Your thoughts on 'mute' protaganists

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Tarquinius Superbus

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Nov 8, 2009
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It depends.

If I'm playing a game that has little to no overarching storyline or plot and is just one big excuse plot (think Bad Dudes), then I'm fine with the guy or gal I'm playing as having no notable dialogue (not things like exclamations).

However, If I were to play a game that was intended to be at least somewhat story and/or character driven with things like long dialogues and cutscenes, then the person I'm playing should I have a acceptable amount of dialogue, unless he/she is actually physically incapable of speaking.
 

Arduras

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Jul 14, 2009
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It all depends on the game,

if I'm playing a game with multiple choices based apon my preference, I enjoy have no voice (i.e. most bioware games) with the exception of Mass Effect... that needed voices.

But with games like Far Cry 2 and other story driven choiceless games I -need- a voice, thats what draws me into those games, knowing my characters motivations instead of Halflife, when i know everyone else's motivations but not my own beyond wanting to fill anything that looks iffy with bullets.

But in the long run, I see it from a game by game basis, some need voices to base a story, some don't... as long as they fit the character.
 

Souplex

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Jul 29, 2008
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Theres the good approach and the bad approach:
Good approach: Isolation (Or the character is a nobody so you don't have people talking to you anyway), cutscenes, legs when you look down. Adds to atmosphere and immersion. (Metroid)
Bad approach: Lots of other characters "Converse" with your character, no cutscenes, no legs when you look down. Silly, takes away from atmosphere and breaks immersion. (Half Life)
 

PixieFace

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Mar 17, 2010
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It's a funny sort of issue. For games with a definitive canon hero, I feel most of the time you do need a voice actor. I'm thinking that the reason why Jack from Bioshock and Gordon Freeman worked for me was that the story was focused far more on the situation rather than focused on the main character's personality and reactions to the situation. I didn't need a voice because hearing him talk simply was not important.

As far as RPGs go, I think that Mass Effect really exemplified the ups and downs of having a voice. If you go onto the Bioware social site and mention Mark Meer (male Shepard's voice) you'll get flooded with complaints about the guy - from me included. I enjoyed Jennifer Hale, femShep, but there were moments in the second game that were so facepalmingly hokey that I missed not having a voice.

The only reason I ever got annoyed with the voicelessness in Dragon Age was because there was no effort put into in your characters facial animations. It would have gone a LONG way to show your character with actual human emotions - annoyed, shy, angry, nervous, whatever - as you do in Mass Effect.
 

Bek359

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Feb 23, 2010
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Mute protagonists are overused, but they can be done well, like Gordon Freeman. Sometimes, I want Gordon to talk, but then I hear my roommates playing Nazi Zombies in the next room, with the growled one-liners that make me want to stab the characters with a knife, that I say, "Eh, it's not worth the risk." However, Valve has generally been good about voice acting and making good characters. I liked just about everyone in HL2, especially Kleiner, Eli, and Barney. Alyx is good too, but she can be a bit annoying, especially during Episode 1, which is basically one huge escort mission. The TF2 characters are full of one-liners, but they're unique and silly enough that it makes the game better rather than worse ("This is Scout, rainbows make me cry!", anyone?).
 

Volafortis

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Oct 7, 2009
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I prefer silent protagonists to characters spouting out ridiculous Duke Nukem-esque one liners throughout the game.

In RPG's and such, I expect some form of dialog, and I personally feel that one of Mass Effect's strongest points over other RPGs is a fully voice acted protagonist.
 

squidbuddy99

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Jun 29, 2009
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I just hate that so many games have mute protagonists without giving reason. We all know that people such as Gordon Freeman and Link are mute because we are told. How come the protagonist to Bioshock has only two sentences about his parents to say? You'd think that if someone from the 1960's wandered into an underwater city filled with psycopaths, he'd have more to say.
 

tzimize

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Mar 1, 2010
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A silent protagonist is not good or bad in and of itself, its like linear gameplay. In some games like for example cod4 it works (imo) because the rails are so extremely well hidden by awesomeness. In other games like FF13 it doesnt work because the game is boring and not engaging.

AvP has a silent protagonist (the original/good one) and this is ok since the game is not about the person but rather what you are experiencing: DREAD. In the halflife series it doesnt work so well. While Gordon Freeman is one of the most famous silent guys he is far from the best. Dont get me wrong, the halflife series is awesome and I love every bit of it, but sometimes I wonder what the others must be thinking...they're chatting away and Gordon is going .............................................. Not a very giving conversation and not at all natural.

Imo if the game has people talking at you, usually its better if you can talk back by choosing a text to answer with or that the character says predetermined lines. Else it just seems a bit wierd.
 

Unia

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Jan 15, 2010
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One game where a mute protagonist seriously bothers me is Digital Devil Saga. Just see the Unskippable, I swear the whole game is like that. This guy not only doesn't talk (well you choose dialogue a few times but whatever) but has no expressions either! It's like his hair is actually grey from old age and he takes daily botox shots or something.

The fact the other characters develop personalities along the way just makes it worse. Everybody's treating the guy like a charismatic leader when he has the charm of a concrete wall and rarely even makes the actual decicions.

So bottom line: if you're making a linear story-driven game, leave out the mute protagonist. I'm looking at you JRPGs.
 

Lamppenkeyboard

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Jun 3, 2009
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It depends.

Gordon Freeman' lack of dialog helped Half Life, he seemed more and more professional because of it.

Although in the Episodes, this whole undertone of a love story between Alex and Gordon evolves, when Gordon has literally NEVER said a single word to her.



In Shadow of the Colossus, the mute girl you played as seemed even more prickish for *almost* never talking. The whole moral issue of killing the Colossi which I felt was nonexistent for her. She never questioned her motives once, when I did every time a one of the bosses died by my hand.
 

G-Force

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Jan 12, 2010
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WayOutThere said:
Muted protagonists are acceptable and perhaps even preffered in games where story doesn't matter. However, it games where story does matter it is STUPID. It is an obvious hiderance to your ability to tell a story and it apparently done this way so you can, as the OP said, for immersion but I never #*@% notice a diffrence.

Half life is supposed to be immersive but I scoff at that. So what if I never leave Gordon's perspective if all there usually ever is to actually immerse me is a bunch of drab shooting action? All this does is leave me unimmersed and wondering why they never expect me to talk. You want me to feel like I'm actually the protagonist? Give me some #%^@ dialoge options so I can make his personality my own! That's something that would actually make a diffrence! Instead we're left with stories that easily could have been improved upon.

Alright, maybe I'm just venting a little bit. Most of the games with silent protagonists I've played had some of the better stories found in gaming (FEAR, Bioshock, The Suffering, Dead Space, and even Half Life). In the former two games having a silent protagonists goes half-way towards making sense the poor history-less bastards.

So in summary I suppose I can't have much of a complaint until I see games with silent protagonists telling sub-par stories by video games standards as blisteringly idiotic as I think the whole idea of silent protagonists is.
I really think that games like Bioshock and Half Life would greatly suffer if you gave your characters dialogue options as those titles really need them. When it comes to silent protagonist in shooters, I think many players are crafting their heroes personalities during the course of the game but don't realize it. Let's take Half Life for example, when characters talk to you one player might stand still and pay attention while another player might wander their gaze or even walk around the room. Right from that simple scene you have three different personality types of Gordon Freeman, he can either be polite and attentive, curious of his surroundings, or just plain rude and uncaring. When you do the platforming segments one player might slowly walk toward the edge while another might just go ahead and jump, again two different personalities of Gordon being either daring or cautious. Bioshock gives us these subtle choices as well. If you go through the game killing more enemies with guns then you've created a Jack more interested in using human technology rather than embracing the foreign idea of gene splicing or you can have a clever jack set traps to ambush Big Daddies or a heroic Jack who decides to fight them out in the open.
 

Wounded Melody

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Jan 19, 2009
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I like 'mute' more when you can somewhat control what the character looks like, the gender, etc. If it's a guy character then he might as well talk because I don't really 'project' myself through him.