Can you really consider someone in a powersuit badass?

[Stalk3rchief]

I said this in the last thread, this

Spoiler

is the single most bad-ass person in video gaming history.
I agree with your point wholeheartedly. Although impressive, a spartan out of his armor is (figuratively and literally) out of his element. Samus is completely worthless with no armor, as can be said about every Space Marine or other power armor unit class.
But, my point in posting Johnny Gat again, is that if you take someone who is ALREADY a major bad-ass and then stick them in powerarmor, it shouldn't negate that bad-assedness (yay made up words). So if you were to shove Johnny Gat into a giant body hiding suit of power armor, I don't think it should make him any less awesome. Only a character who relies on their armor should be exempt from the "Bad Ass Video Game Characters" contest.
=]

 

[Section Crow]

Master-chief is naturally strong his suit just gives him shields to survive so it's not really a power suit compared to samus.

In any case master chief's suit is just plain armour and ammo holder like any other spartan's armour

anyone with Halsey's journal will know what I mean

 

[zealk]

I said this in the last thread, this

Spoiler

is the single most bad-ass person in video gaming history.
I agree with your point wholeheartedly. Although impressive, a spartan out of his armor is (figuratively and literally) out of his element. Samus is completely worthless with no armor, as can be said about every Space Marine or other power armor unit class.
But, my point in posting Johnny Gat again, is that if you take someone who is ALREADY a major bad-ass and then stick them in powerarmor, it shouldn't negate that bad-assedness (yay made up words). So if you were to shove Johnny Gat into a giant body hiding suit of power armor, I don't think it should make him any less awesome. Only a character who relies on their armor should be exempt from the "Bad Ass Video Game Characters" contest.
=]

true, we have all been focusing wether or not the person with armor is bad ass... but the point of the thread is if it makes them bad ass or not.

 

[jawg_t-j]

you can still be badass with a powersuit on wit simple badass actions. but genuenly i agree i find charecter with balls big enough to not need six inch thick steel protecting there face while taking out bad guys with objects that can kill sothing just as effectivly as a giant ray gun then they deserve the right to be called badass more than those sissys in power armour but it all falls down to the whole point of this forum. what you think personally is badass as there is no real way of messuring badassness.

 

[sephiroth1991]

Power Suit Up!!

OT: i agree to a degree a person wearing a tank isn't badass they just overcompersating but a character that can over come great odds can consider himself badass master chief can be called a badass cos he faces overwhelming odds at times but he does have regenerating heath something his enemies lack.

now i got your attention

 

[Desgardes]

OH GOD, I can never look at these threads. Because God of War always comes up, and I always look at that and think, OH, Tales of Symphonia, but no. And to make it worse, Kratos /was/ a total badass in that game, but I just can't remember that people obviously didn't like Tales of Symphonia as much as I did, considering the sales.

 

[internetzealot1]

Saying someone in a powersuit can't be a badass is like saying someone with a gun can't be a badass.

 

[ninjajoeman]

By the logic you're using, the biggest bad-ass around would be a 5 year old girl that can beat up grown men with the kind of build that Arnold Schwarzenegger is famous for...

(wait... I'm seeing the plot to about 20 different anime series now... XD)

So, careful what you wish for really.

Thing is, your argument implies that the definition of a bad-ass is someone who can fight, and defeat, something that should be well out of their league.

Technology doesn't change anything unless is gives you an obvious, and overwhelming advantage over someone in the same context who does not.

Samus and the Master Chief for instance, are both powerful, but neither is really that strong in context of the kind of things they fight against.

That sounds like a great definition for badassery

 

[jediroshi]

Well you also have to consider the context. I mean you could consider a person in a tank wearing power armor and those soliders are some bad ass people

Other examples of that is when Samus still took on Space Pirates without her suit in one of the GBA Metroids.

Or how Jim Raynor wears a power suit when on the field, yet he's still bad ass enough to take a guy on who's in power suit and win. Just because your wearing armor doesn't take away from it I think. It just's usuing technogly/weapons to help you do more with your bass ass self.

 

[Extra-Ordinary]

Saying someone in a powersuit can't be a badass is like saying someone with a gun can't be a badass.

Yeah. And zero-suit Samus can hold her own.

 

[Stalk3rchief]

I said this in the last thread, this

Spoiler

is the single most bad-ass person in video gaming history.
I agree with your point wholeheartedly. Although impressive, a spartan out of his armor is (figuratively and literally) out of his element. Samus is completely worthless with no armor, as can be said about every Space Marine or other power armor unit class.
But, my point in posting Johnny Gat again, is that if you take someone who is ALREADY a major bad-ass and then stick them in powerarmor, it shouldn't negate that bad-assedness (yay made up words). So if you were to shove Johnny Gat into a giant body hiding suit of power armor, I don't think it should make him any less awesome. Only a character who relies on their armor should be exempt from the "Bad Ass Video Game Characters" contest.
=]

true, we have all been focusing wether or not the person with armor is bad ass... but the point of the thread is if it makes them bad ass or not.

Oh, well no then. The armor doesn't make someone bad-ass. The person can be bad-ass, and so can the armor, but someone using it comes off as kind of weak.

 

[WanderingFool]

Badass is state of mind. It is who you are, not how much you destroy.

Probably the truest answer in this thread. Badass is to ethereal of a word for a standard definition. Its a very subjective term.

But OT, It would depend.

Is wearing a power armored suit badass?

-Are you fighting along side equally armored soldiers against un-PA soldiers? No, you are not badass, you are just at a serious advantage.

-Are you the only one with Power Armor, counting both sides? Possibly, but it depends on the equipment both sides have besides your PA. If the enemy doesnt have power armor, but lots of armor regardless (tanks, APC, and so on...) and has weapons capable of turning you into pink mist? Than you can count on the Badass potential increasing. And theres also Vanquish, which the main character is a badass in the sense that he fights along side a squad of marines, against a seemingly endless army of machines and a bad case of the crabs...

-Are you fighting, by yourself, against an opposing army numbering in the thousands? Yes, the PA is not so much a cruch or advantage, as it is an equalizer.

-Are you doing whats said above, but said army is a race of aliens who are 2-3 feet taller than the average human? Obviously...

So depending on the situation, Power Armor can make you badass.

 

[zealk]

Master Chief's armor doesn't really do that much. Sure, it makes him much stronger than the average human being, and gives him shields so that he can take a decent amount of damage before it actually hurts him in any way, but all of the technology of his armor is reverse engineered covenant tech. The elites that he's fighting have all the same abilities he does, they're pretty much just as strong, and they also have armor and shields. The difference between Master Chief and the elites he's fighting, is that there are hundreds more elites (as well as other covenant, some stronger, some weaker).

Basically, Master Chief is fighting hundreds of enemies that have basically the same strong points that he himself does. It would be like Kratos fighting hundreds of guys with his same exact arsenal and powers, or Samus fighting hundreds of enemies that have the exact same suit and powerups as her.

Am I saying that Master Chief is the most badass character? Not at all, but I really don't think that you can say that he isn't badass just because he has a power suit, considering the odds that he has to go up against.

well hold on a minute! then riddle me this bat man, if he is just as strong as the elite's then why can the elite's be killed by humans? or for that matter why are the brutes able to fight the elite's so easy? the answer, their skill does shit against a gun that every one has! if your weakness is the thing every one commonly uses it tend to cause problems

Well, that's exactly the point. Elites are way stronger than humans, physically, and they have shields. This doesn't make them invincible, it just means that they're a hell of a lot harder to kill. A normal human can't kill an elite. A group of humans can.

It's the same with Master Chief, all he has is enhanced strength and shields, it doesn't make him invincible, just harder to kill, and against enemies that have the exact same thing, it's a completely even playing field with no advantage on either side, except for numbers. That's why Master Chief is badass, because he can overcome the numbers.

so your saying all the humans i spawned that killed the huge groups of elites in halo wars was a glitch? no, seriously... even in halo 2... with a group of humans i have done nothing and watch them take on the much larger group of elite's and a hunter!

 

[RobfromtheGulag]

Seeings as you're critiquing a majority of fantasy characters, a powersuit is simply a parallel to the 'unexplainably superpowerful' beefcake character. You can't really nitpick one while giving the other a wave.

 

[Browbeat]

I feel that one CAN be a Mecha-suit badass, however their strength must not be solely reliant on their mecha-appliance.

For instance, in District 9, Wikus was not a badass, but he did cool things with an alien suit. Koobus, the MNU commando captain, was a badass by himself (despite being an insufferable bastard) - had he entered the alien suit (and somehow made it work - furthering his status), his badassery would be maintained.

Simon from Gurren Lagann is not a badass - his genetic gift is irrelevant without the Lagann, thus his power is solely dependent on the plot-tied mecha.

Fei Fong Hong (WONG FEI HONG!) from Xenogears is a badass without his Gears, as his martial skills (and later chi abilities) decimate opponents. Within his suit, he is colossally powerful - and eventually damn near unstoppable (on that note, most of the cast of Xenogears follows this pattern).

John 117 (Master Chief) was chosen for his genes, trained to be hard as nails, then genetically supplemented and re-grafted to be a penultimate combat badass. He was then given a suit of armor that cost as much as a UNSC cap-ship and made to do superhuman things. Now, the gaming world largely knows him solely for the armor (Bungie's 'It's you!' marketing strategy), but he is, in principle, one of the very, very best that was produced between Project Orion and the Spartan III program. (Still second to Fred, though...)

Samus Aran is not a badass. She has resolve and strength of character, but all her abilities stem from her armor (including the Zero suit). The friendly neighborhood Lombax is a greater badass than she - and he's reliant on his weaponry as well.

The Adeptus Astartes (Space Marines) of Warhammer 40K are badasses because they follow similar rules as the 'Chief - post-human war constructs in service of mankind; the trained super-elite that decimate armies. True, they are reliant on their equipment in-game, but in concept of fiction, they are quite effective without their gear. (Two hearts, waking sleep, spit acid, etc.)

You can kind of see how the pattern emerges. Sure, favorites want to be hailed as badasses, but the question is 'How much of a crutch is your mecha?'

 

[Brainsaw]

Master-chief is naturally strong his suit just gives him shields to survive so it's not really a power suit compared to samus.

anyone with Halsey's journal will know what I mean.

Actually, the armor does give him extra strength. It also allows him to operate underwater and in vacuum for exteneded periods of time. Hell the sole reason why only Spartans use the armor is it had a bad habit of reacting so fast to movement that it literally tore any un-augmented wearers apart. Spartans out of their armor proved capable of annihilating ODSTs in a 3 on 1 fight. So augmentations + power armor allowed them to stand on an equal level with Elites who's armor really just provides shields and some ballistic protection. Then there are the Brutes who are outright stronger than both while wearing nothing. In a universe with billions of blood-thirsty aliens who want to annihilate you as well as the Flood, wearing power armor doesn't decrease your badassness, it's a simple precaution because surprise, surprise humans can't breath vacuum.

I think a character from the Haloverse said it best. The Spartans aren't badass because of what has been done to them, but instead in spite of what has been done to them. They didn't ask for the augmentations which killed off half of them, but instead they continued on to kick ass.

And I think that applies to all the guys mentioned on this thread, not just MC.

 

[GLo Jones]

So I made the "Most Badass Video Game Character" thread and many people claimed Master Chief Samus etc.. but I honestly put them at the bottom of my list. Why? They are in a power suit that enhances their abilities to make them so invulnerable/'badass'. Someone like Big Boss/Solid Snake, Batman, Auron, Kratos (debatable) are badass because they do their thing with nothing but their own badassery (<----- made that word up) to completely own all that oppose them. to be fair they do have their weapons and such but they are usually facing a much stronger opponent. Ex. Snake vs tank, Batman vs Killer Croc/Bane, Auron (doesn't matter...), Kratos vs Legions of eemies and every God on Olympus + titans.....shirtless.

Do you agree? If not why?

Isn't the 'powersuit' a part of the character?

/thread?

 

[Jake0fTrades]

Armor doesn't give Master Chief pin-point aim, and his attitude. Those are undoubtedly his. But taking rockets, jumping chasms and punching in a Grunts face is entirely up to the armor.

Half and half.

 

[Eldarion]

so your saying all the humans i spawned that killed the huge groups of elites in halo wars was a glitch? no, seriously... even in halo 2... with a group of humans i have done nothing and watch them take on the much larger group of elite's and a hunter!

You do realize that most RTS games move away from cannon in favor of game balance right?

Cause if the elites from halo 1-3 or the books engaged a medium sized squad of marines, they would definitely win.

 

[zealk]

so your saying all the humans i spawned that killed the huge groups of elites in halo wars was a glitch? no, seriously... even in halo 2... with a group of humans i have done nothing and watch them take on the much larger group of elite's and a hunter!

You do realize that most RTS games move away from cannon in favor of game balance right?

Cause if the elites from halo 1-3 or the books engaged a medium sized squad of marines, they would definitely win.

you do realize i also manetioned the small squad of marines that took out a large group of eliets and a hunter right?