Ugly Protagonists

[InfectedStar]

Way too easy man, Ethan Thomas from Condemned 2: Bloodshot; his look is that of an unattractive, mean, homeless, alcoholic, oh wait he is! This look suits him because he IS a mean, homeless, drunk, who also has violent schizophrenia, and he also (appearently) smells like shit.

Picture at: http://media.giantbomb.com/uploads/0/151/177617-ethan_large.jpg

 

[Cheery Lunatic]

Nathan Drake is no hunk. Or at least, not in an overblown way.
He's good looking, but not in the over the top, Hollywood actor kind of way.
His looks are more realistic than others. He's no skinny, feminine, androgynous girly boy, nor is he some huge, muscle building, eats-a-truck-for-breakfast badass.

WHATEVER.

OT: I must advocate Nico from GTAIV (one UGLY mothafucka, lemmetellya), and Monkey from Enslaved (he's not that bad looking though, he grows on you). I also thought Jackie from the first Darkness looked like a metal head crossed with a hobo. Ethan Thomas from Condemned 2 is disgusting. Ezio/Desmond look nasty too (arguably of course... many think he's attractive, but I don't see it at all).

 

[Gorilla Gunk]

I'd rather play an interesting ugly character then "Nondescript Handsome Guy #1672."

 

[Katana314]

The classic. Apparently part of the reason Planescape: Torment didn't sell well was that this dude's face was all over the box art.

I think it works perfectly for the character - he's lived lifetimes upon lifetimes and died death after death, so it make sense he'd be a leathery mass of scar tissue. And it immediately tells the player that this RPG is about to do stuff you haven't seen before.

And yeah, I think it's great that Geralt is uglier than your average protagonist. However, as some people mentioned, he's not The Nameless One ugly. He's conventionally attractive under the scars and mutations. Good character design, though.

To me, that's more of an indication to publishers that you don't HAVE to plaster the main character's image all over the box art. Show something more visually interesting. Honestly, if all I knew about Planescape was its cover, I wouldn't be able to set it apart from all the RPGs featuring ugly monsters (I would just assume that guy was one of the random bad guys, or the antagonist)

 

[AetherWolf]

In America.

In Japan they prefer androgynous 17 year old boys that lack body hair with asymmetrical fashion sense and a bottle of hair gel.

Case in point. *shudder*