Character Design in Games: Oblivion

I'd like to talk about character design in games. Seeing as it's a field I plan on venturing into in the future, I've always focused on it in games more than anything else. Even to those who don't notice it, it still affects their experience with the game. It could mean the difference between feeling like a cool badass, or a pathetic wimp.
Often I'm amazed and dumbstruck at how creative these designers can get. Just look at any Blizzard game. Sadly though, more often than not, I'm disappointed and wish I was in on the meeting when this crap was decided. So this is the segment where I'll point out some designs that deserve praise, or death threats.

The particular game I chose for the first segment was Oblivion for the 360. Now, don't get me wrong, this game was amazing, but the concepts were, shall we say...lacking. I enjoyed the game immensly anyway , yet there were times when I'd picture myself as a cool badass archer, only to hit the inventory button and find out I looked like a school boy in armor. When I first started looking for an image to display here, I had a hard time choosing, there were so MANY bad ones. I think I've found one that accurately displays how pansy-like your character was. I'm sure you'll agree.

Now, this particular character is an orc. Apparently they assumed that meant green human being, so they gave him a pushed up nose to show they meant business. I was appaled when I saw this, in my mind, Orcs were bad asses, not pig men. Blizzard nailed the orc in my opinion, hell, even the ones from LOTR trump this one. In game, the orc is barely larger than a normal human, and no more physically fit, so I don't really see the point, aside from playing someone ugly.

Race aside, this shot fatures some cool armor, which makes it even sadder. The awkward pose suggests that he's too afraid to ask Jenny out on a date, let alone mace a monster to death. Now, this can be argued by saying it was the modelers mistake, that the artist presented a cool concept. Sadly, that is not true, as you can see from the second image. I don't think old man jenkins in his medieval fair costume could ask Jenny out either.
Thumbs down.

-Vanja