Video game characters that look like real people

I was thinking about the characters of Brie (The Walking Dead) and Henry (The Last of Us) and how they look like real people that you would sit next to on a subway or something, as opposed to Joel or Lee, who look like they were video game characters who were designed. I know that in the case of Brie, that actually was a real lady who won a contest to appear in the game, but it got me thinking: why don't video game characters look more like real people? I'm not talking about Sheperd from Mass Effect where he was based on a Swedish model, but fucking real-ass people that you would see every day. It's very noticable when game characters look like average people, and I for one appreciate when that happens. It's almost like an uncanny valley effect when you see video game characters that are very obviously designed. Can you think of more characters that look like average people you would see every day?

GTAV had 3 protagonists who all looked like average guys. Pretty much all Rockstar games tend to have normal looking people as opposed to male/female model types.

They're maybe not average looking, but one thing I always appreciated about the Kane and Lynch games is that those guys absolutely do not look like your usual video game protagonists. All the leads in video games are very, very idealized, even when the personality or actions of the character aren't. You hit the nail on the head with Joel, sure he's got some grey hair and he's kinda scruffy, but really he looks like a model on a box of Just for Men. The rest of the cast of The Last of Us was good though.

I think Red Dead Redemption did a pretty good job with it's realistic looking characters, hell, Rockstar Games in general are pretty good about that stuff.

Don't a lot of people complain that most video game protagonists are grizzled, middle-aged white guys?

@video_game_king: Well there's a big difference between grizzled middle aged white guys who look like Joel, and grizzled middle aged white guys who look like Kane and Lynch. Hell, on release there were plenty of people saying things like "why would I want to play as some fat old guys? That's stupid."

Anyway, I always figured most videogame protagonists were in the 20-30 demographic, not the 40-50 one.

Every character I made in Fallout 3 looked alarmingly like Paul McCartney.

This is my very first post here!

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Kate Winslet & The Boss (MGS3).

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Mischa Barton & EVA (MGS3).

Honestly very few. This rarely happens in games or even movies. Cohen brothers casting stands out so much to me because they put average looking people in their movies. To me it goes beyond just "average" looking people to honestly ugly people. You don't really realize that there are no bad looking people in media until you really have it pointed out. In most movies, an "ugly" person just has glasses or braces or whatever.

I think you rarely see it in games.

Also, people should read the OP. But the thread title should be clearer.

@goonage: Beyond: Two Souls and The Last of Us were truly the Armageddon/Deep Impact of video games released in 2013 with Ellen Page in them. Truly a bizarre coincidence.