14 custom characters that will haunt your dreams

GTA Online's men are made of meat

There's a good reason why everybody started off looking so damned ugly in GTA Online: the character creator didn't actually give you direct control of what anything would look like. The end result was a bunch of human compromises marauding around Los Santos, the creations of players who just couldn't be bothered to beat their heads against the system any more. But even now that Rockstar gives you more direct control, your character will still collect hideous scars and bruises throughout a busy play session - as was the case for this sorry-looking specimen, who wasn't even that handsome before he got that shiner.

Mr. Bruises by Steve Hogarty

WWE 2K14 is capable of so much evil

Toad! Oh, no! This is why you were never supposed to follow Mario back through the warp pipe, Toad! You're an abomination! How could any just, loving, and GOOD GAWD ALMIGHTY allow such a creature to exist, even in WWE 2K14?! You make Goldust look like Margaret Thatcher!

Wrasslin' Toad by TOH for VGCW

APB would like to tell you how it got these scars

One of the many heartbreaking things about APB is that, no matter how incredibly intricate its character creator is, you'll simply never look nearly as good in-game. Your avatar will show up in the world with fuzzy textures and choppy hair, and you'll feel like you wasted hours perfecting a face only you would ever see in its true form. Unless you get wise like this player and make your character a scarred, misshapen wretch - in which case she'll actually look better with a thick coat of rendering vaseline slathered on.

Green, mean, poorly healing machine by CptObvious

World of Warcraft's human male bares his teeth

World of Warcraft only lets you pick a pre-made face from a dozen or so options for each race and gender combination. So you'd think they'd all be winners, right? Maybe winners in the 'everybody gets a medal' sense. But I have one serious question for anybody who picked the face in the upper right. Did you want your character to look like Arnold Schwarzenegger pretending to understand a joke? You can see Blizzard thankfully toned down the cluelessness in the modernized model below, so now he looks like he may get the joke after a few hours of careful consideration.

Facial collage by MMO Champion

Mourn for the potato man of PES 2013

It's not the big potato head or the huge, bushy eyebrows. Plenty of Dragon Ball Z characters have those and I don't feel bad for them. It's not the Dumbo-level flappy ears or even the gaunt cheeks. No, the reason my heart aches when I look at this strange man is his sad, empty eyes. That's the look of a man who has gone through so much pain, who knows that he has so much more ahead. And miles to go before he sleeps, and miles to go before he sleeps. He really does look like a baked potato, though.

The Spud of Doubt by Klimowicz

Beauty in the breakdown

Those are some of my favorite player-made aberrations, but I know that so many more are out there, waiting to spring to life on the character creators of tomorrow. Until then, why don't you share some of your beloved creeps in the comments below?

Want more creepy game people? You're a strange one. Well, might as well check out the mutant pig-people who live in Forza Horizon 2 and these bizarre, tragic Miiverse posts.