World's worst protagonists.

[Zeema]

Shepard why? HE LOOKS LIKE A PINEAPPLE with Short Hair


Also hes got like One Hairstyle i wanna have a Male Shepard with a Afro

 

[Trolldor]

I was playing Just Cause 2 with some buddies and we came to the conclusion that the game was about a man who is sent into a semi-developed country to destabalize its infrastructure and murder everybody, and we were meant to cheer for this guy.

Sure there is a bunch of expository bullshit, about how the government is corrupt and it opresses everybody, but we really only have the word of about 3 unimportant charecters and the leaders of several terrorist cells. Does that really justify murdering everybody and destroying their water towers and gas stations?

So who do you think is the worst protagonist ever in terms of how little good they do?

Kratos maybe? He's a dick.

Or maybe you stayed true to the title of inFAMOUS with evil Cole.

Discuss.

EDIT: The protagonist can be playable, non-playable, silent, whatever, as long as they are the "good guy" and are terrible at being the "good guy".

A protagonist is not 'the good guy', he is the main guy. In a game, he must be playable or he isn't the protagonist.

 

[ExileNZ]

Shinji. Thread over.

Or maybe the protagonist from Night Shift Nurses.

For something more game-related... hmm.....

Kabuto. He stomps around like Godzilla and eats everybody. And you can play as him.

 

[RowdyRodimus]

Holden Caufeild.
That annoying little ***** needs to shut up and just go home.

Thank you. First thing that popped into my head the exact moment I saw this thread. Salinger needs to be resurrected and killed again for that monstrosity of a book. Classic my ass.

Not to mention the murders it's caused (John Lennon's being the big one).

OT: Hope from FF XIII. I somehow think he would like Catcher in the Rye, while catching it in the rear.

 

[Vault101]

Shepard why? HE LOOKS LIKE A PINEAPPLE with Short Hair


Also hes got like One Hairstyle i wanna have a Male Shepard with a Afro

I think you can customizing him...but it makes you wonder for such an awsome game the default is the most generic lookig blandest tough guy as the face of the series

still Bioware definetly know what they are doing in tmers of marketing

Hawke from dragon age actually looks half interesting, but Ill still be playing as female

 

[minispike47]

Desmond Miles. He is so bland and has no personality

 

[Spade Lead]

Kratos, sociopathic prick, just not at all likable.

So many people say master chief and I agree he's really just the most forgettable game protagonist ever.

But the worst even worse than Kratos? Fucking Galen Starkiller, or as I like to call him fuckingfanboypanderingrgary-stu esquire.

I disagree with Starkiller being worse than Kratos. I have beaten both games of TFU, but I played the first level of God of War 3 and got tired of it. Kratos was an evil prick, purposely doing harm to those he supposedly loved, then, when he realized what he had done, killed the only other people that acknowledged his existence.

Starkiller had a redeeming feature, although his abuse in the events leading up to the second game made his single minded obsession his one overpowering thought, and corrupted his passion. I am not saying I liked his characterization in 2, but I find it more believable and relatable than Kratos' destroy everything mentality.

 

[Zarmi]

Tidus. /thread

 

[emeraldrafael]

Mario.

Genocidal freak who just leaves the one girl in the dust to save the one that wants nothing to do with him.

No, Link wins (ocarina of time). This little punk ass kid runs around vandalizing private property, breaking and entering, trespassing, theft, larceny, first and second degree homicide (and I think there is some resisting arrest), substance abuse and commits treason... Wow, even Kratos can't claim all of those charges.

Pokemon trainers. Animal fighting, parent neglect, child abuse/slavery. Theft, murder, just about all the big things.

 

[Irriduccibilli]

The lemmings from Lemmings

 

[supermariner]

Starkiller from Force Unleashed of course

boring, generic, featureless grey pulp of blank personality


Starkiller from Force Unleashed 2 also

he's exactly the same but with the added awful attitude towards Juno that Dom has for his damn wife in Gears ... which everyone hates. Nice one Starkiller

 

[greyghost81]

Desmond Miles. He is so bland and has no personality

Totally. Then again, everything about the framing narrative in those games just sucks. It's like they created these cool semi-historical thrillers and then decided to junk them up with a bunch of bland nonsense. Maybe if Desmond had a personality it would have been better, or hell, even have the "bleeding effect" from the Animus force him to take on the personality traits of his ancestors after prolonged revisiting of their memories. Even the elusive Subject 16 has more personality than Desmond.

 

[Magicman10893]

The king in Oblivion. Yeah, trust the guy that's in prison (on death row I believe) to save the world. That would be like breaking Ted Bundy, Charles Manson and Jeffrey Dahmer out of prison so they can escort the president's daughter(s) to safety and go hunt down Osama Bin Laden and Kim Jong-il before they can launch the nukes that they obtained from Russia and Israel all while not murdering, cannibalizing and raping people along the way.

I can't be the only one who thinks that's bat shit retarded. Especially since the first thing I did upon escaping prison was loot a dungeon, kill a bunch of bandits, clear out a mine for a grieving husband, murder the grieving husband and steal his home and possessions. Then I joined a secret society of assassins because they discovered my cold blooded murder and I wanted their shit. Then I later joined a guild a thieves and personally stole one of the greatest and most sacred artifacts in the world all while being expected to save the world from the gates to hell that are randomly opening up every 50 yards.

 

[RandallJohn]

Vaan from FFXII. He had NOTHING to do with the main story at all. All he did was say "I wanna be a sky pirate" every 5 minutes.

Oh my goodness, thank you. I loved that game, but Van was incredibly irritating, especially when put in comparison with the other main characters. *coughbalthiercough*

And it gets worse in Revenant Wings, where Vaan actually IS the lead protagonist.

 

[MurderousToaster]

In gaming, Alex Mercer from Prototype isn't exactly very good at being a good guy by any stretch of the imagination - he senselessly and violently murders thousands of soldiers in order to find out what happened to himself.

Outside of gaming, Lelouch from Code Geass is the only protagonist I know for whom the overall death toll of innocents from his actions is over seven digits.

 

[Ridley the Violator]

Drummie666-I was going to respond to your post, but then I stopped in the middle of typing, froze up, and began to cry.

Then I talked to myself for ten minutes.

For me, worst protagonist is the Warden from Dragon Age. No matter who you play as the lines you're given are almost always incredibly bland and personality-less, at least when you're trying to do the serious role playing. The subplot resolutions for the origins are laughably executed and you can barely keep track of how you've decided to act because the companion approval system is utterly useless. And of course, worst of all, the Warden is completely irrelevant to all the story. If you took him/her out you could easily have Alistair take their place and it would be exactly the same story.

its been a while since I played but I remember there being ALOT of dialouge options (as oposed to say fallout 3 or Mass effect, (although thats helped by being voiced, unless your playing male default shepard compared to the rest of the cast he's blander than plain white rice and yet hes also the face of the series...*sigh*)

I supose the blandess of the warden is subjective but I liked my characher (Elf who goes around and massecres an enitre caslte in her wedding dress, on her wedding day, now thats badass)

anyway Dragon age is a million times better for role playing than Oblivion (in fact Id say its a million times better than oblivion...there I said it) there are NO dialogue options, you are empty space at least in DA your a charachter, In Oblivion your a walking camera, it really killed the game for me

Yeah, I guess Oblivion would be a better example of all the things I complained about in Dragon Age: the main character can do anything they please and has no characterization, and they have no connection to the events of the story other than just being a really trust worthy person who the Septims rely on. Plus they usually only say just Yes or No, like in Fable.

 

[Misterian]

Lara Craft

Tends to kill people in cold blood just for being in the way, takes treasures for herself, and if a ZP review I once saw was any indication, she killed a Kraken that wasn't even bothering her.

the developers might as well make her out as a game villian, 'cause that's what she is; a villain that walks like a video game hero.

 

[WorldCritic]

That kid from Infinite Undiscovery. He whines, he plays a flute, he whines some more. For more information on how annoying he is, watch the Unskippable episode for the game.

 

[Blueruler182]

Kratos is a dick? Kratos murdered EVERYTHING. For vengeance. I'm sorry, there is little doubt as to who's the worst protagonist.

He's just not a good hero, there's a difference.

Have you played God of War 3? If not, I'll put it in a spoiler bubble.

Spoiler

He kills EVERYTHING. That's not an exaggeration, for each god he kills the world dies a little bit more, until literally everything and everyone has died some form of gruesome death. Drowning, starvation, storm, and sickness, he inflicts this on all of mankind just to kill his daddy Zeus. He doesn't even have any valid reason for doing this through most of the game, he's just pissed at Zeus so everything has to die! He only learns that the gods were corrupted near the end of the game, when most everyone has died and everyone left is in agony. And it's not even like he can claim ignorance. He could have stopped after kill Poseidon and drowning the earth, but, no, he had to go all the way.

There is no reason for him to be doing what he does. I cannot follow his quest for vengeance simply because nobody would go to those extremes for it. Terrible hero, terrible protagonist, fun as hell to play, but I honestly felt like a bad person just for playing him. The Joker makes more sense, at least they admit he's a remorseless psychopath, but they keep trying to make Kratos seem like a hero.

 

[Magicman10893]

As far as Alex Mercer goes, the killing of soldier is due to the fact that they are after him more than the rest of the infected. Remember how they always used the codename "Zeus" to refer to him. They all wanted to kill him and take him down, he was trying to stay alive. Now sure, he CAN kill the soldiers in cold blood as well as regular citizens, but that is up to the PLAYER to decide. It would be like calling the protagonists of Fable 3 the worst protagonist because you CAN go on killing sprees and slaughter the whole town of Bowerstone. It's not part of the narrative that determines whether or not you massacre a city, that is purely interaction from the player. Now, before I get called a hypocrite for saying the protagonist from Oblivion is evil because I decided to murder and steal, there were actual missions for cold blooded murder and stealing.