Elizabeth is not the PC

[Epic Fail 1977]

Every gaming site keeps blathering on about how great Elizabeth is going to be in Bioshock Infinite. And to be fair the bullshit hype does sound impressive. But something really bothers me: you don't play as Elizabeth, you play as Brooker. And he sounds like yet another angry brick with a gravelly voice and (presumably) stubble. Isn't it a bit of a problem that the sidekick looks to be way more interesting than the protagonist? Wouldn't you rather be playing as her? I know I would, based on what I've seen so far, which is a problem because if this game is a big success then it will be influential. Is this how games ought to be done? Just keep churning out blank slate angry player characters and make the story more interesting by fleshing out the other characters instead? Give everyone an arc except the PC? I find this prospect worrying. What do you think?

 

[Tombsite]

Brooker is the number one reason I do not seem to be able to muster up any enthusiasm for the new bioshock (that and I didn't particularly care for the gameplay in the first two). I should probably give the writers some more credit but he just seems so boring, generic and uninteresting.
The world is intriguing (even more so after reading critical intel) and Elizabeth's image is almost omnipresent on all gaming websites to a degree that makes me want to play the game just to see what the big deal is. But then I hear Brookers gravelly voice and all my interest in the game just vanish (and being a white male with a deep voice in his late twenties I should have the easiest time relating to him ).

 

[Zhukov]

- The setting pretty much requires the protagonist to be an outsider to Columbia.

- The story, from what I can tell, requires Elizabeth to be a resident of Columbia.

- They made the game in first person to emphasize the environment.

- They don't want to characterize Booker too much to allow a measure of projection. (I am ambivalent about this.)

- They want Booker to made in such a way that him acting the way players are likely to make him act still makes sense. (Elizabeth, the princess in the tower, killing everything in her way? Kinda dodgy. Booker, the ex-cavalryman who was at Wounded Knee and was later kicked out of the Pinkertons for excessive brutality, killing everything in his way? Makes sense.)

Hopefully you can see how all this combined makes it a bit tricky to play as Elizabeth.

Lastly, I have some hope that Booker won't be bland as all that. But that very much remains to be seen.

 

[dumbseizure]

Can we wait to see whether Booker is generic after the game has released? Where you can actually see for yourselves what they have done with the characters and such?

I do agree with Zhukov though, Booker doing the things required from the protagonist are a lot more believable than Elizabeth mowing down guys, blowing up blimps and the like.

I do like what they have done with Elizabeths AI though, finding random things in the environment to entertain herself if you just walk around the area.

 

[Epic Fail 1977]

Booker

See? He's so boring I couldn't even remember his name. ;p

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

So I take it I'm the only one confused as to why you're complaining about the characterization of the PC in a game that takes most of its cues from the Half Life series? I agree that that whole method of storytelling is /heavily/ overrated[footnote]Give me cutscenes and actual characters any day[/footnote], but it's not surprising in the least that this game seems to be using it. This thread is basically describing the "relationship" between Gordon Freeman and Alyx Vance.

 

[Epic Fail 1977]

This thread is basically describing the "relationship" between Gordon Freeman and Alyx Vance.

Exactly. HL2 is almost a decade old. And for that whole time I've wished it was never made (because its influence on other games has been enormous). Isn't it time to change (or at least improve) the formula?

 

[RatherDashing89]

Nearly any character, no matter how well written, is lifeless in a vacuum. River Tam is interesting because of how she interacts with Malcolm and her brother. Data's best moments are those with Geordi LaForge. Etc. Etc.

If the gameplay footage and cast interviews are any indication, Booker will be interesting because of how he interacts with Elizabeth, and vice versa. The worst part about the games industry's glut of hard-nosed military characters is that now everybody thinks ANY hard-nosed military character is automatically dull, which is not necessarily the case. Seriously, watch these: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihbHvinYWlo&list=UU_nGSOyONQsVhxi6iQRgmZg&index=23 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hf7hht-WMh4&list=UU_nGSOyONQsVhxi6iQRgmZg&index=22 and tell me Booker's not interesting...

 

[Woodsey]

So I take it I'm the only one confused as to why you're complaining about the characterization of the PC in a game that takes most of its cues from the Half Life series? I agree that that whole method of storytelling is /heavily/ overrated[footnote]Give me cutscenes and actual characters any day[/footnote], but it's not surprising in the least that this game seems to be using it. This thread is basically describing the "relationship" between Gordon Freeman and Alyx Vance.

Because non-interactive storytelling is totally the future of this here interactive medium. HL2's way of avoiding cutscenes may amount to a bit of smoke 'n' mirrors but at least it has respect for the medium that it exists within, and actually understands the point of the perspective it uses.

OT: I don't really need first-person characters to be interesting. The idea is that you are them, and whilst I am highly interesting, I already know everything there is to know about myself. So other people are more interesting. You can't play a first-person character who has some great mystery about themselves that they hide from the player who's meant to be filling their boots.

Although I can't say I've found Booker to look particularly uninteresting. Seems like a cool dude.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Sometimes a protagonist's only job is to be a vehicle for the audience to observe the other characters of actual interest. And there's nothing wrong with that.

 

[Simonism451]

It's not always about you, kiddo.
OT: There are a list of problems with creating a "fleshed out" character in this kind of genre (let alone the fact that more complex doesn't necessarily mean better)
A) It's a first person game, which (acccording to Ken Levine) tries to avoid cutscenes when possible. How does this oppose a "complex" character?
Characters exist outside of dialogue, i.e. they show their emotions and attitudes also in other ways than talking. For example, Elizabeth who is characterised as a curious young woman, exploring the world for the first times seems to show some sort of reaction to a major amounts of objects and characters around the world, sniffing at flowers, marvelling at paintings, climbing a statue or searching through shelves, it's unobtrusive and sets her character. If she were the PC however, these moments of characterization would either break the flow of the game (when the player is forced into a cutscene depicting them chasing after butterflies every two seconds) or had to be put into dialogue (and a PC that never ever stops making the most obvious statements is the most annoying thing ever).
B) See Zhukov's first three points

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

So I take it I'm the only one confused as to why you're complaining about the characterization of the PC in a game that takes most of its cues from the Half Life series? I agree that that whole method of storytelling is /heavily/ overrated[footnote]Give me cutscenes and actual characters any day[/footnote], but it's not surprising in the least that this game seems to be using it. This thread is basically describing the "relationship" between Gordon Freeman and Alyx Vance.

Because non-interactive storytelling is totally the future of this here interactive medium. HL2's way of avoiding cutscenes may amount to a bit of smoke 'n' mirrors but at least it has respect for the medium that it exists within, and actually understands the point of the perspective it uses.

OT: I don't really need first-person characters to be interesting. The idea is that you are them, and whilst I am highly interesting, I already know everything there is to know about myself. So other people are more interesting. You can't play a first-person character who has some great mystery about themselves that they hide from the player who's meant to be filling their boots.

Although I can't say I've found Booker to look particularly uninteresting. Seems like a cool dude.

Here's where we differ: I don't see games as a storytelling medium, at least not primarily. They can tell stories, but the strength of gaming as a medium is interactivity (read: non-linearity), which is something that tends to lead to weak storytelling, because stories are an inherently linear beast. Besides, it's Half Life's method that really bugs me, since it replaces cutscenes and characters with... poorly directed cutscenes (because the player controls the camera) and a non-character. I have yet to see an FPS that uses the gameplay to tell the story without aping half life. I can think of a few dialog free indie experiments that managed to tell a story despite being 2D and wordless, but those were terrible as games, they were more like interactive paintings, or cartoons where you had to constantly hold down the play button to keep it from pausing.

 

[Something Amyss]

Can we wait to see whether Booker is generic after the game has released? Where you can actually see for yourselves what they have done with the characters and such?

It's really weird that this thread is in response to people praising Elizabeth. And hell, even you go on to do it. But let's hold off our judgment on this other element because...Ponies.

Sure, we can make statements based on what we're aware of in other elements, but not Brooke/Booker/River/whatever.

Besides, it's Half Life's method that really bugs me, since it replaces cutscenes and characters with... poorly directed cutscenes (because the player controls the camera) and a non-character.

Ahhh, the innovator that would lead to the Modern Warfare technique of scripted setpieces and paths you can't walk off of.

I like how the illusion of control is sufficient to make people prefer it to cut scenes, though they frequently are the same idea.

 

[Scorpid]

Personally I'm very excited for this title. In an interview I watched with the lead designer it's putting you in the dynamic of the Big Daddies and Little Sisters from BioShock 1 ((NO Not again because BioShock2 doesn't count! Its story was utter cashin BS)). They're trying to see if they can get you to care about a companion AI beyond just how useful she is in combat. It's why she doesn't use guns and you're tasked with protecting her from increasingly overwhelming odds, the game has its sight set squarely on their relationship. It'll be interesting to see if this works, because last time this happened we got Shiva from RE5 which as an AI companion was pretty bad. >_>. I think it'll work this title hasn't been in the same developmental hell that their delays would suggest, I would bet they could of released the game probably a year or so ago but they've been spending alot of time simply polishing it instead of trying to fix something that was fundamentally broken. AT least that's what interview I watched made it seem like.

 

[Candidus]

I actually said this to the only friend of mine who's pre-ordered Bioshock Infinite: "If Brooker and Elizabeth switched places, I'd be all over it. Unfortunately, that's not likely to happen, so I'll be saving my £30. Or spending it on Dota 2 cosmetics instead."

 

[Ralen-Sharr]

Wouldn't want Elizabeth to be the PC, it allows her to be her own character.

I kinda grew to like that sort of thing in half life with Gordan and Alyx.

 

[Smooth Operator]

Well I have no need for a game to stroke my ego with the center of attention stuff, and I prefer characters that can be observed offering the meat of the game not the one I'm wearing.

It is odd tho that he seems to have come from an accounting office, which is a rather strange choice in a game with such attention to atmosphere, I would probably be happier if he didn't talk at all.

 

[Bara_no_Hime]

Booker is the number one reason I do not seem to be able to muster up any enthusiasm for the new bioshock (that and I didn't particularly care for the gameplay in the first two). I should probably give the writers some more credit but he just seems so boring, generic and uninteresting.
The world is intriguing (even more so after reading critical intel) and Elizabeth's image is almost omnipresent on all gaming websites to a degree that makes me want to play the game just to see what the big deal is. But then I hear Bookers gravelly voice and all my interest in the game just vanish.

This.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: the blank protagonist only works in some games. Preferably games with customizable characters so that the player actually CAN project. Otherwise, a blank character just seems dull and pointless next to better developed characters.

Some spoilers (noted by others above) reveal that there is some story to Booker. Great. Now if only he seemed to have a personality BEFORE those events are revealed.

I liked Bioshock. Didn't love it, just liked it. Didn't play 2 because it looked really stupid. This one was starting to look interesting... maybe I'll pick it up for 20 bucks in a bargain bin next year. I just can't work up the energy to care about it.

 

[Epic Fail 1977]

Besides, it's Half Life's method that really bugs me, since it replaces cutscenes and characters with... poorly directed cutscenes (because the player controls the camera) and a non-character.

Ahhh, the innovator that would lead to the Modern Warfare technique of scripted setpieces and paths you can't walk off of.

This. The hypocrisy is annoying. In any other game being funnelled down a corridor while 100% scripted stuff happens around you is widely considered lame by gaming forumites, but when Valve does it they are somehow regarded as masters of the art of player agency?

I like how the illusion of control is sufficient to make people prefer it to cut scenes, though they frequently are the same idea.

And this.

capcha: chocolate rain
Sorry capcha but you've lost me there.

 

[Doom972]

I think that Brooker is the blank-slate kind of Protagonist. You are supposed to imagine yourself as him, so he wasn't given too much character. It usually works best with a silent Protagonist (Gordon Freeman in Half-Life), but can also work well with a voiced protagonist (JC Denton in Deus Ex).

Elizabeth isn't the PC, but she's the character I assume the player is expected to relate to.