On Silent Protagonists
- Thread starter Yahtzee Croshaw
- Start date
Damn, I really need to get around to playing Saint's Row 2 one of the these days. Great article.
Oh and damn (again), you have been spoiling your ZP's in your EP's these days!
Oh and damn (again), you have been spoiling your ZP's in your EP's these days!
Good article. I don't disagree with Samus gaining a voice and personality. I do however, disagree with the way she was portrayed in Other M.
I don't really care about voiced characters either way---as long as the choice increases my immersion, I'm happy with it.
I think Metroid is generally better the less talking there is. The games just aren't designed in a way where a story makes sense and any attempt to alter the game to make it able to contain stories just makes it less fun. I liked Prime 1 way better than Prime 3, mostly due to the different level structure that the lack of talking allows Prime 1 to have. There's no objectives barked by any officers, just you and a whole bunch of things that need a sample of your plasma beam.
I really had no problem with Samus's voice until I saw his review. Only then did I realize just how dronning and annoying it was. This wasn't helped by the fact that the cutscenes (at least in the beginning) were painfully long and drawn out. Also, they didn't really seem to give her much of a personality.
Yahtzee is playing Halo: Reach? He must not have a great deal of control over the games he gets to review, between that and FFXIII. I'm all for a good bashing of a game (which I'm about 99% sure he is going to do) but it seems to lose something when it's a game that he's probably not going to like in the first place. Of course that won't stop me from watching it (or any of his videos)
Yahtzee is playing Halo: Reach? He must not have a great deal of control over the games he gets to review, between that and FFXIII. I'm all for a good bashing of a game (which I'm about 99% sure he is going to do) but it seems to lose something when it's a game that he's probably not going to like in the first place. Of course that won't stop me from watching it (or any of his videos)
I had no problem with Samus getting a personality, a voice and some lines. I just didn't like that voice and those lines. It was like the script was written by Kojima, then given to a more pompous writer to further adapt it (think, the screenwriter of Juno) and then given to a depressed emo actress with 3 days of sleep deprivation for her to read it.
It felts like the script is trying to pose as serious by being grandiloquent and using long words, and to make sure the character is portrayed as a woman by being acted as the exact opposite of Kratos (less grunts and emotions, more talkative)
It felts like the script is trying to pose as serious by being grandiloquent and using long words, and to make sure the character is portrayed as a woman by being acted as the exact opposite of Kratos (less grunts and emotions, more talkative)
So the solution to the problem is having a Metroid game developed by Valve instead of Team Ninja?
For one, this is unsurprising coming from Yahtzee.
Moreover... that would be awesome.
For one, this is unsurprising coming from Yahtzee.
Moreover... that would be awesome.
I'm looking forward to and dreading the Halo: REACH review. I know that Yahtzee is going to bash it 'cause he hates Halo (he made that blatantly obvious with the Turok review by blaming every bad decision of the FPS genre on Halo) thus the dread. However, it is always refreshing to get another's opinion on something, even if that opinion is predictable hatred.
This is especially true in FPS. I'm new to COD and for a while I had no clue I was part of the conversation its nice to no you're the one talking and you're not just listening to radio chatter.
Also its weird you never say anything in Portal its like "hey I gotta solve all these puzzles with the ability to teleport, but I have nothing to say on the subject."
Also its weird you never say anything in Portal its like "hey I gotta solve all these puzzles with the ability to teleport, but I have nothing to say on the subject."
I'm sick of people saying that Samus not having a voice before this game made her a silent protagonist.
She talked all the freaking time in Fusion, having internal monologues in every other elevator shaft to heighten the sense of being trapped and alone on a ship with a story that sucked but was still ten times better than Other M, and the text introduction to Super Metroid, told in first person by Samus, is still one of the best I've ever seen, setting the mood for the game perfectly.
Just cause she's got a voice now doesn't mean she was silent before.
(I'm not counting the Prime games cause Sakomoto has already said they're non-canon and don't reflect the personality of Samus at all, which is BS but whatever it's his character)
She talked all the freaking time in Fusion, having internal monologues in every other elevator shaft to heighten the sense of being trapped and alone on a ship with a story that sucked but was still ten times better than Other M, and the text introduction to Super Metroid, told in first person by Samus, is still one of the best I've ever seen, setting the mood for the game perfectly.
Just cause she's got a voice now doesn't mean she was silent before.
(I'm not counting the Prime games cause Sakomoto has already said they're non-canon and don't reflect the personality of Samus at all, which is BS but whatever it's his character)
One thing I don't understand. Samus has always been a silent protagonist ( Or sorry, simply not having a voice, in respect to the previous poster ), but in the Metroid Prime Trilogy, Jennifer Hale is listed as voice actress for the part. How does that work?
I agree that the voice they got for Samus was terrible, but I think she could easily work as a voiced character.
That said, Other M so far is the biggest let down for me this year (Prototype was last years). Much like Yahtzee says, the controls were piss poor, the story was sluggish, and Samus herself was too infantile. The connection of her to the military did not fit at all. At the start she states she chose to leave the military to get out of the control they asserted, yet she immediately submits to the commanding offier of this group just because she knew him.
It was just a terrible game that let me down greatly. Team Ninja is starting to worry me if this is the quality they are going to start releasing.
That said, Other M so far is the biggest let down for me this year (Prototype was last years). Much like Yahtzee says, the controls were piss poor, the story was sluggish, and Samus herself was too infantile. The connection of her to the military did not fit at all. At the start she states she chose to leave the military to get out of the control they asserted, yet she immediately submits to the commanding offier of this group just because she knew him.
It was just a terrible game that let me down greatly. Team Ninja is starting to worry me if this is the quality they are going to start releasing.
Totally OT and the link has probably been made by someone before... but seeing those two images one after the other in that article...
Yahtzee Freeman? Uncanny.
Yahtzee Freeman? Uncanny.
Mostly likely she did the grunts and such that the lead character tends to make even in a silent protagonist role. Not sure, I hated the first Prime and didn't play any of the sequals. Terrible controls.jtesauro said:
Snake was a silent protagonist and no one in their right mind would call the decision to give him a voice into question. The Other M just did it wrong.