Therumancer said:
Well to be honest I think a lot of the problem is that people in the gaming media are trying to present being "macho" as a bad thing, which I don't think it is. After all it's the kind of mindset that people in these kind of video game situations are realistically going to possess.
That's probably why I felt like Opposing Force was a good deal more...let's say 'realistic' in its choice of protagonist than the original Half-Life was. At least a Marine has an excuse for being skilled with a variety of firearms and weapons. A physicist? Not so much.
Therumancer said:
I've honestly felt a lot of it is simply that your dealing with angry nerds who got recieved the equivilent of having sand kicked in their face one too many times, getting upset over the glorification of a mindset they feel victimized by. A problem that has been coming to the forefront now, because with games being mainstreamed you don't just have to deal with the he-men in games, but also the "bros" in the player base actually playing the games and sort of bringing it to the forefront. The He-Man protaganist really wasn't an issue until the industry decided to try and bring so many casuals into the market.
Ehh...I'm not so sure about that. I think it comes more down to the inherent unlikability of what I call the 'Straightfaced Duke,' mostly in light of
Duke Nukem Forever.
Duke Nukem began as a parody. That much is pretty simple. He was a character made from a distilled mixture of every
other tongue-in-cheek action hero of his era, and it worked pretty well. The problem, however, was when we were given a wider view of the world Duke lived in...and it turned out that the entire unironic world loved him for equally unironic reasons. Before, he had been more an avatar than anything else, but suddenly, he was an actual person, and he was being massively rewarded by a world that by all rights ought to have given him some medals for saving the planet then slowly moved the spotlight away from him.
Therumancer said:
That said I'm a big fan of the silent protaganist, I think voicing protaganists tends to be a mistake, one of those situations where technology has gone wrong. Rather than stepping into a story, a voiced protaganist frequently gives me the impression that I'm watching someone else's story even when I'm in control.... which is an issue. But again I think it comes down to the tastes of the mainstream as opposed to serious gamers.
But bear in mind that the 'Enter your name' intro screen is virtually gone. I can think of only one console game that did it within the past couple years, and that was
Neir. The point is that you
are playing as a character.
And I really don't think that gaming has gotten all the worse for the inclusion of voiced protagonists. As stories grow in depth and depiction, a mute protagonist becomes a relic of the past. Look at Fable 2: I can't count the number of times I wanted a goddamn voice to raise some sort of objection to the stupidity I was being subjected to, but no. The writers had their story to tell, and heaven forbid I, the player, interfere with it.
Therumancer said:
When it comes to Gordan Freeman, the thing about him is that while he was silent, you could tell a lot about him just through the enviroment and how people reacted to him. Despite everything you might insert into the character by stepping into his shoes, he's a scientist, his colleagues and peer groups are largely academics, and people don't react to him like they do to say a Marcus Fenix, not to mention how much the artwork itself showing the character said about him.
Well...yeah. But isn't that just because he's a different character? Marcus Fenix is a soldier, and people he interacts with treat him as thus. Similarly, most of the people he interacts with are also soldiers. Replace 'soldier' with 'scientist' and 'Marcus Fenix' with 'Gordon Freeman,' and you've got Half-Life.
And oddly enough, I can't remember the last time Gordon ever did anything remotely scientific for someone of his supposed expertise. Lots of people call him 'Dr. Freeman,' but he doesn't show much of anything for it.
Therumancer said:
As a side point, I think a lot of this also comes out in the arena of movies as well. You might notice for example that MovieBob, one of those guys who seems to decry anything "macho" or traditionally manly, had a massive rant-a-thon over the "Expendables" movie and still goes off about it getting a sequel. Basically he'd rather see some meterosexual actor do the action stuff with special FX, than someone who looks like they could actually do that stuff. To be honest I think one of the things that has hurt the action movie genere (aside from politics) is Hollywood going too far in that direction. While by no means a great movie, part of the appeal of "The Expendables" is to have a bunch of actual he-men (even if they are getting old) doing the stuff that they do, and it sold very well because it happens to work. Sadly it doesn't seem like the message is getting through. Generally speaking to do this kind of thing perfectly they kind of need to get some actual He-men who can play the straightforward "macho hero" role fairly well and then use the FX budget they'd use for the other guys. To an extent that's what made the Arnie/Cameron team, they had the best of both worlds, even when Arnie couldn't really act.
But 'The Expendables' was supposed to be a tribute to movies that those guys would star in. That was the entire premise. If you did the same thing with less-known actors, it would just be a bad action movie. It'd be like ordering a bacon cheeseburger, then requesting that the bacon and patty be replaced with non-meat substitutes. It completely defeats the purpose of the originally requested item.
And I'm not sure why you describe someone who doesn't look like Sylvester Stallone or Bruce Willis to be 'metrosexual.' Maybe you think it means something else, but aren't you just trying to say 'average'? Because I don't classify Matt Damon as the same sort of actor as the cast of
The Expendables, but I think he did well in
The Bourne Identity.
Therumancer said:
The point here basically being that the typical "macho military dude" thing is a stereotype for a reason, and really it's something that needs to exist for the exceptions to stand out, and a good game (or movie) following for that formula means a lot.
But you don't need to be completely jacked to fill that kind of role. In fact, most modern soldiers aren't like that. Knowing how to fight while making yourself stronger yet compact is a lot more valuable than just being huge.
