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The Top 7... Lazy Character Clichés

Copy, paste, unoriginality! The most overused archetypes of all time

Words: Charlie Barratt, GamesRadar US

Description: Behold the most shameless - and least surprising - character cliché of all time. Yes, in the fictional worlds of gaming, clothing is apparently in short supply and temperatures are clearly scorching. Why else would 99% of the women - from spies, ninjas, vampires and sorcerers to reporters, golfers, mechanics, archeologists and high school students - choose to dress up like a bunch of Las Vegas strippers?

Oh yeah... money, that's why. On an unrelated note, have you checked out our Sexy Fan Art gallery lately?

Common characteristics:

  • Skin.
  • Skin.
  • More skin.
  • Um, some other stuff like a weapon... or a face... we think?

 
(Download this collage as a desktop wallpaper!)

Possible Inspiration:


The Antidote:

The female protagonist of Portal remains fully clothed, from head to knee, throughout the entire game. Moreover, her gender is not used to sexualize the shooter, or market it to horny teenage boys, in any way. No, the hero of Portal just happens to be a normal-looking and normal-dressing woman, like 50% of the world's population. Imagine that.


Did we miss some great examples of these clichéd character categories? Did we miss some categories altogether? Of course we did. 
Let us know about it in our forums.

To see more GamesRadar Top 7s, head here.

Hear more about this article in TalkRadar.

Jul 21, 2008


 
53 Comments
Order Comments: Newest First | Oldest First
CuddlyBomber  - 1 year 2 months ago 
Ah Man i just listened to talkradar11 and the top 7 was hilarious.
MSCR  - 1 year 2 months ago 
Pretty good article, a bit preachy sometimes and I fail to see how that raziel thing is a prettyboy. Moody and shit sure, but the guy runs about naked, has no visible genitals and isn't half his face missing?

Other than that, pretty insightful stuff.
Coolbeans69  - 1 year 2 months ago 
That was pretty funny
Psyrate  - 1 year 1 month ago 
The truth has never been so hilarious.
melloe  - 1 year 1 month ago 
well done. but you forgot Samus in the collage of masked characters?
Major_Wuss  - 1 year 19 days ago 
LOL at including Viva Pinata in the Animal with Attitude page.
NeotericDope  - 11 months 30 days ago 
All of these fall into the antidote category:

Black stereotype antidote:Eli Vance (Half Life)

Half naked woman antidote: Alyx Vance (Half Life), Faith (Mirrors Edge), Zoey (Left 4 Dead)

Masked men antidote: (Mega Man) not completely masked, but he's covered in a helmet and owns.

Love interest antidote: Once again Alyx Vance (Half Life)
crustdbeat  - 11 months 30 days ago 
forgot about jax from MK,

they emphasize his arms a tad dont they?
crustdbeat  - 11 months 30 days ago 
Thanks for the wallpaper!!
Cwf2008  - 11 months 11 days ago 
Uh technically Samus isn't always masked. I mean they've shown her face a few times in some of the games
zeldagirl64  - 10 months 19 days ago 
I dunno, Zelda has managed some good emotion from Ocarina of Time and on. Tetra? Yea, the cocky one. Sheik was a cliched character. It was kind of the Brooding Pretty Boy only... Sheik is Zelda so she's a girl. But Zelda has managed more emotion in Twilight Princess, that wasn't SO frail as usual.
93bleach  - 10 months 14 days ago 
Every character in sonic ever has had an atttitude.
synthetictwist  - 9 months 7 hours ago 
I'm glad Chell was on this list. "She's not an effing model? What was Valve thinking?"

Oh that's right. They WERE thinking.
td823934  - 8 months 22 days ago 
You forgot "Mute Adventurer". Like Crono. Or Link. Or Mario.
ryno  - 8 months 21 days ago 
i couldent agree more with ammy from Okami she is awsome
Mr.Epic64  - 8 months 17 days ago 
Actually, Mario says "Yahoo!", "Here We Go!", "Wa, Wa , Wa, WAHOO!", Oh no!" any many other things. Eat that td823934.
Danomeon  - 8 months 5 days ago 
I'm surprised the antidote for stereotypical black people wasn't Luis from left 4 dead. He is skinny, never uses slang or excessively swears, speaks perfect english, appears as a hardworking citizen, is scrawny and not all that muscular, has a positive attitude without saying, "I am awesome.", cracks a few clever jokes, and is completely dressed in fancy office clothes.

Another character would be the black man from the Half-life series (I can't remember his name, one of his legs is missing and he *SPOILER* dies at the end of episode 2.)
td823934  - 7 months 17 days ago 
Ok, Mr.Epic64, he makes sound. I apoligize. But does he ever say anything beyond the occasional onamatopeia? By the way, while I'm here, I just realized something. You missed another category, the "Arrogant Bad-guy". Let's see, there's M. Bison, Seth, Vega, wow, all Street Fighter characters. Maybe I've been playing too much.
td823934  - 7 months 17 days ago 
On a side note, Knuckles actually belongs in the "Brooding Pretty Boy" category as well, I noticed.
kittens  - 6 months 12 hours ago 
I've got to admit, I love the masked mystery man. The sort of half robot cyborg ninja thing will always be cool. In mgs, I didn't really like Raiden until he became a cyborg ninja. Mostly because his jaw was metal, which is awesome.
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