Video Game Character Analysis: Males
In the video game industry, it is commonly understood that the greatness of your male hero should be represented visually by loading him up with a bunch of heavy and awkward equipment, then adding a scar, and finally, giving him a really displeased facial expression. I’d like to look at a few examples today. Note: the female equivalent of this article can be found here.
Here we see Marcus Fenix, legendary star of Cliff Bleszinski presents: Gears of War. Since I’ve only played about five minutes of Gears in my life, I’m going to have to base my understanding of this character on this picture to the right. Marcus Fenix is a man on a mission: a mission to be the most geared up gear of war ever to chainsaw an alien.
Poor Marcus had a difficult childhood. Due to his grizzled face and unflinching scowl, Marcus never had many friends. For Marcus, childhood was just an irritating wait before he could wear an 800 pound suit of armour and punish some aliens. Mysteriously, Marcus’ very comprehensive armour leaves his scarred head exposed, although that do-rag may offer some protection. Marcus Fenix is a hater of many things: pussies, homosexuals, the weak, minorities, and anything else that does not fit into his narrow, and very manly, definition of normal.
Next up I’d like to consider Solid Snake, from Hideo Kojima presents: Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots. I’ve played even less MGS than I have Gears of War, and so my analysis will have to once again focus on the provided image. Like Marcus, Mr. Snake is not a happy man, and we can all tell that by noticing his facial disfigurement (as represented by an eye patch).
Unlike Marcus, Snake is battling a personal struggle, the inevitability of old age, and Snake tries to compensate for this unfortunate reality by maintaining a very manly mustache. Snake is not weighed down by the “gear” of war that Fenix is, relying on his own strength, as displayed by this freakishly tight suit, and his stealth-ing abilities. Not to be outdone by Fenix’s choice in out-of-fashion headgear, Solid Snake sports a very dashing headband. The trusty headband serves to keep this silver fox’s hair out of his eyes whether he’s battling giant robots or clubbing with the boys.
We now come to Altaïr Ibn La-Ahad, from Jade Raymond presents: Games are Better When They’re Made by a Woman: Assassin’s Creed. Unfortunately, not only have I never played Assassin’s Creed, I’m too lazy to even read beyond the second paragraph of the Wikipedia article for this game, and so my speculation for this example will be especially uninformed.
In Assassin’s Creed, a man in a lab must channel his long dead ancestor, Altaïr, and as such, gain knowledge of what it is to be the manliest warrior. Altaïr’s descendant, Desmond Miles, discovers that a hoodie adorned with intricate metal plating and daggers is very much befitting a great warrior. Additionally, he learns that men do not need to be scarred and terrifying to be great, so long as they look like smoldering, mysterious sex machines. Rendering hairlines is tricky stuff, and so where Fenix wore a do-rag and Snake wore a headband, Altaïr covers up with a hood. Hoods can be very convenient for hiding your face from potential adversaries, as well as a great way to keep the elements out of your eyes.
Finally today, I want to consider Kratos, hero of David Jaffe presents: Don’t Forget that this Franchise is Exclusive to the PlayStation Family: God of War: Chains of Olympus: As Seen on Spike TV’s Video Game Awards: Hosted by Samuel L. Jackson. I haven’t even seen anyone play DJp: DFttFiEttPSF: GoW: CoO: ASoSTVVGA: HbSLJ, and so once again, I will have to largely glean my knowledge of this character from his image.
Kratos is the angriest man on Mount Olympus, and he’s very concerned that you might not realize it. As such, he’s carved a well placed scar across his right eye, and thrown up a crazy warrior’s tattoo across the other one (for symmetry of design). Kratos is a man genuinely unhappy about everything, and as such he’s definitely going to cut up some bitches, but even that wanton violence won’t be enough to bring even a smirk to this deeply troubled man. Just in case you were still uncertain about Kratos’ character alignment, check out that goatee, only the most brutal of men would dare share Satan’s choice in facial hair. Just as with our other heroes today, Kratos just can’t handle a hairline. Instead of hiding his shame under a piece of clothing though, Kratos has decided to simply go bald.
[...] Article here [...]
U are a moron. U could at least put a half ass effort to learn about something if your going to write about it. you could have at least watched a play-through or some cut-scenes on youtube instead of just writing a report on the first picture you find you lazy ass
[...] in which I analyze the physical appearances of game characters. I have previously considered male and female human digital heroes. This time around, I will be looking at female furry [...]
Agreeing with Reaper. Would it kill you to look up these guys you’re writing this report on? Even a wiki search would have given you at least SOME idea of who these people are and that your description of them and who they really are is an embarrassing show of lack of research (with or without you telling us).
P.S. I didn’t play Gears of War, Assassin’s Creed or Gods Of War either, but a little research told me:
+Marcus Fenix is a former prison inmate. For a “hater”, he has enough respect for humanity to protect it against a horde of murderous aliens and even risked his ass as a soldier to leave his post to save his father (which didn’t work and why he’s a prisoner in the first place). He also has a friend, Dom Santiago, who saved him from a 40-year sentence cut short by the Locust Emergence to four years and was reinstated and kick started the game.
+ That’s not an eye-patch. Snake has BOTH his eyes. He wasn’t fighting the war well into his old age as it was a side effect to what the war did to him (he’s really in his 30s or 40s, but has accelerated aging that took its full effect on him by MGS4. Look at him in MGS2, and then here, and you’ll see the full effects of what happened to him). The war he fights has nothing to do with him battling his old age. And he HAS a huge arsenal of weapons, just, unlike Marcus Fenix, it’s hidden on the player’s menus (his hammer space) instead of shown out in the open for all the enemies to see.
+ He’s not a channeled ancestor of some legendary assassin so much as a descendant of a notable assassin born into the art and grew up to be a Grand Master before one failure and a string of other mishaps bumped him back down to Novice to send him on a redemption quest. He also has a task to kill The Nine who, as he digs deeper into learning who exactly “The Nine” are, he uncovers suspicions of this task and sets out to liberate a city of a tyrant. With all that on his plate, yeah, he may be cute-looking and (depending on the other gamer girl mileages) a “sex machine”, but unless your name is on his hit-list, he has better things to do. Being an assassin in a more or less secret cult, he wears a hood to conceal his identity, not because of missing a few patches on his hairline (what kind of a criminal who doesn’t want to get caught would barge into a robbery scenario without some kind of mask to conceal their face? They’d be caught within a half an hour of their crime). Like Snake, the reason why he’s so lacking in the fancy metal plates and boomsticks is because both are meant to be stealthy. Not too fun trying to leap tall buildings and sneak behind your target when every other step you take goes *CLANG* *CLANG*. Being one not so keen on abusing the fourth wall to no end like Snake, he also has to rely on more reasonable arsenal compared to Snake pulling a huge cannon out of his ass (not to mention his timeline justifies it).
+ Cut up some bitches? CUT UP SOME BITCHES?! HAH! Dude, he doesn’t dice them, he screws with them. If there’s one thing that the game boys advertised about the game, it’s the bed-shaking “mini-game”. I don’t even have to look it up on wiki to know how many guys showed me the “awesome powers” of a war god in bed with two topless girls, urging the player to tap cued buttons to make the whole room try to knock over a lamp.
Oh yeah, right, back to his character. The reason why he has those markings on his face is because he’s a demi-god (explaining his huge red streak) and a battle-worn one at that (explaining his cut, which wasn’t necessarily self-inflicted). He’s subject to numerous forced missions that, depending on what happens, makes or breaks his fate and either averts disaster or bring them head-on. Contrary to what his Mr.Cranky Pants picture up there implies, he may take on a lot of missions that’ll cause geysers of blood erupting all over the place (thanks to his high affinity to war, something I also didn’t have to look up to know), but he also has many missions that are more morally ambiguous. Many consider him a more sympathetic anti-hero than the obviously-evil imagery would imply, because thanks to Ares, the God of War, and the promise he made to him, he was tricked into killing his wife and children in a blind rage and out of defiance against Ares, was cursed to wear their ashes (hence his white skin).
See? Didn’t take that long to find a little background on these images. Nor was it that hard.
P.P.S. I’ve read your female analysis as well, and noticed there’s barely any research done there either (even the alleged character you DO “know” of, Samus), but since most of the article boiled down to how tight their suits are and how finely-sculpted and tight their asses look, I won’t even bother correcting that.