All main characters look alike.....

[Sasquach]

http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/117/1177659p1.html

Im surprised how all these characters look alike lol.


If you create a video game might as well use 'generic hardcore ex-military bro with deep raspy voice and shaved head' as the lead character lol.

Final Fantasy characters are differentiated by physics defying hair, Nintendo characters...look nothing alike, Duke Nukem...well....hes Duke Nukem, Master Chief hides behind power armor...probably looks like those guys if he took it off....man.....you just cant make a memorable characters this generation lol.

[Akumajo]

Wow the only guy in that profile with enough African heritage to scare away Paris Hilton was Vin Diesel, that is so sad.

No surprise that the US gamer public seems to gravitate towards buff, sweaty skinnheaded white men. Its probably the same types they fantasize about meeting in bathhouses or craigslist ads.

[Pr3tty F1y]

No/buzzed hair = less poly's.

Think of the poly's!

[Zero]

If you create a video game might as well use 'generic hardcore ex-military bro with deep raspy voice and shaved head' as the lead character lol.

I could so be that, well a few months ago when my head was shaved anyways.

Designers usually pick those traits for a reason, much like all female models probably look the same with respect to boobs, waist, ass, etc.

[hordaktheman]

It's simple lack of vision. I don't know if it's the developers or the producers that are responsible but the general rule is that games just have plain shitty storytellers. Try to imagine Han Solo or Indiana Jones replaced by these guys and hold back the vomit.

It also reminds me of a story I read about Undying. Patrick Galloway was supposed to be that type of goon called Count Magnus Wolfram (!) until Clive Barker put a stop to it.

"We had this fellow called Magnus. Count Magnus Wolfram. Who was bald, tattoed, looked like a comic book hero. And I got them all in a room, and I said, 'Look, does anyone in this room know a count? No. Does anybody in this room know anybody called Magnus? No. Does anybody really want to be in this guy's skin? Since this is a first person play, why would you want to be in this man's skin? Why would you want to play [as him]?' And so we threw him out, and I said, 'Look. You've got a gay man in charge here. Bring me somebody I want to sleep with. Bring me somebody fabulously sexy.'...

"Brian Horton about ten days later sent me the character that now appears on the screen. Who was wonderful, he's everything I wanted. He was just the right kind of character. He seemed like somebody you would want to be, somebody you would want to play, whose skin you would want to occupy for a period of time. Even if you are going against the hordes of hell, at least he was going to do it with a smile on his face."

http://www.clivebarker.info/undying.html

Count. Magnus. Wolfram.

Let that sink in for a bit.

[Sasquach]

No/buzzed hair = less poly's.

Think of the poly's!

perhaps that is what will define next gen.

a full head of hair!

[dreamwalker]

Surprised that article didn't mention this guy

[Perky McGiggles]

It did.

[Hyrax]

http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/117/1177659p1.html
Im surprised how all these characters look alike lol.


If you create a video game might as well use 'generic hardcore ex-military bro with deep raspy voice and shaved head' as the lead character lol.

Final Fantasy characters are differentiated by physics defying hair, Nintendo characters...look nothing alike, Duke Nukem...well....hes Duke Nukem, Master Chief hides behind power armor...probably looks like those guys if he took it off....man.....you just cant make a memorable characters this generation lol.

I am sure all these characters were designed off of real actors. Force Unleashed guy was on Smallville and another new show. And Vin is Vin...

[hordaktheman]

I am sure all these characters were designed off of real actors. Force Unleashed guy was on Smallville and another new show. And Vin is Vin...

That doesn't really change anything. It would just mean that they need to stop hiring gruffy actors.

I'm actually fine with a number of those on the list because they're by no means the worst offenders. Niko Bellic and the Force Unleashed character aren't exactly of that gruffy kind while Sam Fisher goes back 30 years of Michael Ironside being awesome. Vin Diesel also gets a free pass for obvious reasons.

The rest are just plain bad generic designs and it's a problem that goes back long before motion capture. Baldur is a particular atrocity; I was so put off by it that I couldn't even play Too Human. They basically took Jesus and made him 'edgy'.

[Akumajo]

That doesn't really change anything. It would just mean that they need to stop hiring gruffy actors.

I'm actually fine with a number of those on the list because they're by no means the worst offenders. Niko Bellic and the Force Unleashed character aren't exactly of that gruffy kind while Sam Fisher goes back 30 years of Michael Ironside being awesome. Vin Diesel also gets a free pass for obvious reasons.

The rest are just plain bad generic designs and it's a problem that goes back long before motion capture. Baldur is a particular atrocity; I was so put off by it that I couldn't even play Too Human. They basically took Jesus and made him 'edgy'.

I think the problem is that other than real life Vin Diesel, all of those other videogame characters are really meant to just be empty shells that the average videogame audience can use as an Avatar to want to be like in the game feel "edgy" or "bad ass" its a shame really, all of those characters being designed to be flawless or lacking flaws and therefore lacking any humanity with poor back stories.

The polygon problem could hold water but this gen has really powerfull consoles compared to last, and most of those empty shell characters were established or copy pasted from last gen, it kind of tells you something about game devs and how their creativity has been going down the drain.

[Sasquach]

I think the problem is that other than real life Vin Diesel, all of those other videogame characters are really meant to just be empty shells that the average videogame audience can use as an Avatar to want to be like in the game feel "edgy" or "bad ass" its a shame really, all of those characters being designed to be flawless or lacking flaws and therefore lacking any humanity with poor back stories.

The polygon problem could hold water but this gen has really powerfull consoles compared to last, and most of those empty shell characters were established or copy pasted from last gen, it kind of tells you something about game devs and how their creativity has been going down the drain.

Most of the real iconic characters are pretty much unrealistic, in that they wouldnt translate well at all to real life unless animated (except for a few of the realistic characters who were created in the non-HD gaming era, like the agent 47 and Lara Croft)
the HD era pretty much turned most main characters into ex-military.....

[zebra 204]

It did.

Yep, 12 times to be exact.

[Tizen]

Surprised that article didn't mention this guy

Photoshopped. Sheppard is female you silly ****s.

[Akumajo]

Most of the real iconic characters are pretty much unrealistic, in that they wouldnt translate well at all to real life unless animated (except for a few of the realistic characters who were created in the non-HD gaming era, like the agent 47 and Lara Croft)
the HD era pretty much turned most main characters into ex-military.....

Drake from Uncharted series is pretty realistic but you are right most characters in the HD era have backstories where they were either ex marines or ex military the worst offender was the character in the HD Silent Hill.

As for Lara Croft idk her new HD trailer has something pretty damn far fetched with her falling on a sharp, rusty rod, getting up and walking away and still having the strength to make it outside...

I mean understandably videogames are meant to be escapades into a fantasy reality, videogame no matter how realistic will always be fantasy because once you die, you do not come back unlike videogames but yeah most characters being designed now are falling into the "focus group" audience, its like game devs are no longer all that creative anymore.

[Sasquach]

Drake from Uncharted series is pretty realistic but you are right most characters in the HD era have backstories where they were either ex marines or ex military the worst offender was the character in the HD Silent Hill.

As for Lara Croft idk her new HD trailer has something pretty damn far fetched with her falling on a sharp, rusty rod, getting up and walking away and still having the strength to make it outside...

I mean understandably videogames are meant to be escapades into a fantasy reality, videogame no matter how realistic will always be fantasy because once you die, you do not come back unlike videogames but yeah most characters being designed now are falling into the "focus group" audience, its like game devs are no longer all that creative anymore.

If the devs cant think of anything creative, they just take a ruff and gruff ex-military and throw him into a power suit/power armor of some kind and hope its creative enough to divert from the now exmilitary norm.

[Zero]

Drake from Uncharted series is pretty realistic

[Akumajo]

If the devs cant think of anything creative, they just take a ruff and gruff ex-military and throw him into a power suit/power armor of some kind and hope its creative enough to divert from the now exmilitary norm.

I believe the whole "ex-military" thing is a great excuse to make the character believable in handling all of those ridiculously powerfull and dangerous weapons they get to use or give them the mental health to be able to kill other living beings without remorse and hesitation... part of the training but it does get out of hand when you got more than 12 videogames using the same excuse in the same month or release in a non holiday month even

Way back when I first played Silent Hill 2 at first I was annoyed the guy you played as was such a weakling, shmuck, pansie... then I ended up understanding he was not supposed to be some "bad ass" or battle hardened guy otherwise it would have been a cakewalk of switching your mentality to clearing rooms/areas by any means, when they made those outsourced sequels with the exmilitary and infinite ammo, it stopped being a tense or intense experience, it became a bit of a joke actually...

Its like imagine if Star Wars was made by some other guy who made Luke Skywalker a battle hardened military veteran instead of the young, naive boy he was, or if Peter Parker or Clark Kent were also ex military war soldiers trained in the art of death... things would be very different...
Not saying war or military training makes you a bad ass or a killer but you practically get a license to use and kill at will while you are in the battle zone so you adapt much quicker if the situation demands it from you or at least thats the idea as long as you don't freak out.

Well despite the obvious flaws he is about as realistic as Lara Croft was (minus the whole E3 2011 trailer I mentioned of falling on a piece of rusty metal that stabs your abdomen and you practically walk/swim about a mile or so in dirty, cold water in a dark tunnel) of course thanks to Angelina Lara becomes very believable.......