Ugly Protagonists

[TheScientificIssole]

Where does he live, again? Most people didn't have shampoo to wash their hair in: Greasy hair was the norm. And, I like his hair being uncut. That way he doesn't look like
(big-ass image snip)

and why is Niko up there? He's Russian. They tend to be white.

How does his being Russian excuse his utterly generic short brown-haired 30-something white male character design?

OT: Agent 47 from the Hitman series.

Spoiler

He isn't really ugly, he's just has a very average and forgettable, if sinister, face, something that I thought was rather interesting because his character design is actually brought up in-game as one of the reasons he's so good at blending into crowds during missions.

Russian's tend to be white. A character in his thirties show experience and youth. Niko also seems like the type of person who would have short hair. He has reasons.

 

[inFAMOUSCowZ]

I say Kane and Lynch were ugly, it added to their character. Sadly the games are just bad.

 

[Inkidu]

I thought Chuck Greene from Dead Rising 2 looked like someone punched a block of modeling clay, painted it, and then put the mo-cap camera to it.

Issac Clarke from the Dead Space series is no looker.

Those Silent Hill nurses (but then again... well Deviant Art again makes a liar out of me and they're technically antagonists I know.)

Male Hawke's default appearance doesn't make you say roguish good looks. Lady Hawke is hot though.

Some of my male and female Mass Effect characters have been called ugly. However, this is really the definition of moot because beauty, eye, beholder of, and all that jazz. Still, it is kind of fun.

Lara Croft used to be the most unattractive thing to me in video gamedom, until GI did that shot of her covered in blood and dirt. Go figure.

 

[TheTim]

John Marston was one ugly dude.

 

[The Forces of Chaos]

infested Kerigan from starcraft?
I know Eliphas from Dawn of war series Darkcrusade / retibution. Also Plaugemarine champion. Or Gorgutz and Kaptin Bluddflagg Da Boyz be Natualy ugly. Sorry not sure how to link images yet.

 

[Dapper Ninja]

le snip

Russian's tend to be white. A character in his thirties show experience and youth. Niko also seems like the type of person who would have short hair. He has reasons.

It's possible to justify his character design based on his background and character, but there's still not really anything that sets Niko's visual design apart from any of those other lumpy faced brunettes, so it makes since that he'd be on that poster.

 

[ms_sunlight]

Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines gave you the option to play some bloody ugly protagonists, the most obvious being the Nosferatu, but some of the other character models were fairly intimidating as well.

 

[Simeon Ivanov]

Alex Mercer ... and maybe Nico Belik

 

[InfectedStar]

Way too easy man, Ethan Thomas from Condemned 2: Bloodshot; his look is that of an unattractive, mean, homeless, alcoholic, oh wait he is! This look suits him because he IS a mean, homeless, drunk, who also has violent schizophrenia, and he also (appearently) smells like shit.

Picture at: http://media.giantbomb.com/uploads/0/151/177617-ethan_large.jpg

 

[Cheery Lunatic]

Nathan Drake is no hunk. Or at least, not in an overblown way.
He's good looking, but not in the over the top, Hollywood actor kind of way.
His looks are more realistic than others. He's no skinny, feminine, androgynous girly boy, nor is he some huge, muscle building, eats-a-truck-for-breakfast badass.

WHATEVER.

OT: I must advocate Nico from GTAIV (one UGLY mothafucka, lemmetellya), and Monkey from Enslaved (he's not that bad looking though, he grows on you). I also thought Jackie from the first Darkness looked like a metal head crossed with a hobo. Ethan Thomas from Condemned 2 is disgusting. Ezio/Desmond look nasty too (arguably of course... many think he's attractive, but I don't see it at all).

 

[Gorilla Gunk]

I'd rather play an interesting ugly character then "Nondescript Handsome Guy #1672."

 

[Katana314]

The classic. Apparently part of the reason Planescape: Torment didn't sell well was that this dude's face was all over the box art.

I think it works perfectly for the character - he's lived lifetimes upon lifetimes and died death after death, so it make sense he'd be a leathery mass of scar tissue. And it immediately tells the player that this RPG is about to do stuff you haven't seen before.

And yeah, I think it's great that Geralt is uglier than your average protagonist. However, as some people mentioned, he's not The Nameless One ugly. He's conventionally attractive under the scars and mutations. Good character design, though.

To me, that's more of an indication to publishers that you don't HAVE to plaster the main character's image all over the box art. Show something more visually interesting. Honestly, if all I knew about Planescape was its cover, I wouldn't be able to set it apart from all the RPGs featuring ugly monsters (I would just assume that guy was one of the random bad guys, or the antagonist)

 

[AetherWolf]

In America.

In Japan they prefer androgynous 17 year old boys that lack body hair with asymmetrical fashion sense and a bottle of hair gel.

Case in point. *shudder*