Unlikeable Lead characters

[Fanfic_warper]

Kratos from every god of war game, The main guy from Gears of War, Master Chief from Halo, Lara croft in Every Tomb Raider, the main characters in Bioshock 1 and 2, almost every character from Final Fantasy VII, Sothe from Fire Emblem Raidiant Dawm, Garcia "Fucking" Hotspur from Shadows of the Damned, Chris from Resident Evil 4, EVERYONE from the FEAR series, Issac Clarke from Dead Space, Duke Nukem from all his games, Dante and Vergil from Devil May Cry series, Link from every Zelda game and finally the main guy in Grand Theft Auto San Andreas....

Yeah I think that covers it.

 

[Zhukov]

Well, you kind of ninja'd me there with Marcus. I'm not exactly crazy about the rest of the Gears cast, but at least they have some sort of established personalities. Cole is loud and boisterous, Baird is sarcastic, Dom is, uh, well... never mind. But Marcus, ugh, he's got absolutely nothing behind that perma-scowl.

Then there's Nathan Drake. You big cocky prick, you're not funny, please shut up. Also, you murdered that Egyptian museum guard for absolutely no reason. You monster.

Alex Mercer from Prototype. I don't even know what they were going for with him, but I sure hope I wasn't expected to like him.

Lastly, Riddick from the Chronicles of Riddick games. Tries way too hard to be badass. There's one point where he comes across a frightened child hiding in a vent. He starts growling one-liners at her. I promptly jumped his dumb arse of a cliff a few times for being such a callous bastard.

 

[b3nn3tt]

I'll have to agree with the people that said Alex Mercer. He spends the entire game seeking 'revenge' only to find out that

Spoiler

everything was his fault anyway

. This is most ridiculous when he's driving a tank through crowds of people chasing Taggart and says something along the lines of 'you made me do this'. Just no.

The other protagonist I can think of that I don't like is Gordon Freeman. Obviously it's part of being a silent protagonist, but I hate that he never says anything when people tell him to do every single thing. So many times I was thinking 'well why don't you do that?' I know it's because he's meant to know what he's doing but it would be nice if he said no once in a while.

 

[Adamc-mh]

I'm gonna say Silver from Sonic the Hedgehog 2006. I'd say he counts as a main character since you play as him for 1/3 of the game.

He's just a prissy little wimp. While Sonic and Shadow use their own bodies as weapons, Silver uses telekinesis. He also has a badly put in minor love/friend thing and he he was difficult to play as.

The whole prissy teen thing really reminds me of someone though....

Oh yeah, also

Raiden from MGS2. Prissy teen and nowhere near as as cool as Snake. Snake fights an army of Metal Gear Rays and Raiden fights one man in a rooftop. At least in later games he becomes a cyborg ninja though.

Yeah I hated Raiden too but it's raiden that fights the army of metal gear Rays not snake, he's fighting Fortune well stalling her until raiden can destroy MG Ray and kill Solidus.

 

[StarCecil]

I gotta say that every iteration of Hawke in Dragon Age II is completely unlikable. At least without a voice, there was some ambiguity in the delivery and I could make it up as I went.

I would also add Shepard to that list, parcticularly because in ME2 (s)he is such a giant tool for clearly evil incompetent assholes that I hated my own character. The lack of obvious resolution choices and decisions leaves only 2 canon versiosn of the character, both of which can't think for her/himself and can only wholeheartedly agree with intergalactic terrorists or act dickish toward them but still do everything they ask.

I was going to say Shepard due to the fact you can really only play two versions of him/her, but ME is highly regarded and I didn't want to stir that pot.

 

[Wintermoot]

never played FFX but my neighbor showed it.
TIDUS!
he named him Tedious to give him a fitting name.

 

[Yugeky20]

Mass Effect; Sheppard is soooooooooooooooooooooooooo annoying. Or final fantasy, I want to run them all over.

 

[operationgenesis]

You can't really take points away from a wisecracking protagonist if they crack wise after murdering someone... because that's part of what you do in a game, or read about in comics, or see in movies. Jak & Daxter, Ratchet & clank, Spider-Man, John McClane, and even Batman (sometimes) all crack wise after, or shortly before, murdering someone. And those are just off the top of my head.

And it's been a while since I played Uncharted 1 or 2, but I'm pretty sure he had other motivations. It might've been his initial motivation (you know, because he's a treasure hunter), but if someone saves the world, can ya really call them a douchebag just because their initial intentions were to steal something? People change, and that makes Drake all the more believable.

Seems to me like you're grasping at straws for reasons to hate him, but to each their own.

Oh, and sorry for going off topic...

Okay, sorry about this, but Spider-Man and Batman -never- kill anyone. That's an incredibly important part of their characters.

But to really answer your question, most of the people who are saying that Nathan Drake is unlikable are really only saying so because Yahtzee said it in his review. People really like to parrot that guy.

 

[Deimateos]

Nero, Drake, K&L, Marcus, the new "Radtacular" Sonic, Raiden from MGS2, The Miner from Crystal Caves, Male Shepard, Kratos (After GOW1) there's too many to write down, Adam Jensen barely escapes the list, his rent-a-batman voice starts to grate X( .


Oddly, Kane and Lynch being bereft of anything likeable helped make a better story for me (For the first one at least).

For ancillary "leads":
Big...The...Cat. Fuck your frog, guy. I hope it dies a horrible death. Stop wasting my life trying to catch it.

 

[RandallJohn]

Gabe Logan, from Syphon Filter. The only time I've ever sold a game because I didn't want to see the "protagonist" succeed.

 

[Catfood220]

Cole Phelps from LA Noire is one of the most unlikable characters in video game history. His idea of interogation boils down to calmly asking questions and wild angry accusations. This would be excusable if he wasn't such a judgemental dick and thought himself morally better than everyone else around him when he is cheating on his wife with the German singer. He is just one of the many reasons that I didn't like the game.

His supporting cast is so much better, such as his colourful world weary partners or his boss that thinks nothing of stealing a case of booze from a crime scene.

I was glad that the game ended the way it it, couldn't of wished it on a nicer person.

 

[dimensional]

Every FF. Except the VIII, i hated everyone there.

Yeah right, Cecil from FF4 is by far the best Final Fantasy protagonist..

Ot: Hope from FF 13 is the single worst character of all time... such an angsty, whinnig, annoying little turd I hate him with every fiber of my being... I know he's not the lead charafter but I was in such a blinding rage while playing that I completely ignored the rest of the characters...

Beat me to my answer. Vaan was one of many reasons that I did not like FF13, the others were more like non-characters.

Although I have to admit that I like Tidus from FFX, even though he seems to be universally despised. In fact, FFX has some of the best characters and one of the most well-written stories I've ever seen in a game.

you know Vaan was from XII NOT XIII right? im assuming you just got confused anyhow I would place a vote for Vaan he has no redeeming qualities whatsoever his blandness knows no limits and the other characters in XII were not far behind (except Balthier).

Snow from FF XIII really really irritated me as well barely any character development he is just a douche from start to finish I mean even the annoying hope made some progression.

Rush Sykes from last remnant is probably the most unlikeable lead I have ever played though and he dosent even have the supporting cast to save him saying `lets kick some A` every time a battle starts just annoyed me even more.

Others would include Soap Mactavish and Master Chief I just did not care for their characters at all give me a faceless soldier or arbiter any day.

In most games however there is usually at least one of the supporting cast who outshines the main.

 

[Fitzcaraldo]

Cole McEvil from inFamous. I was going to do an evil run through of the game, because of how much cooler the evil exclusive lightning thingy is, but Evil Cole was just such a tosser that I had to be nice for the rest of the game so I wouldn't hate myself for being him.

 

[A Distant Star]

Squall Lionheart... god I want to slap that guy.

 

[Agayek]

Final Fantasy X. So much. I don't think there are any characters in the game I like less than him. An arrogant whiny idiot with a nasal voice. Bwuh!

And then he tried to laugh...