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Top 10 best and worst of videogame hair

The difficulty in depicting hair convincingly has been around since the inception of videogames. With too few pixels to represent waving locks of hair, most of the earliest games characters were bald or wore hats. Whether it was Pacman’s smooth dome or Mario’s cap, it was amazing what sprite artists managed to do with only a few pixels.

Moving into the modern age of gaming, its amazing that artists have so much scope to craft stunning styles but still manage to get it so very wrong so often. For every great haircut, there’s a styling disaster to match. Here’s the five best and five worst haircuts in videogames:

Worst

5. Guile – Street Fighter
I know he’s in the army, but does the top of his head need to be flat as a landing pad?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

4. Paul Phoenix – Tekken
Coming off as a poor mans Guile, this hairstyle has no justification, no point and no gravity.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

3. Cloud Strife – Final Fantasy 7
Launching a whole swathe of terrible imitators, this is one truly awful haircut. The only thing worse than seeing this hair in a game is seeing it in real life.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2. Amy – Soul Calibur 4
That’s just silly. This is a desperate attempt to imbue the character with some personality by giving them a wacky hairstyle.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1. John Romero – Doom 2
While everyone would admit John Romero’s early-nineties grunge-band locks look awful, he’s not a game character. He is however in Doom 2. His head is stuck on a pole in a secret area, meaning that he totally qualifies for this list!

Best

5. Crimson Viper – Street Fighter 4
C. Viper works as a great, visually distinctive character in the Street Fighter series that manages to stand out amongst a cast of freaks, monsters and dull shoto’s. Her fantastic hairstyle is a big part of this.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

4. Captain Price – Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
When other games tried to rip off Modern Warfare, they tried to make dull characters iconic by simply giving them prominent facial hair (see Medal of Honor). This failed as Price was a decent character as well as a fantastic, moustachioed hero.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

3. Kratos – God Of War
Because sometimes less is more.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2. Bayonetta – Bayonetta
Other characters may use their hair as a fashion statement, but without her’s Bayonetta would be completely naked. It also turns into a dragon and eats people.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1. Nariko – Heavenly Sword
While not a great game, Heavenly Sword had some of the best character designs and animations in any modern title. It also had the brilliantly styled, red haired heroin Nariko. Her gorgeously animated hair was one of the key ingredients to this characters near perfect visual aesthetic.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Published inTop 10