Modern Video Game Character Design Comparison [PIC]
March 22, 2009 at 1:09 am by srfto
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Very accurate picture showing off the similarities of todays’ video-games modern characters. The bald or really short hair with the 5 o’clock shadow stubs. For some of them, I would have never noticed they were in completely different games
gay
prepare for a fanboy trashing. they don't like their favorite games made fun of. just ask the guys from VGWL
worst strawman ever
Dude from left for dead looks like perry cox from scrubs
owaitigetit
They all have short(ish) hair!
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.
Also, some of the atomic symbols are in the wrong place on your periodic table.
also, East Enders? Really bro? My mom watches that drek.
most of them are from war games, and in the Army – they cut your hair short.
to be fair that's just the character on the box of Mass Effect, you can modify it a lot.
Considering almost all of these are from Western character designers, it's not surprising. You can complain all you want about Japanese-designed characters looking too feminine but at least they have distinct styles to them. (but yes, many of them look alike, too)
One thing that has kept me from getting into this whole "Western-designed or catering to Western gamers" craze is the fact that 99% of the male characters look like angry deli owners or skinheads, and the female characters… either look like guys, or aren't attractive at all.
This is ridiculous. Ever think about them be modeled after soldiers?
Maybe all teh designers got the gays for faux-hawks and Jason Statham???
There's a technical reason for this, too, though; in western games especially, photorealism is the holy grail; hair is still difficult to do and more difficult to do right (in realtime). If done even slightly wrong you hit the uncanny valley very quickly. Bald head = easy to model, and bald headf+five oclock shadow = baddass in western culture anyway, so that's twoferone.
Note that this doesn't really apply to the stylised asian hairstyles. Spikes are easy to model
step 1: Go to 4chan.com
step 2: go to /v/, save images, post.
step 3: ????
step 4: profit
Short hair or baldness negates the need to design character hair and render it in real time which would be a lot of effort for very little value. Good thing for game developers that the military demands the crew cut.
They're all skinheads from a neo-nazi party :O
Wow people going into combat want muscles and short hair.
Wonder why… 9_9
This thing was weak sauce.
We should restrict them to 16×16 sprites with a few colors… that's how you get creativity: pushing the boundaries of what you can do. What's ridiculous is that the graphics power available today (rendering hair procedurally isn't as costly as you might think) far outstrips any designer's ability to achieve. Give me a smaller graphics card, a smaller processor, a smaller unit, a smaller price-tag, and some damn creativity and I'll be satisfied.
a big reason for it is how difficult it is to render hair well. hair is one of the most difficult parts or a character model because of how complex it is, so the majority of games just exclude it.
Great article, just another reason why the millenium sucks. Stupid meathead characters.
"For some of them, I would have never noticed they were in completely different games"
Ha ha, it is be-cause they are-not from different games. When you read this and understand, you will be laugh-ing.
They're all bald because it's near impossible to make realistic-looking hair in video games. Each individual strand would have to move independently or it would just look like crap. It's just easier to have a bald dude.
As others have already remarked, there are at least 2 major flaws with this list:
1) Nearly all of these characters are from military/mercenary-type shooters.
2) Nearly all of these characters are designed in two specific regions of the global video game market (America & Canada / Northern Europe)
What about all of the RPGs like Final Fantasy? What about all the historical and fantasy RTS games, like Age of Empires 3 and Guild Wars, respectively? Professional sports/wrestling games? Cartoon fighters like Super Smash Bros? Neo-2D games like Braid and Trine? Games with customizable protagonists like Fallout 3?
And so on and so on…
hes got to upload all the guys in prison break