My wife and I were hanging out together recently. I was up to my usual, playing some video games, while she was surfing the web. All of the sudden she laughed and said, "I'm so glad you grew a beard!"

I glanced up from Demon's Soul, exhaling in frustration as "You Have Died" popped up on the screen again. I'm too impatient at times, it's often my undoing.

"What?" I asked. She motioned toward her laptop screen, where she had been sifting through some old photo albums on Facebook. Blown up on her screen was a picture of the two of us after we had first started dating. I was 18 and more boyish then man, to say the least. I weighed at best 140 lbs, my neck was long and thin and my face shaved clean.



"You look so much better with a beard." She said, reaching over to give it an affectionate itch. "I thought you were cute back then but you looked like you were fifteen."

I smiled, kissed her on the cheek and started the level over again, hoping this time my barbarian could at least make it to my blood stain.

It left me thinking though, a lot of video game characters look better with a beard, or at least some facial hair.

For instance, the coolest character in recent Final Fantasy games? That's easily be Basch. Now don't get me wrong, XII is nowhere near my preferred Final Fantasy, but comparing Basch to the likes of Vaan or basically any of the other androgynous protagonists that have taken the series over, he was undeniably cooler.Can you imagine how much dorkier a hero Gordan Freeman would have been had he not been sporting some facial fur?



The coup de grace of gaming beard wearer's though are obviously Solid Snake and Big Boss. Snake in MGS1 was an awesome character no doubt. But his clean shaven face was no near as bad ass as later renditions of the character. When you meet him as Pliskin in MGS2, he is far stubblier and in turn, cooler. And when does Snake reach the peak of his bad assness When he becomes Old Snake, sporting the mustache that well all wish we could pull off.

By extension, Big Boss is also incredibly cool, thanks in no small part to his beard. Nothing says, "I've been ruggedly surviving in the jungle eating snakes while evading renegade Russians" like an unshaven face. The fact Big Boss has let it grow out in Peacewalker only makes the game even more of a must have.



So what is my point in all this? Well, we could just use more video game heroes with beards. We have plenty of space marines with biceps larger than their heads, but so many heroes are clean shaven and honestly, a beard just makes everything cooler. Well, not some beards. Those long, unwashed beards the hippies at college use to grow were just kind of nasty. That exceptions aside though, facial hair is just cool. Just think, would you really think of Mario the same way without his mustache?


(Much Better)