Game designers often make characters seem relatable, but the truth is that they’re nothing like you and I. From action to adventure, platformer to shooter – here are seven reasons we would make terrible video game characters.
7. We Need to Use the Bathroom
Most video game characters, on the other hand, never seem to. Sure, you can make Duke Nukem pee into a urinal or Conker the squirrel drunkenly urinate on a dance floor, but countless other characters go through hours, days, weeks and even months of action without once using the bathroom. Can you imagine Marcus Fenix trying to use a toilet? (I hope not.) It would require at least two hours to strip out of enough armor to properly release his gears of war.
6. We Get Hurt
And game characters never do. Okay, they get shot, sliced, beaten and burned, but do they ever get hurt? I mean do they throw out their back, sprain their ankle or strain their neck in the heat of battle? Do they get blisters on their feet from too much running? No. You want realism? Game characters should get carpal tunnel syndrome from all that trigger-pulling.
5. We Have Terribly Average Stamina
From the hyper fast Quake III Arena player to the always-out-of-breath James Sunderland of Silent Hill 2, video game characters have wildly varying stamina. But even the most physically fit human beings can’t shimmy along wires, hang from ledges, bounce from surface to surface, or run for long periods of time without catching their breath, taking a nap or popping a few Tylenol.
4. We Need Health Insurance
Healing a gunshot wound in America goes a little something like this: ambulance ride; emergency room visit; surgery; in-hospital recovery; outpatient recovery; pain meds; physical therapy; maybe even mental treatment for your PTSD. Without insurance, the price tag is probably a quarter mil.
In a game, though, you can just grab a first aid spray, health orb, med-kit, stim pack or green herb. SWEET. DEAL.
3. We Need Sleep
How many games actually require your character to spend time sleeping? Not many. The only thing the Doomguy’s, B.J. Blazkowicz’s, Kratos’, Gordon Freemen’s and Isaac Clarke’s of the video game world need to keep their energy up is a steady diet of violence, gore and wanton destruction.
2. Our Clothing is Way Too Functional
Whereas normal human clothing is made for warmth and comfort, video game characters are often adorned with ridiculous attire. Need some examples? How about female characters whose armor has cleavage?
And that brings us to…
1. Our Biceps/Breasts Aren’t Nearly Large Enough
Example 1: Chris Redfield getting into a fist fight with a boulder and winning at the end of Resident Evil 5. All attributed to giant biceps, enormous forearm flexors and ludicrous triceps.
Example 2: Every female video game character created from the dawn of the 3-D age (until developers realized how insanely sexist it was just a year or two ago), especially with the advent of ‘bounce technology’ in fighting games. See Dead or Alive, Killer Instinct and Soul Calibur just for starters.
Call of Duty: Ghosts image: YouTube
Quake II image: YouTube
Soul Caliber image: YouTube