Anonymous Protagonists - A Curse or a blessing?

[excessum ado]

Many of you who play video games may have noticed an ever-growing popular trend in video games that has become more prevalent recently. You know what I?m talking about. Anonymous protagonists. I'll breaks it down for those of you who haven?t played half life or Bioshock. A anonymous protagonist is basically a character that you play as who has little to no dialogue and who's face is rarely seen. Examples would of course be Gordon Freeman and the main character of Bioshock.

So while trying to see how many elements I could unleash on a single corpse the other day in Bioshock I got to thinking. Which is better - An anonymous protagonist or a protagonist with a voice and a face?

There are advantages for both of course. Protagonists with no voice and who's faces are rarely scene act as blank canvases for whoever is playing to implant their personality on. You can basically picture yourself in their position. You couldn?t do something like this with say, Marcus Phoenix, as through his dialogue, action and characterization you establish things about his personality. Things that may not necessarily match yours. Of course the flip side of the coin may be that you prefer to have a bad ass, balls out hero in the place of yourself. You may prefer someone who throws off snappy one liners and is so overtly masculine that he can pleasure a woman with one hand, overthrow an alien legion with the other and beat up a rhinoceros with each individual toe. This does of course make the game seem like a less personal experience.

It can also have an effect on the story as well. A protagonist who doesn?t say anything will have little to no affect on the decisions made and the interactions between the support characters yet someone who barges in and loudly proclaims exactly what?s what will. These different aspects of video game characters can have vast changes to the overall experience of a game. Which is better? Which makes for a more wholesome videogame experiance? Well I?ll let you guys decide. Give me your opinion. Do you prefer to be the centerpeice of any epic? Or do you prefer to watch from the sidelines while someone else saves the world?

 

[SilentHunter7]

It really depends. It feels like the Faceless Nameless Ageless Gender-Neutral protagonist is sort of a safety net. Few things will kill a plot like the player, viewer, or reader, hating the main character. Either because their personality grinds with them, a bad script, or terrible acting.

Some games might benefit if the protagonist wasn't a mute. Some definitely would benefit if the protagonist stopped opening his/her mouth.

 

[HSIAMetalKing]

Bioshock is really the only game I can think of with an "anonymous" protagonist. I certainly wouldn't count Gordon Freeman as one since not only does he have a name, but we get a decent amount of information about his background.

I suppose I prefer protagonists that are well-described. Playing a nameless, faceless, emotionless slate with a gun is neat and everything, but part of having a good story (in my opinion) is having a protagonist whom I can relate.

 

[milomalo]

and the... editable characters? where one is the center piece? i like that better... and you? and if we only had two options... i like a protagonist like the one in bioshock its just easyer to get carried away

 

[PedroSteckecilo]

While I understand the "reason" why there are so many Anonymous Protagonist (I call them Window Characters) but I don't like it, I like characters with personality and opinions. I also wish that in games like Oblivion or KOTOR, which are similar to anonymous protagonists... my characters DIALOGUE options would change based on my previous responses and actions...

For Example... if I've been good the entire game so far, I shouldn't suddenly be able to go evil or if I've been evil all game so far I can't suddenly become a saint. It would make things a lot more realistic and more interesting, it would also make "playing a character" in an RPG more of a possibility.

 

[Retoru]

Bioshock is really the only game I can think of with an "anonymous" protagonist. I certainly wouldn't count Gordon Freeman as one since not only does he have a name, but we get a decent amount of information about his background.

I suppose I prefer protagonists that are well-described. Playing a nameless, faceless, emotionless slate with a gun is neat and everything, but part of having a good story (in my opinion) is having a protagonist whom I can relate.

You have King Slime as your avatar and you can't think of any games with anonymous protaganists except Bioshock? How about every Dragon Quest game. You could debate about III since you are revealed at the end to be the legendary hero known as Erdrick in the previous 2 games, but the character itself has no name or personality beyond what you put into him/her through the course of the game.

 

[Frosk]

How about the extremely anonymous protagonist? TimeShift anyone? No face, name, dialog, or backstory (really).

 

[videot76]

I despise them, because I get the impression that "intentionally left blank" is a developer's cheating way out of having to actually create a character. Almost as bad are the "silent" protagonists - Link being the most well-known example. I mean, you "talk" to many characters, and they react like you have said something specific - yet you haven't uttered a single word OR line of text. That bugs me no end. Yes, this includes Gordon Freeman. And Jak in the first Jak & Daxter, it made the game even more unenjoyable.

I do however excuse Amaterasu in Okami, on account of being a wolf. And she DOES have one reply near the end, even if its just a howl/bark/yelp or what to call it...

And RPG's doesn't really count, since you are supposed to create the character yourself at the start. Even if Bioware's games have a limited set of paths and choices, you still get to choose what to do and say, which makes you very un-anonymous indeed.