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?
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?