Heroes come in all shapes and sizes, particularly video game heroes. They can be tall muscular badasses, mute marsupials with a penchant for denim shorts or even a winged fire breathing lizard. Whatever their outward appearance they are heroes one and all, but every now and then we get a video game protagonist that isn’t all that heroic, I know right? Shocking! Here are 5 such instances.
Kratos – God of War
If you are only familiar with Kratos from his recent incarnation as a caring dad taking his son on the worlds weirdest Father/Son camping trip, you’d be surprised to see him included on this list. But before he settled down to raise a family, he was a walking, talking people blender! Kratos got his knickers in a twist when Ares (the God of War) forced him to kill his own family. Except all Ares did was transport his family to a village Kratos was already in the middle of turning into chunky soup, so it’s hard to lay the blame 100% at Ares’ divine doorstep. In his quest for vengeance Kratos kills more people than the plague, man, woman, God & monster, innocent or not they all met the same pointy fate.
Booker DeWitt – BioShock Infinite
“A grizzled, yet handsome man on a mission to save a young girl, what could be more heroic than that?” I hear you ask. Well for starters Booker isn’t doing this for any noble reason; the drunken jackass simply has so much debt that the only way he can clear it is to rescue Elizabeth. And while perhaps many heroes start off with less than honourable goals in mind, the further you progress into the game the more you realise what a bastard Booker is. For starters the debt that gets mentioned, is so enormous that the only way to clear it is for Booker to sell his daughter Anna a.k.a Elizabeth to a religious lunatic. And if that isn’t enough for you, it turns out Booker is that religious lunatic and is willing to torture and mentally condition Elizabeth in order to make her into a weapon. Absolute cock-womble!
Aiden Pearce – Watch Dogs
A gruff, gravelled-voiced angry faced man avenging a family member is practically entry level for a video game protagonist. But when the family member being avenged died because the protagonist stole money from someone powerful it starts to veer into shithead territory. Aiden Pearce is one such shithead, and the worst part is he wasn’t stealing the money for any noble reason, it wasn’t a Robin Hood scenario, he was just a bollocks who didn’t want to work for a living. And the spunk flavoured icing atop this turd pie is that he didn’t learn his lesson, he continues to hack, steal and murder all while endangering his remaining family the utter bastard!
James Sunderland
Protagonist (you’d be hard pushed to name anyone in the Silent Hill franchise a hero) of Silent Hill 2 James Sunderland may be a bit of a controversial entry on this list as, depending on your own beliefs, he is probably the least monstrous. While others on this list cheat, steal and kill indiscriminately to get what they want all James did was end the long-time suffering of his dying wife. And while to some that makes him no less a murderer, he feels so guilty that he conjures monsters and a sword wielding psycho from his own psyche to punish himself.
Joel – The Last of Us
The Last of Us is without a doubt one of the greatest video games ever, an excellent story with fantastic characters, in particular the character of Joel. He is one of my favourite video game characters ever, but make no mistake, Joel is not a good man, he’s a good killer. Throughout most of the game the player is forced to participate in some of Joel’s more morally questionable actions, like killing soldiers or torturing men to save Ellie. While these actions are unequivocally wrong an argument could be made that they are done out of necessity and love. But all of that goes right out the fucking window when Joel starts gunning down the doctors trying to create a cure for the mushroom apocalypse and executing an unarmed woman who has sacrificed everything to save mankind.
Well, those are 5 Video Game Heroes Who Aren’t That Heroic, can you think of any that should’ve made the list or just disagree? Let us know in the comments below, don’t forget to follow us on Twitter, Facebook and subscribe to our YouTube channel and if you’re feeling generous feel free to donate to our Patreon, thanks for reading.
