Before I start, I just want to warn there are some minor spoilers in the text...
[Wall of Text]
Recently I've been wondering whether or not its good to have a voiced protagonist. Amongst the sea of complaints about Dragon Age 2, some people have raised a couple of points concerning this;
1) Some people didn't like Hawke's voice (male, female or both)
2) Quite a few were unhappy about the considerable restriction in the number dialogue options.
This got me thinking about other voiced RPGs and I remembered Yahtzee's review about Alpha Protocol where he described Mike Thorton's voice as being poncey, regardless of the dialogue options chosen. I never played the game myself, but from what I saw, there was also a considerable restriction to the number of dialogue options as in Dragon Age 2.
Obviously having the same number of dialogue options as with a silent character would be pretty expensive in terms of voice acting fees. I remembered Stalker: Call of Pripyat, which, although not a true RPG, did have a lot of dialogue in it; only important parts of the story, specifically cut scenes were voiced and the rest of the time your character was silent. This didn't quite gel with me for two reasons;
1) The voice acting wasn't very good (WHUZUP BRO?! ever. single. time!)
2) It felt inconsistent
That was one of the few issues I really had with that game, but its one that stands out when I think about CoP.
On the other hand, I feel some games arguably need a voice for the protagonist; I mean, would Mass Effect have been as good if Shepard hadn't been voiced? Would all those arguments with Saren or the Council been as good? Would that standoff with Wrex on Virmire have been as good if Shepard had been a mute? Personally, I didn't like the voice actor for male Shepard; I thought he spoke too quickly at times and sounded a bit creepy. Female Shepard wasn't as bad, but occasionally I felt she sounded a tad husky. That said, the voice acting was good enough to make Shepard seem like a living person rather than a silent machine, but is a voiced character always good?
I remember back to the days of KOTOR 1 and 2 and the games that came out before. The vast majority of these don't have a voiced main character when in dialogue. Of note was the sheer number of dialogue options and the scale of conversation trees these games had; in the KOTORs, you could have a whole list of dialogue options and in certain circumstances there could be half a dozen or more responses to a situation. I played through both KOTOR games and I'm pretty sure there were certain dialogue options I never encounter and a good few that I only experienced once and to this day have no idea what I said/did to encounter them.
When I played Mass Effect for the first time, I loved it and felt that voice acting for protagonists was the future 100%. Now, I'm not so sure. Until technology changes it, it will always be relatively expensive and time consuming to do, so should developers cut down on dialogue purely to give us a voice in these games?
At the end of the day, do you prefer voiced or silent protagonists? Or, do you feel there is a place for one and a place for the other? Do you like a large number of options, or prefer a few, specific ones? Does perspective and execution matter?
[/Wall of Text]
If you would be so kind as to give examples of what you feel are good games for either camp?
I would have to straight off have to say; KOTOR (for a silent protagonist) and Mass Effect (for a voiced one)
[Wall of Text]
Recently I've been wondering whether or not its good to have a voiced protagonist. Amongst the sea of complaints about Dragon Age 2, some people have raised a couple of points concerning this;
1) Some people didn't like Hawke's voice (male, female or both)
2) Quite a few were unhappy about the considerable restriction in the number dialogue options.
This got me thinking about other voiced RPGs and I remembered Yahtzee's review about Alpha Protocol where he described Mike Thorton's voice as being poncey, regardless of the dialogue options chosen. I never played the game myself, but from what I saw, there was also a considerable restriction to the number of dialogue options as in Dragon Age 2.
Obviously having the same number of dialogue options as with a silent character would be pretty expensive in terms of voice acting fees. I remembered Stalker: Call of Pripyat, which, although not a true RPG, did have a lot of dialogue in it; only important parts of the story, specifically cut scenes were voiced and the rest of the time your character was silent. This didn't quite gel with me for two reasons;
1) The voice acting wasn't very good (WHUZUP BRO?! ever. single. time!)
2) It felt inconsistent
That was one of the few issues I really had with that game, but its one that stands out when I think about CoP.
On the other hand, I feel some games arguably need a voice for the protagonist; I mean, would Mass Effect have been as good if Shepard hadn't been voiced? Would all those arguments with Saren or the Council been as good? Would that standoff with Wrex on Virmire have been as good if Shepard had been a mute? Personally, I didn't like the voice actor for male Shepard; I thought he spoke too quickly at times and sounded a bit creepy. Female Shepard wasn't as bad, but occasionally I felt she sounded a tad husky. That said, the voice acting was good enough to make Shepard seem like a living person rather than a silent machine, but is a voiced character always good?
I remember back to the days of KOTOR 1 and 2 and the games that came out before. The vast majority of these don't have a voiced main character when in dialogue. Of note was the sheer number of dialogue options and the scale of conversation trees these games had; in the KOTORs, you could have a whole list of dialogue options and in certain circumstances there could be half a dozen or more responses to a situation. I played through both KOTOR games and I'm pretty sure there were certain dialogue options I never encounter and a good few that I only experienced once and to this day have no idea what I said/did to encounter them.
When I played Mass Effect for the first time, I loved it and felt that voice acting for protagonists was the future 100%. Now, I'm not so sure. Until technology changes it, it will always be relatively expensive and time consuming to do, so should developers cut down on dialogue purely to give us a voice in these games?
At the end of the day, do you prefer voiced or silent protagonists? Or, do you feel there is a place for one and a place for the other? Do you like a large number of options, or prefer a few, specific ones? Does perspective and execution matter?
[/Wall of Text]
If you would be so kind as to give examples of what you feel are good games for either camp?
I would have to straight off have to say; KOTOR (for a silent protagonist) and Mass Effect (for a voiced one)
