All game avatars are the same...

[Samuel]

I don't understand people (that's you, Stofsk, in case you didn't realise) who use the default Mass Effect male character face. They provide you with a tool to give the character whatever face you want - why use a poncy face derived from some Dutch male model?

That must get a bit more awkward that being a voice actor. How true to life is the process?

[Ford Prefect]

It depends on the game. Some in-game characters are just based on real-world examples, so they're only familiar looking. The Onimusha series had character who weren't just based on real people, but directly modelled into the game. The first game used actor Takeshi Kaneshiro, and the third even went so far as to insert Jean Reno into the game.

[phred]

I don't recognize any of them. Then again I don't play consoles either.

P.S.: Is that a CG version of Brad Pitt at 2-2?!

I was thinking David Duchovny. Although now that you mention it...

[Oskuro]

To me the ideal game avatar is one you create yourself - and I tend to stay far, far away from the standard 30 something rugged white male or uber-boob female.

Time to repost the awesome that is the Saints Row 2 character editor:




Games like City of Heroes or Champions Online have proven two things:

a) There's a market for character customization
b) Most people have horrible taste when creating their characters, or zero originality, I mean, just log into the game and play some Costume Bingo:

[Gramzamber]

Yeah Saints Row 2 is neat.
Though with enough mods the Oblivion/Fallout 3 can produce something other than hideous mutated gargoyles, such as my own favorite avatar..

[Stark]

We don't need stupid pictures to know Bethesda can't make a face system to save it's ass. The ME one was bad, but I made a passable dirty Russian so I was happy.

[Gramzamber]

We don't need stupid pictures to know Bethesda can't make a face system to save it's ass. The ME one was bad, but I made a passable dirty Russian so I was happy.

Is it even Bethesda's? I've seen very, very similar facegen systems crop up in other games, most recently Demon's Souls on the PS3.
It'd amuse me if it's some third party rubbish being bought by all these developers.

[Stark]

Even crap like Mount and Blade could licence non-Beth-level-terrible face systems, so that makes it even more amusing.

[TC Pilot]

Niko Bellic is 30 years old in GTA 4, and depending on the source material Big Boss would be in his late 20s/early 30s in MGS3.

Interesting that you assume you know which five I'm talking about....

I never played MGS, so I don't know who "Big Boss" is, other than he's apparently got an incredibly stupid name. But Starkiller, Sam Fisher, and Max Payne, they're not in their 30s.

[Gramzamber]

How dare you diss Big Boss. Big Boss was so rugged, manly and Sean Connery like that they cloned him a bunch of times before he turned EVIL and tried to take over the world with a giant nuke tossing robot just so they could have more rugged manly men from his rugged manly genes.

And he was taught everything he knows about rugged manly combat and survival by a girl.

...

Yes.

[chitoryu12]

To add to that list, 4-2 is Alec Mason from Red Faction: Guerilla. The Dead Rising guy is Frank West.

[General Zod]

Niko Bellic is 30 years old in GTA 4, and depending on the source material Big Boss would be in his late 20s/early 30s in MGS3.

Interesting that you assume you know which five I'm talking about....

I never played MGS, so I don't know who "Big Boss" is, other than he's apparently got an incredibly stupid name. But Starkiller, Sam Fisher, and Max Payne, they're not in their 30s.

Eh, I was referring to the characters in general, not necessarily saying you recognized them.

As far as Sam Fisher though, according to wikipedia he was born in 1957, which makes him well over 30.

[Tritio]

Damn, they should do something similar for all the game babes. They also look pretty much similar. Huge gravity defying boobs and a small waist. When will we see the trend broken by having a average looking woman with an average figure?

[Darksider]

How dare you diss Big Boss. Big Boss was so rugged, manly and Sean Connery like that they cloned him a bunch of times before he turned EVIL and tried to take over the world with a giant nuke tossing robot just so they could have more rugged manly men from his rugged manly genes.

And he was taught everything he knows about rugged manly combat and survival by a girl.

...

Yes.

Every MGS fanwhore fanwanks to big boss...........

anyways. I always knew that some video game protagonists were too similar to each other, but seeing them all next to one another like that is an eye opener.

[Vympel]

I never played MGS, so I don't know who "Big Boss" is, other than he's apparently got an incredibly stupid name. But Starkiller, Sam Fisher, and Max Payne, they're not in their 30s.

Big Boss' name is so stupid that they made sure that his name was Naked Snake in MGS3, and that even after he was given the title 'Big Boss' at the end of the game (being a setup as the main villain of the original NES game, Metal Gear, and its sequel) he preferred to be called Naked Snake in both Metal Gear: Portable Ops and the upcoming Metal Gear: Peacewalker - both games for PSP where he remains the protagonist.

Naked Snake is only slightly less weird sounding than Solid Snake.

[Ford Prefect]

When will we see the trend broken by having a average looking woman with an average figure?

Recently? The female major characters of both Mass Effect and Mirror's Edge have small breasts. The main character of Wet is also far away from the Lara Croft model.

[General Zod]

When will we see the trend broken by having a average looking woman with an average figure?

Recently? The female major characters of both Mass Effect and Mirror's Edge have small breasts. The main character of Wet is also far away from the Lara Croft model.

How about seven years ago, at least? The main character from Eternal Darkness was pretty average looking. I'm sure I could find more examples if I bothered looking.

[Tritio]

Ahh, well, yes, they don't have gravity defying breasts, but they still look good. Are there any examples of ugly looking female protaganists?

[neoolong]

On the same note, how many ugly looking male protaganists are there?

Not counting character editors where you can intentionally uglify them. I'd wager that game players would rather play as characters that aren't ugly as opposed to ones that are.

[Ford Prefect]

Are there any examples of ugly looking female protaganists?

It's an entertainment medium where the player character is almost universally an aspirational character of some kind. Of course there isn't. This is like asking the question 'are there any ugly looking female leads in film'.

[The_Saint]

This is like asking the question 'are there any ugly looking female leads in film'.

Arguably never a lead but Magda Szubanski is always happy to stand in as the ugly fat one.

An aside on female characters... why does every anime ever, have a tall blonde with big tits, glasses and a lab coat playing a scientist of some kind??

[Ford Prefect]

Arguably never a lead but Magda Szubanski is always happy to stand in as the ugly fat one.

I'm trying to think of female characters played by 'ugly' women (Szubanski isn't exactly stunning, but it's not like she's terrible to look at beneath the fake rash) who aren't supposed to be ugly. By that I mean characters who are defined by the fact that they are physically unattractive, overweight or whatever. I'm having trouble thinking of any, so does anyone else know some?

An aside on female characters... why does every anime ever, have a tall blonde with big tits, glasses and a lab coat playing a scientist of some kind??

Setting aside the fact that every anime ever doesn't, tall, large breasted blondes is a pretty easy shorthand for 'American', or even just 'Westerner'. A lot of this depends on the particular style of the artist in question, mind you, but it's getting away from the topic (and I could driblle shit about it for hours).

[Dooey Jo]

On the same note, how many ugly looking male protaganists are there?

Well, Super Mario is a fat plumber with a huge nose. He's a genius; defying conventions before they even existed. To take a more realistic example, the characters in the original Alone in the Dark were also, if not ugly (although their polygonal representations weren't exactly attractive), at least ordinary. It's interesting to see how the series evolved from there, both thematically and in character design. It's almost like the boobular inflation theory of fighter games.

I'd wager that game players would rather play as characters that aren't ugly as opposed to ones that are.

I don't know. Would they really care? If your protagonist is pretty ugly, maybe you won't make box art out of their face/tits/ass, but would anyone really turn off the game in disgust if it turned out the player character wasn't a rugged Aryan superman?

[Kane Starkiller]

LOL at the people who think that "not having gigantic breasts"="average looking female". Honestly how is that female character from Eternal Darkness any less good looking than digital representations of Lara Croft for example? Unless you are huge tit fetishist that is.

[Ford Prefect]

Huge gravity defying boobs and a small waist. When will we see the trend broken by having a average looking woman with an average figure?

Amazingly, the question wasn't just focussed on 'looks good'.