Cloud Strife.

If he didn't have spikey hair and a big sword, 90% of people would hate him. That WAS his personality.

Gordon Freeman. I care dso little about him and in turn wnated him to suffer making the game very hard for me.

Tingle from the Zelda series. He has his own game over there in Japan. >.>

*Throws kunai at the Link-haters*
He's supposed to be mute(at least he's not Gordon Freeman), and as such, sometimes has a compelling reason for what he does(In Wind Waker, his sister gets dragged off, in Twilight Princess, he gets hounded[literally] by an imperious living shadow that for the first part of the game Link simply wants her out of his life), and, while he's supposed to allow player immersion in the world around him(actions speaking louder than words), he clearly has a character all his own. Besides, maybe Miyamoto caught wind of fanfic, eh?

As for the Chief, leave him be. Similar concept to Link, but you read even more into his character by what little he says(look at what he says to Cortana and Johnson) and what he does(that whole promise to Cortana, for instance). He's a professional soldier, and in the middle of a combat situation, a professional soldier doesn't need to talk. You just have to engage your brain a little more to see the character.

Worst you asked? Most of the male protagonists from the latter Final Fantasy series. I can see why Yahtzee has contempt for them. Angsty, whining, and with a disturbing lack of masculinity, these "heroes" irk me. However, in most FF games, there is a quiet, tank like badass that makes up for it, and who usually has a cool story behind him(Auron, Ashe, Vincent).

Being a lazy person I don't feel like reading this whole thread, could someone inform me of roughly how many people said "Master Chief."

I'm gonna say the BioShock guy. Doesn't even talk in a vague, off screen sense like Link. Gordon Freeman is that way too but he isn't the worst because he has a name, a face, a story, and a degree in theoretical physics from MIT.

EDIT: Wait, I remember that "BioShock guy" actually does have a story and I think someone said he was named Jack (I would never have figured that out unless someone tells it later in the story than I am now). Gordon still has the face and physics degree over him though.

I'm going with a "recent games" approach to this topic. Obviously the Doom Marine is pretty terrible but that wasn't a big deal back then.

EDIT2: Dammit! Now that I'm thinking about it I'm starting to like BioShock guy. Let me think about this now.

Dunno, but it's a rather silly count...

Stubee:
Gordon Freeman. I care dso little about him and in turn wnated him to suffer making the game very hard for me.

Reading this from a design perspective, the developers purpose was to make you yourself BECOME the main character, him keeping silent is a method of immersing you into the world, so when you play half-life 2, and half-life 2 being a FPS game, you ARE gordon freeman.

Therefore, you require urgent counselling, you wish to make yourself suffer? PROZAC! WE NEED PROZAC, STAT!

To be honest, Havok from Command and Conquer renegade irritated me a fair bit, too stereotypical.

Arcticflame:

Stubee:
Gordon Freeman. I care dso little about him and in turn wnated him to suffer making the game very hard for me.

Reading this from a design perspective, the developers purpose was to make you yourself BECOME the main character, him keeping silent is a method of immersing you into the world, so when you play half-life 2, and half-life 2 being a FPS game, you ARE gordon freeman.

Therefore, you require urgent counselling, you wish to make yourself suffer? PROZAC! WE NEED PROZAC, STAT!

To be honest, Havok from Command and Conquer renegade irritated me a fair bit, too stereotypical.

How am i supposed to think that is me when
a) Im not a scientist
b) I dont wear glasses
c) I dont have the gayest chuck norris beard rip off in the world
d) i dont have a lame ass lookin suit of armour

Eldritch Warlord:
Being a lazy person I don't feel like reading this whole thread, could someone inform me of roughly how many people said "Master Chief."

I'm gonna say the BioShock guy. Doesn't even talk in a vague, off screen sense like Link. Gordon Freeman is that way too but he isn't the worst because he has a name, a face, a story, and a degree in theoretical physics from MIT.

EDIT: Wait, I remember that "BioShock guy" actually does have a story and I think someone said he was named Jack (I would never have figured that out unless someone tells it later in the story than I am now). Gordon still has the face and physics degree over him though.

I'm going with a "recent games" approach to this topic. Obviously the Doom Marine is pretty terrible but that wasn't a big deal back then.

EDIT2: Dammit! Now that I'm thinking about it I'm starting to like BioShock guy. Let me think about this now.

Don't judge 'Bioshock guy' until you've finished the game. Trust me on this one. ;]

Pah. I like Link. I don't know why, but I have some kind of male bond to him. I need counselling.

Yuna of FF X-2

Another game that subscribes to the school of "avoid alienating new people by making the protagonist an idiot who doesn't understand anything in the world". This concept is fatally flawed when the main character visited all the locations in the previous game and knows around three-quarters of the cast.

Essentially you play as a colossal moron who no longer has access to the thing that made her a valid character previously, summoning, and essentially spends the game trying to emulate everything that made Tidus unbearable in the original.

Eldritch Warlord:
EDIT2: Dammit! Now that I'm thinking about it I'm starting to like BioShock guy. Let me think about this now.

I was going to say... there's a lot to this guy that you might miss if you're not looking. For instance:

-- Steve

Housefly:

Cpt. Sarcastic:
Again. people that say the chief has no backstory havent read the books.

The Halo books are fanfiction funded by a publisher. Is there a reason it wasn't possible to put Master Chief's backstory in the source material for the books, which is to say the games?

Because there are some stories you can't write on the back of a postcard; they deserve more space than you can comfortably allow in such a constrained medium as an action-adventure game. (Though I suppose there *is* a market for 90-minute long expository cutscenes... /cheapshot)

As to "worst protagonist", well, I tend not to buy games with crappy protagonists so I'll have to sit this one out.

-- Steve

Anton P. Nym:

Housefly:

Cpt. Sarcastic:
Again. people that say the chief has no backstory havent read the books.

The Halo books are fanfiction funded by a publisher. Is there a reason it wasn't possible to put Master Chief's backstory in the source material for the books, which is to say the games?

Because there are some stories you can't write on the back of a postcard; they deserve more space than you can comfortably allow in such a constrained medium as an action-adventure game. (Though I suppose there *is* a market for 90-minute long expository cutscenes... /cheapshot)

-- Steve

I agree. And the Halo novels are not fanfiction, all but one of them were written by employees of Microsoft or Bungie and their storylines are sanctioned by Bungie as official canon.

The first time I saw Raiden was in MGS4, and he was a freaking ninja. So I submit the Portal girl, from portal, because she is nothing more than a walking portal gun.

Stubee:

Arcticflame:

Stubee:
Gordon Freeman. I care dso little about him and in turn wnated him to suffer making the game very hard for me.

Reading this from a design perspective, the developers purpose was to make you yourself BECOME the main character, him keeping silent is a method of immersing you into the world, so when you play half-life 2, and half-life 2 being a FPS game, you ARE gordon freeman.

Therefore, you require urgent counselling, you wish to make yourself suffer? PROZAC! WE NEED PROZAC, STAT!

To be honest, Havok from Command and Conquer renegade irritated me a fair bit, too stereotypical.

How am i supposed to think that is me when
a) Im not a scientist
b) I dont wear glasses
c) I dont have the gayest chuck norris beard rip off in the world
d) i dont have a lame ass lookin suit of armour

Because it was a joke?

a) I am a scientist,
b) I wear (safety) glasses in the labs,
c) I *could* have the "gayest chuck norris beard rip off in the world", if I wanted to grow it that way,
d) I *could* make myself a lame ass lookin suit of armour - if I could be bothered to waste my time doing so.

I think I found the reason I like Half-Life so much.

Hated Marcus Fenix in Gears.

Dispite his billion dollar empire, I would have to say that Mario is one of the worst protagonists in video game history. Come on, he's a plumber! What is that supposed to reprsent? Joe everyman? And why is the princess into him? If I was the princess (like in my dreams!), I would be gratefull to anyone who rescued me from Bowsers firey castles. But then again, P. Toadstool hangs out with a bunch of mushroom people anyway. Maybe in her universe a man who plumbs is king in the land of pipes.

I gotta agree with the Gordon-bashing here, him being silent doesn't really make you feel like the character just as a movie without dialogue wouldn't make you feel for the characters (someone explain to me how a character is supposed to emote, and thus be empathetic, if we never see their opinion or hear what they think?).

Worst protaganist has to be either Leon from Resi 4 or Harrison from AVP2.

Leon by far is the most unintentionally emo character I have seen in a game, think about it...he has the haircut, laments over a long lost (previously thought dead) love while denyiny a potentially sexual offer from the younger blonde bimbo who is present at the end (and doesn't sell him out) and finally...whenever someone moderatly important dies he screams their name dramatically (in the hope of reviving them?).

Harrison...don't get me started on Harrison. For starters he has some of the worst witty dialogue I have ever seen eg: 'I've always wanted to drive one of these' (when he finds an APC), he quite literally has 'more balls than brains' (fortunatly pointed out by the commander in the second mission) given half of the missions he takes on and finally (this is more a complaint of the game but...bear with me here) he doesn't make any effort to pry facehuggers off of himself.

Squall was great for the first two discs of FF8. But by the third and fourth, he changed from a whiney emo brat (annoying but bearable) into an obsessed crazy "I must save her!" loverboy (equally annoying, but just plain wtf). And he changed in like five minutes, pretty much ruining the rest of FF8 for me.

Stubee:

How am i supposed to think that is me when
a) Im not a scientist
b) I dont wear glasses
c) I dont have the gayest chuck norris beard rip off in the world
d) i dont have a lame ass lookin suit of armour

A) Gordon Freeman does remarkably little science in the Half-Life games themselves, so your lack of scientific expertise shouldn't hinder you.
B) You only ever see the glasses in publicity shots, so why do they matter?
C) Facial hair cannot have a sexuality, so there's no such thing as a gay beard. There's a gay person with a beard, but that's a pretty big distinction. Also, Gordon Freeman has a goatee/mustache combo. Chuck Norris does not.
D) Neither does Gordon Freeman. The HEV suit is basically a hazmat suit that just happens to be tough enough to double as armour.

Sora for no other reason then he doesnt fit the idea of a "chosen one" when compared to other kick arse characters in that game

Also any protaginist that is supposedly a civillian or somthing. Suddenly they know who to fire a gun with great accuracy etc hmmmmm yea about that....

huntedannoyed:
Dispite his billion dollar empire, I would have to say that Mario is one of the worst protagonists in video game history. Come on, he's a plumber! What is that supposed to reprsent? Joe everyman? And why is the princess into him? If I was the princess (like in my dreams!), I would be gratefull to anyone who rescued me from Bowsers firey castles. But then again, P. Toadstool hangs out with a bunch of mushroom people anyway. Maybe in her universe a man who plumbs is king in the land of pipes.

He's a plumber because of all the pipes. Peach isn't in to Mario, Mario's in to Peach. Why else would he tolerate the laughably poor security of her kingdom so many times?

Of course, he not a very good protagonist. Like you said, but Mario games don't really have a story so I don't care.

I actually liked final fantasy eight, and I never had a problem with squall, aside from his fashion sense. The character shift from this is my job to this is my passion that people cite as a jarring problem can be, but only if you fail to immerse yourself in the game, if you let yourself fall into the minds of the characters then you get the concept that motivations aside, he's going to go off and save the chick for two reasons- One: You don't know what you have until it's gone and Two: When you have no overwhelming motive in your life, you pursue the most obvious and immediate quest offered to you.

That said I also loved Halo for the plot so maybe I'm thinking differently than most. A bad protagonist in my mind isn't someone with seemingly inconsistent behavior, it's one that doesn't let me get inside their head. And the worst people for this were the main character from prince of persia, Nero from DMC4, and the main character from FFXII. Also what's with the hate on Fenix? I don't follow it.

Guess I'm the only person here who liked Squall. What pissed me off in FF8 wasn't him, but Rinoa (Dude, the guy doesn't like you, or anyone else, SHUT THE HELL UP.) He didn't see the need in depending on other people, or even being around them unless it was necessary. Seeing how people are in general, I kind of agree. When the others are all yelling at him to open up, how's that supposed to actually help him do that? Blargh. I think Rinoa's probably far worse than Squall ever was. "The princess is having a nap!" "Oh, Rinoa's gone, AGAIN." "Hey, I'll give a Sorceress this bangle that will supress her powers! Even though everyone knows this brand, she might not, yay this is a great idea!" Stupid bint. I lost her in space once and didn't regret it. XD;

As for my vote, I'm throwing my penny in for the nameless protagonist from "Baroque". Yep, it was already a good indication that the protagonist was called "protagonist" had no memory, no voice and movement issues up the wazoo. Then there was that random part at the bottom of the Neuro tower where he suddenly starts talking about resetting the world and .. well, that whole game was just awful.

islagatt:
Also what's with the hate on Fenix? I don't follow it.

I think it's the relatively poor voice acting, although to me it made his character more believable.

See he's a jock, not socially adept but popular for whatever he has that makes him a jock (probably lots of money and an expensive car, considering the size and location of his fathers house).

Eldritch Warlord:

islagatt:
Also what's with the hate on Fenix? I don't follow it.

I think it's the relatively poor voice acting, although to me it made his character more believable.

See he's a jock, not socially adept but popular for whatever he has that makes him a jock (probably lots of money and an expensive car, considering the size and location of his fathers house).

The "poor voice acting" is fightin' words, seeing as that actor also played Bender and General Grievous.

My personal theory is that all the Gears are steroided-out to the brink of brain failure so that they have the muscle mass necessary to carry all that armour, which would explain the bad attitudes and inane dialog.

-- Steve

You're right Steve.

I didn't think Fenix had bad voice acting, I thought it was excellently in character. I was giving that as a reason for people not liking him (because I've heard "Gearz guy talkd bad!!!!!!!!!11" a lot of places).

Bioshock - the complete lack of knowledge you're given as to who you are or why you're there irritated, not intrigued, me. So I agree on that one.

But my biggest choice - and a really obvious one right now I'd say - would be Batman. How come he's hardly been mentioned? The vast majority of Batman games are either dull as ditchwater or appalling, and Batman's physicality doesn't help. He might look cool in comics, but black capes on black backgrounds are just dull, no matter how hard you try to give them an "authentic" feel.

(Note I don't think the same is true of the two most recent films, especially "Dark Knight", which IMO was pretty damn awesome.)

brenflood:
I agree that Superman is a horrible video game Protagonist. He's fine in his cartoons and some of the better movies, but every single Superman video game has been a stinky pile of suck.

Try making a video game out of someone who is, for all intents and purposes, invincible despite his weakness to glowy space rocks.

Could be worse. Could be Spawn.