daughter, the only good thing she has left.

Nima starts off as the shapeshifter archetype; skirting the line between friend and foe, she mostly just looks out for herself and causes more than one problem for the other characters. But once you understand her backstory and what she’s fighting for, she becomes much more relatable. Most mothers will relate to Nima and especially respect how far she’s willing to go to get her daughter into a better life. Plus, as one of the first Telltale Game characters, Nima has the honor of having one of the few choices that directly alter the game; that being her decision to save another man’s daughter or to go after the embryos. Sadly, this decision can end up with her dying, but it’s still a story changing decision. While she may look a lot of Vasquez from Aliens, her troubled but understandable attitude made me see a female Daryl Dixon; badass enough to hold her own against the creatures of Jurassic Park, yet also human enough to get behind. Plus, Nika Futterman does a fantastic job playing the part of a Hispanic mercenary, and her small bits of Gratuitous Spanish are a treasure to behold.

Overall, even though Nima wasn’t a part of the Renaissance period of Telltale heroes, she still earns a spot for being the first Telltale hero to steal my heart and bring me into the Telltale Experience. You’re a fine hero, Nima, and a better mother.