Male Protagonists

[menamebephil]

I always figured that the reason Kratos got a pass on this was that we weren't supposed to empathise with him.

He was a psychotic, emotionally stunted lunatic, but he was that way on purpose, not due to bad writing.

 

[Supp]

space isn't really cold .

2.725 kelvin isn't cold? But its nice that you felt you knew something.

Spaceships become cold because of the heat that radiates off of them.

 

[Callate]

A) Well said, and I agree, and

B) You haven't recently become aware of Rebecca Mayes by any chance, have you?

 

[tzimize]

Warrior Within was the best PoP and still is.

But I get your point

Are you serious? Thats like saying Star wars I was the best star wars ever made :< Emo characters, terrible soundtrack, a female sidekick/storyperson about as interesting as a brick wall, how was this the best pop? Unless...irony......

 

[Delicious Anathema]

Along with the boring cover-based shooting and dull graphics, the characters in Gears Of War are the reason that game put me off so much. It was especially embarassing when they tried to be sentimental towards Dom's wife and his grief, coming across as emotional as a brick, just as the chick from Wet did.

Even characters like Lara Croft, Mario, Sonic, or Link have more going about them than these macho guys. Hell, even Companion Cube had better characterization than Marcus could ever wish.
Chris Redfield kinda blurs the line between manly and macho I think.

A good manly character is James Sunderland, or Leon S. Kennedy, they are great.

That said, I'm a manly man, albeit cold at times, but I definately respect and rely upon other people, though my range of emotions isn't as large (not a crying person, though I can be deeply moved, just with a blank expression). I have no qualms about making a twat of myself around friends.

Good article, finally someone who agrees with me in regards to the over-masculinization of videogame characters.

 

[Aiddon_v1legacy]

well Yahtzee pretty much describes to a tee what is a MAJOR problem in a lot of games nowadays. If you honestly think I'm going to empathize with a bunch of paper-thin cutouts that were born from the fantasies of insecure game designers then you have serious issues (looking at Kratos, some instances of Snake, Marcus Fenix, etc). Macho men are basically satirical so taking them seriously is a mistake.

 

[mjc0961]

Because of this, I will probably not be able to play Gears of War without having the "Macho Man" song playing in the back of my mind. Thanks, Yahtzee.

 

[Seneschal]

space isn't really cold .

2.725 kelvin isn't cold? But its nice that you felt you knew something.

Spaceships become cold because of the heat that radiates off of them.

I guess you also feel you know something. Does it matter if it radiates? At least for Yahtzee's purposes. Cold isn't the same as "low temperature." The feeling of cold is subjective to the object experiencing it. In any case, no, space isn't cold enough to freeze any spacecraft engine. There is a mistaken notion that the 3 kelvin in space is much worse than being submerged in freezing water, when in fact, underwater your heat is transferred, while in space your heat is radiated. And the latter process is less efficient, so you'll sooner freeze to death in arctic waters than in space. That's why I said not to trust freakin' movies.

If the craft in question has any power or life-support systems (which I presume it does, since a pilot is on-board) they would produce enough waste heat to prevent the engines from ever freezing, even enough to cook the crew alive if the vessel didn't radiate this heat. So, just "engines not functioning for a few seconds" won't render a ship inoperable.

 

[werekitsune]

Soooooo...would Kratos be a manly man or a macho man? Because he has characteristics of both. Sure he's a dick who does things out of his own sense of vengence on those who wrong him (macho man), but he can also please the ladies to no end (manly man, apparently).

I have to stop this now. My head is hurting.

Great read though.

But there are not strictly two categories for males to fall in, this just the point Yatzhee is making about the two most common types. You can get a pussy or a boy as a main character, and "manly" and "macho" don't fully explain what a male character can be, although I liked Yatzhee's analysis. And Kratos would probably best be described as psychotic, which is a legitimate way to describe a character if he lack the insecurity typical of the macho man but is possessed by a monstrous rage to have revenge on everyone.

 

[Enigma6667]

I get your point. However, Marcus Fenix isn't the worst macho man. Sure he has the ridiculously big armor, and the absolutely annoying "gruff" voice, but there were at least some traces of humanity inside him in Gears of War 2. He even showed some sadness when one of his comrades committed suicide, after being tortured...of course only to get back to being a dick again.

But still, your list of manly men was spot-on! Niko is definitely a great character. Haven't played ACII yet, but I've heard some good things about Ezio.

 

[Wuvlycuddles]

I think yatzee missed the other end of the scale from macho men, the girly boy like the ones we see far too often in japanese games. Personally, i tend to only find the extremes objectionable, as a result i tend to idenify/enjoy more "balanced" male protagonists. But then again, there is this thing about the macho man characters, you can push it too far and make them quite comical, intentionally (duke nukem) or unintentionally (kratos) and i quite enjoy those characters too.

 

[Foshorror]

Well I guess macho-men aren't too bad as a gameplay character... I mean look at Kratos... he pretty much fits the entire description of a macho-man. Though I do get your point, manly men are macho-men with personality and maybe a brain.

Well, yes, the games can be functional, but it's better if some though has been put into it. Kratos, for example, does not have the exaggerated looks typical of what Yahtzee once called "a twelve-year-old's vision of masculinity." He wears a skirt and some sandals. And the fleece, but that has a purpose.

And besides, the games do their best to show just how demented Kratos is, letting you have fun, but showing you at a lot of points that your actions are quite questionable. If anything, it's a self-aware macho game with a dark parody of the macho protagonist.

Anyway, nice to hear FSG:TG is progressing. Piloting a faulty ship and making it part of the gameplay sounds like a good way to introduce a sense of urgency. Only, the freezing thing isn't believable without some further elaboration - space isn't really cold (despite what The Phantom Menace tells you). If the ship had a faulty cooling system, with the coolant unable to stop circulating, you would have to run the engine to avoid it being frozen. But, if it's actually more intuitive for the average player to have space be an Antarctica-like environment where ships get hypothermia, it's a valid choice.

Er, no. Average temperatures in space (when there's no local star around) can get extremely cold, like hundreds of degrees below zero cold. Add in the fact that there's no atmosphere to hold in your own heat that you are constantly radiating off (like a big hot engine that is in desperate need of a tuneup) can mean that anything that was "hot" will rapidly vent heat until it freezes...then freezes even harder.

So yeah, Yahtzee's idea of an engine that freezes unless it is kept running is a perfectly valid story factor as well as a fairly unique game play element (Lost Planet doesn't count).

 

[eacolucci]

I think putting Marcus Fenix in the "macho" category is mislabeling him. He wears a lot of armor, but that's about it. He doesn't seem to enjoy all the violence (like Cole clearly does). He also doesn't dismiss his own emotions or the emotions of other characters (he helps Dom find his wife in Gears 2 even though it sidetracks them from their misssion). Also, the trailers for the Gears games are pretty emotional. They don't celebrate violence or use it as the game's main selling point.

I admit that he's an incomplete character. I don't know what kind of person Marcus is, and that's probably a flaw in his character by itself, but I don't get the sense that he's macho at all.

 

[josh797]

well written article. i liked it. its so true. basically manly men we respect, macho men we deride.

also, i am SO EXCITED for fun space game. i cant wait to play it!

 

[Apretentiousname]

Interesting description of manly vs. macho, I like it, if anyone cares. But what about the boss from saints row 2? He certainly isn't very sympathetic...or empathetic. He just kinda...kills everything. And amasses power.
He seems to be leaning more towards macho than manly to me, or maybe we should just make him a new category of awesome. What do ya think?

 

[RetroFlush]

A spaceship that cannot stop - that is a pretty big design flaw. Glad you changed it so the ship will stop now.

 

[arcstone]

Massive muscles = gay?


I dont get it.

 

[Biscotti187]

YA! Yahtzee just gave us all a lovely trip of what his ideal man would be. Wouldn't it be dull if this was that majority game characters though?

 

[BloodSquirrel]

Why is the Macho-Man so hated in the gaming community? Am I the only one who likes playing an 80s Action Hero as my video game persona? I love the Rambo/John McClain macho badass banter, but it seems that it is constantly ripped apart in the games media.

Have all gamers been so emotionally ripped apart by "bros" and "football jock douches" that they can't enjoy the macho-man for fear of being thrown in a trashcan and given a wedgie? All joking aside: really, what is the issue with having a character that has muscles on his muscles and uses a gun as big as he is?

I started to suspect a while ago that there are some massive insecurity issues here, especially considering how little most of their complaints have to do with what these characters are actually like. Some people seem to take it so personally that I'm not sure there's any other explanation than them feeling threatened by any man that doesn't act like he has a vagina.

Take Marcus Fenix: This is a guy who has been shown to not actually like the war he's fighting. He ranges from being annoyed at some of the more minor stuff (taking orders from guys he doesn't like, having to train a rookie) to being horrified at the more serious stuff (What happened to Thai) to showing concern for Carmine, to trying to comfort and console his friend when his wife dies. All in all, he gives off the impression of someone who is just tired of it all, but doesn't have any way out.

Marcus never engages in any of this overly-macho behavior that these characters supposedly wallow in. He's entirely driven by a sense of duty: he has to fight. Mankind's survival is on the line; it's entirely selfless. When he finds out that the locust have been taking people, he goes after them to try to help them. When he finds out that Dom's wife may be alive and nearby, he's torn between helping his friend and completing an important mission.

What, exactly, do people want from the guy?

No, he never breaks down screaming at the sky or goes into the fetal position crying, but there's a difference between a character being stoic or understated and only feeling rage. Subtlety in writing is actually considered a good thing in most places.

Master Chief is another example. He's shown to be respectful to pretty much everybody except for the aliens that he's fighting. He's got a dry sense of humor. He never shows any arrogance. He never uses violence in any kind or uncontrolled or unnecessary manner. All in all, he's a highly disciplined soldier who acts with every ounce of maturity that you'd want from mankind's last hope.

Where, exactly, does this image of him being an obnoxious meathead come from other than people
who have never played the game?

This stereotype really came from 90's comicbook characters where the 'heroes' were undisguised sociopaths with an overabundance of pouches and guns that made no sense whatsoever who we were supposed to think were awesome because of how EXTREME they were (think Rob Liefield), but it gets horribly overapplied to places where it really isn't true.

I love the Rambo/John McClain macho badass banter, but it seems that it is constantly ripped apart in the games media.

This is another good example of people getting confused by mixed stereotypes: Rambo was never a 'banter' guy. The first movie was about him having a breakdown because he couldn't adjust to civilian life after the war. The movie ended with an old friend talking him down and getting him to surrender to police. He didn't want to be 'macho', he just wanted to find a way to get his life together again. Hell, the movie could be viewed as a deconstruction of overly macho heroes.

John McClain became famous for being a more human action hero. He got beat up a lot. He bled. He was trying to fix a broken marriage. He was only fighting a handful of guys, and he only ever took them on one at a time, and it was never easy. The first Die Hard was practically wrote the book on the more grounded action hero (Or course, the movies got less grounded as they went on).

 

[camazotz]

You had me at the "Emmeline Pankhursts." I am now unable to look at Gears of War in the same way....my play experience has changed forever......