10 Worst Video Game Heroes Of All Time

Seriously, why are we playing as these clowns?!

By Steve Clark /

Quick. Think of an iconic video game hero. What makes them so memorable?

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A whole combination of factors, like a kickass personality, super-sweet skills and enjoyable gameplay that saw you complete that game a billion times over, right?

Creating a great gaming hero is vital to a game’s success – after all, you’re going to be spending a fair few hours playing as them, and the last thing you want is one that makes you thrust your Doc Martens through the TV screen.

Yet, somehow, despite decades of game development, some studios still manage to mess it up, serving up playable characters designed to carve out your sanity and chip away at your good-natured tolerance.

Throughout that time, we’ve witnessed annoying catchphrases, frustrating movements, stupid animations, or bland personality, or worse, all of the above. And yet somewhere in their sick psyche, game developers thought that these were exactly the sort of people we wanted to support and spend time with.

They were wrong. Oh-so-very wrong. And if you disagree, you’re probably wrong too.

Who’s your favourite video game hero? None of these, I hope…

10. Lester The Unlikely (Lester The Unlikely)

Worst Offence: He’s a clumsy yellow-belly.

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Video game heroes aren’t all badasses who can kill at the drop of a well-crafted hat. Some heroes are barely even heroes at all, like Lester the Unlikely – he’s an unlikely hero, don’t you know, which is an epitaph that’s only 50% accurate.

Lester is what a committee of aliens thinks a nerd must be, based on pop culture alone. The slick side-parting, the glasses, the dorky name – apologies to every other Lester out there. The plot even has him falling asleep reading a comic book (what a loser, amirite?!), and the dozy lad winds up alone onto a hostile island.

All that’s missing is his nightly fantasies over the head cheerleader and typing, like, really, really quickly because that’s what computer hacking looks like.

Letting gamers play as someone different is always cool, but male, female, black, white, big, tall, they all have one thing in common: They’re not wailing cry-babies like Lester, who bolts in terror whenever he sees enemies, stubbornly refuses to do what you ask and has one of the weakest attacks in gaming history.

What a hero!

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