10 Really Ugly Good Guys

If Disney’s taught us anything it’s that the heroic prince who swoops in and saves the day is always unabashedly gorgeous. Good guys look good, and only villains have unibrows, hooked noses and greasy hair. Well, it’s time we shook things up a bit by celebrating the ugliest bunch of heroes in gaming. Just because they’re grotesque freaks of nature doesn’t mean they’re bad, on the contrary most of these disgusting characters are incredibly noble. From bad skin to bad habits, these are the saviors no princess wants to kiss.

Stubbs is a traveling salesman who’s really falling apart, quite literally. As a zombie, Stubbs is as decomposed as the undead come. With body parts falling off him, he shambles around the city of Punchbowl looking for tasty brains and his love Maggie. Like the village leper all flee him while his walking corpse barely keeps its shape. Thankfully, Stubbs learned how to make the best of his sordid situation and slowly converts the city to be just like him, ugly but happy.

Sure, his costume is a bit tattered and his overweight face isn’t doing him any favors, but it’s Boogerman’s behavior that really makes him repulsive. Using his burps, farts and boogers as ammunition against a myriad of foes he’s one of the few superheroes that you definitely don’t want to stand downwind from. The weirdest thing about the character was that when he wasn’t wearing his costume, Boogerman was actually eccentric millionaire Snotty Ragsdale, redefining the concept of upper class.

Any troublemaking schoolboy will tell you, if there’s one thing girls absolutely hate, its worms. Sure, they might like muscles and really fast rocketships, but none of that is going to help poor Earthworm Jim overcome the fact that with or without his cool powersuit, he’s still a slimy, dirt-eating worm. No matter how eloquent, heroic, or groovy he may become when he’s in superhero mode you’d be hard pressed to find a woman willing to pucker up and kiss a worm.

No matter what your type, there’s a good chance Street Fighter’s got a man for you. Whether it’s the pretty-boy Ken or muscle-bound Zangief, there are plenty of date-worthy World Warriors to be found on the tournament floor. Take the cast out to a club and pretty much every fighter could find someone to take them home, everyone but Blanka that is. While even a fatso like E. Honda could probably net a few ladies with his quick moving hands, Blanka’s only counter to being an orange-haired, green-skinned freak is that he could charge your iPod when the battery died. With a mug full of fangs and absolutely terrible posture, Blanka is by far the ugliest character in Street Fighter II and one of the ugliest fighters of all time.

Mudokon slaves are the hideous but complacent workforce of RuptureFarms, a meat processing factory in the strange land of Oddworld. When Abe finds out his much bigger employers are planning to turn him and his fellow Mudokon into ground meat for sale, he sets out on a quest to rescue his people from being eaten. He’s got a really big heart and it’s hard not to fall in love with his attitude but with his iridescent skin, bulging eyes, and awkward frame he’s not winning any beauty pageants in the near future. By the end of the game Abe does manage to escape, which is a sigh of relief, not because he’s safe, but because the thought of eating a burger made of his slimy pseudo-reptilian skin is enough to make a person hurl.

I’ve heard very few ladies claim genuine affection for turtles, but I’ve never heard any claim anything but disgust for toads. Rash, Zitz, and Pimple – even their names are ugly – make up the Battletoads, a badass gang of oversized amphibians with a game more difficult than it had any right being. Even if they could get a romantic goodnight kiss, Frog Princes they are not. Where the TMNT had April O’Neil to flirt with, the most bodacious chick in the Battletoad universe is ironically the final boss who wants them all dead.

Despite being a little short, and a little round, Mario’s a pretty good looking guy. There may not be a ton of cute girls in the Mushroom Kingdom to test this against, but Princess Peach always wants him to eat her cake. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree when it comes to Wario’s looks, except they hit every ugly stick on the way down. Crooked nose, creepily rigid mustache, and a waistline at least a few inches wider make Wario a poor comparison to his cousin. But, even without his sloppy appearance, Wario isn’t likely to be winning any hearts with his constant belching and farting. He may ride a really sexy motorcycle, but I doubt you could convince anyone to sit behind a butt capable of atomic-level destruction.

Let’s say that by chance you’re able to get over his receding hairline, paunch gut, Nixon-esque nose and terrible fashion sense you’ll still have to contend with the fact that Larry is a flat-out dog of a man with the creepiest demeanor possible. We may get a few laughs out of the character in the games, but they’re almost always at his expense, poking fun of just how greasy and cheesy he can be. If your DOS-based memories are telling you otherwise, here’s a test; seriously take one look at the guy and tell me if you’d shake his hand without a bottle of sanitizer within arms-reach. No? I didn’t think so.

With his desperate cries for help constantly echoing in your ear, it’s easy to despise Slippy, but if you ever take a second to stop and look at his vibrating mouth you’d realize just how ugly he is. Buggy eyes and a maw wider than Steven Tyler’s he’s the sort of unattractive his dorky little hat can’t hide. He may be a stand-up guy, and a decent pilot – webbed hands considered – but his fat, stubby body is far from adorable, even by furry standards.

When everyone in the world is ugly, how do you pick find the truly hideous? Sure, you may be able to fine-tune your avatar in Oblivion to Barbie doll perfection, but the sad truth is that once you do, you’ll be the sole member of the Cyrodiil Attractive People’s Club. I don’t know if it’s the water or just a really bad genetic pool, but everyone in The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion is butt-ugly. They all took a dive down the uncanny valley and smacked their faces into the pit below, dancing that line between realistic and oh-dear-god-you’re-hideous. Maybe Bethesda were going for a harsh, gritty reality and people in the middle ages just weren’t that attractive, but perhaps they should have spent a little more time making bearable faces instead of gold-plated horse armor.