Elizabeth is not the PC

[Thanatos5150]

Shocking that a first person-shooter with a focus on limiting cutscenes and maintaining player control of the player character throughout the story would have a character who is a little bit of a blank slate.
Because the only way we can turn around and say "HEY! Look at interesting quirks of this guy's personaltiy!" is to yank the control away from the player, as it stands...
Well, idle animations could potentially say a lot, I guess.

 

[Something Amyss]

but when Valve does it they are somehow regarded as masters of the art of player agency?

It's Valve. If the ToU required you to have a sex change at Gabe's discretion, people would suddenly be pro-SRS.

 

[Fenra]

Because Elizabeth acting like the player would break the character, you cant have an innocent naive girl who then proceeds to kill EVERYBODY... unless your into that kind of thing. Whilst Booker's character doesn't set me on fire at the moment am I pleased to hear him have a voice (Dishonored's stumbling block) and three words; Troy FUCKING Baker. I'm psyched the fuck out.

I think this kind of hits the nail on the head, and kind of makes me recall a lot of what people have said about the most recent tomb raider (haven't played it just running on reviews / podcasts) that it was jarring when the story and gameplay didn't quite match

The most recent PC Gamer UK Podcast (at the time of writing this at least) kind of said it well when they said "one moment its this deep character moment next its SHOTGUNS!", in essence you have the story team wanting to tell the story of a poor, weak character coming to terms with everything and the gameplay team wanting the shotguns to feel powerful and the gameplay to be fun and with the single protagonist the two don't seen to blend

Bringing it back to Bioshock from what I've seen in previews and interviews having Booker as the PC means they can have this story of Elizabeth (granted Booker isn't a blank slate and has his own story but he is more neutral in terms of who he is and his investment comes from her story) without sacrificing who she is for gameplay reasons, hoping it turns out this way, haven't seen anything aside from a few trailers and aforementioned previews and interviews, avoided gameplay and the spoilers out there due to the leak

Wow I kinda rambled there, sorry folks

 

[Shocksplicer]

I love how so many people are going on about how bland and generic Booker is going to be, despite the fact that:
A: They haven't played the game yet.
B: He seems like an interesting character, with a fleshed out backstory, dry wit, mysterious motivations and an excellent voice-actor.

Seriously, why the negativity? From what I've seen, he seems fine.

 

[Marik2]

Man...gamers really hate white people...

Well it does get really annoying and tiresome seeing the same guy over and over again

 

[Sexual Harassment Panda]

It doesn't bother me when the villain is the most interesting character, I doubt this will bother me either.

It looks good from what I've seen, so I reckon it'll work nicely. I'll reserve final judgement though.

 

[Thanatos5150]

Man...gamers really hate white people...

Well it does get really annoying and tiresome seeing the same guy over and over again

Sam Fisher is supposed to be, like, 60-something.

But, yeah. The white male dominated job of "video game protagonist" really makes me reconsider writing characters who are white males. And makes me feel bad for being a white male.

 

[MPerce]

Well, it's a FPS. Almost all FPS's make the characters around the PC interesting because that's what you're interacting with. Booker may have a personality, but I'm assuming he still essentially serves as a window for you, the player, to observe and participate with the game's universe and its characters.

Half Life, Halo, Portal, Fallout 3, System Shock 2, the first Bioshock and a whole lot of other great FPS's have been very successful with this approach. And it's equally successful in other gaming genres, too (Bastion, Limbo, Zelda, the Persona series, Shadow of the Colossus, and almost all old school JRPG's, to name a few)

So...I'm not too worried about it.

 

[Dalisclock]

Epic, do you actually remember the original game Bioshock?
You knew basically NOTHING about the guy, just that he was some generic dude, surviving an accident and finding Rapture.
Now can you seriously tell me that you don't think there's any way that Bioshock Infinite's story will be amazing, because it has a generic dude as main character. Because Bioshock had a generic dude as character and all the interresting characters were other ones and the story was still amazing.

Hell, same thing with both System shocks. I don't think the character in those games even had a name. And let's not forget, the dude from bioshock

Spoiler

was really ryans illegitimate kid who had been prgrammed to do anything if he was told "Would you kindly" and grew to maturity at an accelerated rate. Notice he doesn't actually have a personality at all. Just a twist as backstory

At least Brooker has a voice, even if it is Gruffy McGravelyvoice, and we know something about his past. Ex-Soldier who served at Wounded Knee, Ex-Pinkerton Agent who got kicked out for being too much of an asshole(and really, when you get kicked out of the pinkertons for being an asshole, you have definite issues), starts out as a mercenary but later seems to develop real feelings for Elizabeth. Cliched, maybe, but that's still more a character arc then pretty all the other SHOCK PCs combined have gotten.

 

[Dalisclock]

The most recent PC Gamer UK Podcast (at the time of writing this at least) kind of said it well when they said "one moment its this deep character moment next its SHOTGUNS!", in essence you have the story team wanting to tell the story of a poor, weak character coming to terms with everything and the gameplay team wanting the shotguns to feel powerful and the gameplay to be fun and with the single protagonist the two don't seen to blend

This is kind of the problem I had with Alan Wake too. For being a seemingly normal guy, Alan really doesn't seem too bothered by the fact that he's depopulated an entire town by the end of the game. He starts out all freaked out that he just fired a gun for the first time and shot some scary guy. Five minutes later he's blown away a half a dozen former townsfolk and he's pretty meh about it from that point on.

Which didn't help the fact it felt so much like Max Payne but in the dark. At least Max Payne gets away with it because Max is so damaged and hollowed out at this point that he really doesn't care.

 

[norashepard]

I am one of those people who likes to play their own gender in games if there is an option, and I'm usually fine if there isn't an option because it usually means the character in question is really well developed (or it's the kind of game where it really doesn't even matter). But I feel like in this game, constantly watching someone else do all the cool stuff, coupled with the fact that I would much rather be her than Booker, is going to make me just feel like it missed every opportunity it could. Not to mention it will probably be railroady (you have to follow her), and male-gazey (ew).

It kind of feels like an Author-Insert character does in books. Someone who isn't the hero, but is really cool in every way and their only flaws are things that aren't even bad (pacifict, too caring, bs like that). I'm sure she's got depth or some redeeming quality (hopefully not attractiveness alone) that makes all the reviewers so ecstatic, but the amount of hype it's getting, especially from it's creators, is making me more than cautious.

 

[Auron]

1 - he has backstory

2 - No I wouldn't rather play her it wouldn't make any sense in the first place, if you played the first few hours you'd understand.

3 - Elizabeth is the best non playable sidekick ever made, she's a great character and gameplay wise is perfect and actually helps, it's a big deal I don't think it's ever been done in fact, it's not even AI it's more like utility she brings to the fights. The fact she doesn't just auto learns to shoot and helps in unconventional ways is awesome as well.

4 through the rest - Everything Zhukov said.

- 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.

 

[zumbledum]

i dont give a flying monkeys arse hair, i look to games for entertainment, developers look to make a profit, the lead is the lead because thats what sells, why? well a large portion of the consumers of a fps are teenage boys who just arent secure in their own sexuality. anyone whose played a female character in an MMO can attest to just how many of them there out there "dud wtf i was hitting on you and your a guy ,are you gay or wut?"


Why on earth would we be looking at a capitalist form of entertainment to lead social policy and change boggles my mind its not just naive and stupid its down right dangerous.

how about we get the real world balanced and right so maybe more girls want to play fps's then we will see the dev's move to meet market forces and supply female protagonists. either way expect the industry to mirror desires not act as our moral and social compass. ITS A GAME!

 

[Zeldias]

Why on earth would we be looking at a capitalist form of entertainment to lead social policy and change boggles my mind its not just naive and stupid its down right dangerous.

It's stupid and dangerous to expect media to do better than just glorify white men all the time? It's not a matter of leading a policy, it's about it being really fucking boring to see white men save the world time and again. I didn't know wanting a change like that is actually dangerous.

Dangerous? Man, that's fucking funny. "Oh god, people want women and minorities to be heroes in their entertainment! HOW DANGEROUS!"

How about we get the real world balanced? Games and media don't exist in the real world? This isn't a matter of the industry mirroring desire, this is just the same old racist sexist bullshit. We don't want it to act as a moral compass, we want it to be more just and moral.

 

[zumbledum]

Why on earth would we be looking at a capitalist form of entertainment to lead social policy and change boggles my mind its not just naive and stupid its down right dangerous.

It's stupid and dangerous to expect media to do better than just glorify white men all the time? It's not a matter of leading a policy, it's about it being really fucking boring to see white men save the world time and again. I didn't know wanting a change like that is actually dangerous.

Dangerous? Man, that's fucking funny. "Oh god, people want women and minorities to be heroes in their entertainment! HOW DANGEROUS!"

How about we get the real world balanced? Games and media don't exist in the real world? This isn't a matter of the industry mirroring desire, this is just the same old racist sexist bullshit. We don't want it to act as a moral compass, we want it to be more just and moral.

No this is you and some sensationalist journos making issues where non exists, its sexist to say it makes a difference which gender or body type does the deed, all that should matter is the quality of the story.

its the same over analysis and seeing whats not their time and time again , everything has to have this big deep social meaning , but its crap it doesnt, its a game made for profit, it appeals to its demographic. is it sexist there are books tv shows and any other million things aimed specifically at women and not men? is it sexist the way car manufacturers shape and design different cars to appeal to a gender, hell even different chocolate bars are aimed at different sex's its simple economics if their is a demand someone will fill it.

go make your strong female protagonist game and see it sell less than if you had put a male brick in the lead role. because heres the gaping hole in this argument we are NOT asking for female leads, femshep was 18% to male sheps 82%?


Less men wear skirts than women , fact do skirt manufacturers moan and bang on about how sexist men are for not wanting to wear their apparel? ofc that would be insanity but in gaming its become flavour of the day around here.

Are you aware of TV shows that play in Europe and America? how many are based in or on "western" premises? 99.9% the racists! we should be forced to have sitcoms based in china around a social structure most of the audience wont get. Its not racist at all they are aiming at their market, just because they only show western influences doesn't mean they are glorifying it or putting the rest down its simply what resonates with their audience

"Dangerous? Man, that's fucking funny. "Oh god, people want women and minorities to be heroes in their entertainment! HOW DANGEROUS!"

Well thats not what i meant and its not even what i wrote. and its wrong in every other important way.

to re iterate my point for you what i said is we should be making our own rules and ideas of social rights and wrongs , morality and sexual attitudes based in what we know and experience in the real world, relying or even expecting a games company that may or may not even have a basic knowledge or understanding of the subject. to do it for us is lazy stupid and dangerous.
devs are profit driven they will sell what sells. you need to change the demand to change the supply on this one. and if you cant see the dangers in letting a minority motivated by profit set social agenda , thats not my problem. read a history book.

 

[KishinZero]

Has anyone here seen the statistics of Bioshock Infinite? It said that Booker and Elizabeth make up about 30% of all the lines in the game with Booker taking second place in the total number of lines. He has literally thousands. I highly doubt that someone with thousands of lines can be that generic, especially in a Bioshock game.

 

[daveman247]

snip

The game would be VERY different if elizabeth was the main character. No guns, no being an outsider and no rescue either

Booker is a pretty good character too, he's not just the silent protagonist.

 

[Seydaman]

Clever thinking, but the problem is a part of "becoming the character" a blank slate non-defined character is easier to slip into than someone given definite characteristics. Although I haven't played Infinite yet, so I might be entirely off base. But the idea would be to allow the player to become to the protagonist, and keep the, interested through the other characters and world around you, Bioware often does this really well, your Hawke/Shepard/Warden/Jedi etc. are all very malabe characters that you can easily insert yourself into and you are kept engaged by other characters, it makes it feel more "real", more interactive than say a movie or something.