On Silent Protagonists

[Danpascooch]

A similar problem occurs even if the game occasionally cuts to third person but everyone is wearing expressionless helmets so you can't see their lips moving. This is incidentally a problem I'm having with Halo:Reach.

Seriously? I thought there was NO chance you'd play Halo: Reach after you seemed to hate Halo 3 so much. Does this mean we can expect a review? I hope so! Of course, I know you'll hate it, or at least I expect it, but I don't care, here's hoping to a Reach Review

 

[TetsuoKaneda]

I'm curious as to who Yahtzee would have voice Gordon Freeman in the event he begins to speak.

Half-Life games are when I do my absolutely horrendous Malcolm Tucker impersonation. It tickles me to imagine the cast saying and doing all of that stuff, and Gordon berating them with baroque and dirty language with a Scottish accent.

 

[crimson sickle2]

I actually prefer well-voiced characters as opposed to mutes. It makes me feel more connected to the character than a floating gun(silent FPS).
I do agree with how they made the writing terrible for Other M, just seeing one of those cutscenes caused me to forget about picking up the game.

 

[SturmDolch]

He's a character that has nothing to say about the strange setting he finds himself in after a completely random plane crash? He has nothing to say when he feels compelled to inject himself with a lightning shot. He has nothing to say when he's led around by Atlas. He has nothing to say to Fontaine, Dr. Tenenbaum, or maybe Andrew Ryan when all is revealed?

The protagonist has nothing to say about any of the events in the story, and thus the story fails on every level. Don't get me wrong, it's a great game that's a lot of fun and the setting is fantastic, but the actual meat of the story fails due to the silent protagonist.

He didn't need a lot of lines, but keeping him quiet except for a few lines in the opening sequence was a failure on the part of the developers. It looks like they'll be fixing that with Infinite.

Yeah, I'm going to have to agree with you on the lightning shot part. I mean, I would have understood it more if Atlas had kindly asked him to inject himself. But the camera just jerks away and he jabs himself with it. I'm pretty sure that's not the first thing you should be doing when you find yourself in an undersea city where some guy just tried to kill you.

And I'll also agree with your other points. The story could have been better if he had a voice in some parts, as long as he's not talking to himself the whole time. Narration might have worked, too. But the game did work without a voice and I hardly noticed except for some jarring parts, i.e. any time you interact with characters.

 

[tokyodove]

metroid prime is one of my favourite games because it pretty much just drops you in this world without rhyme or reason and your goal is pretty much 'explore'. there was just the ambient background music creating this eerie, lonely planet with no friendly npcs to be seen.

i had a similar feeling while playing limbo, because all i really wanted to do was keep playing to figure out what happens next. i bought metroid prime 3 but have stopped playing it after one session because i can tell that the magic i found in the first one has long gone...

 

[Sexy Street]

But what about Bioshock's silent protagonist Yahtzee...

 

[Chunko]

If you haven't already buy Yahtzee's book Mogworld. It's one of the best books I've ever read!

 

[SFR]

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.

I was thinking exactly the same thing. If Freeman gets a voice, Yahtzee should be the actor.

Yeah...................... No.......... He should not......... be......... the voice actor........ I'd prefer not to have one of my favorite video game characters sound like an asshole no matter what he's talking about.

Also, Yatzee, did you just say you had trouble understanding who said what in Halo: Reach? Really? How is that even possible... If you pay attention SLIGHTLY you'll know who's who. Hell, based on the people on screen or the direction the voice is coming from (yay speaker technology!) you should be able to tell anyway.

 

[8-Bit Grin]

I'm curious as to who Yahtzee would have voice Gordon Freeman in the event he begins to speak.

Himself. Duh.

 

[WanderingFool]

I loved Saints Row 2, only wished there was more choice in voices, either the African-American, Hispanic (the one I chose), or the horrifying cockney accent. Also would have liked the option to not be a psychopath... not that I would have been any different, just would have been nice to have the choice...

 

[happyschnapps]

I don't mind when previously silent characters are given a voice (eg. Guybrush Threepwood from the Monkey Island games, Grand Theft Auto games, etc). It can sometimes adds character to the main protagonist especially when they are totally unrelated to the player.

What bothers me is when they pick someone whiny and over-the-top such as Tidus from Final Fantasy X. It really put me off the FF games of recent times.

I'm eager to get a copy of Metroid M and hope it's not as bad as Yahtzee says it is...

 

[Sheo_Dagana]

I wonder how interesting it will be to go to a voiced Issac in Dead Space 2... I mean the guy was a mute that took orders from everyone and just did what he was told. I'm a little surprised that didn't get mentioned in this article.

Myself, I don't mind a voiced or silent protagonist unless it's a silent protagonist in an JRPG. They're always pivotal characters but they never say a goddamn thing.

 

[PhunkyPhazon]

What I really don't get is why they switched voice actresses for Samus. You see, while all she ever did was grunt and scream in the Metroid Prime series, the person behind these grunt and screams was Jennifer Hale. Now, I'm not sure how many people have heard of her, but I can guarantee you've played or watched something with her in it. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jennifer_Hale] She's one of the most used voice actors in the industry, and for good reason. She's really good at what she does.

So...why the hell did they switch out Hale for an actress that only seems to have one emotion? (Bored)

 

[Mr Pantomime]

I think The Legend of Zelda Series needs voices. Not for link, he doesnt speak even in text boxes. Everyone else needs a voice. Im sick of hearing NPCs grunting and chirping at me

 

[My1stLuvJak]

Couldn't agree more. I'm a huge fan of Metroid, but I haven't been able to bring myself to play the new one...and I own it. That first cut-scene and imagery (think: magically appearing suit - curse you, SSBB - and a perverted, lingering camera) turned me off of it, completely. Not to mention how ridiculous pointing at the screen is made to feel (did anyone else press the B button a gazillion times, after stepping off the ship for the first time, forced into first person view? I don't want any more of that, and I feel like it'll come back, stupid 'where's waldo' visual puzzles).

I'll have to play through the game, eventually, but I'm not going to like it - maybe I should take Yahtzee's advice and just finish my playthrough of the Metroid: Prime Collection!!

Samus could have a voice, one that works, just not when Team Ninja's at the helm. Should've known they'd screw up the story/characters, but I never thought the gameplay would be subpar, as well. I really enjoyed the story element to Metroid: Fusion, it remains one of my favourite, in all of gaming...Super Metroid had a fantastic opening, as well. Yahtzee's right about what makes those stories shine, the 'show not tell' thing - Samus is an action-driven character, so choosing to focus too much on drama completely goes against everything the other games have set up...an orphaned child who grew up as a warrior, not forgetting her past but also not letting it get in her way.

Yeah, I'm not impressed. Don't know if I'll be able to forgive Team Ninja, for this one.

 

[Vault101]

This was one of my main problams with the quite dissapointing F.E.A.R. 2 I think yahtzee mentioned this in his reveiw but its annoying when your teammate says "I hear a crying woman Im going after her!" and you could save his life just by opening your mouth and saying "Acctually no, don't do that thats how the other guy died" but no instead Beckett has to be a mute.

In regards to Samus, I don't dislike the idea of giving her a voice but like many other things likleyhood is they would screw it up

Another thing is with RPG's like fallout and dragon age even though technically those charachters arent silent Having a vioce makes alot of difference as to how attached oyu become to charachters, thats why I liek Mass Effect so much

 

[thespianicism]

What I really don't get is why they switched voice actresses for Samus. You see, while all she ever did was grunt and scream in the Metroid Prime series, the person behind these grunt and screams was Jennifer Hale. Now, I'm not sure how many people have heard of her, but I can guarantee you've played or watched something with her in it. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jennifer_Hale] She's one of the most used voice actors in the industry, and for good reason. She's really good at what she does.

So...why the hell did they switch out Hale for an actress that only seems to have one emotion? (Bored)

Agreed. Jennifer Hale is a good actress. I can't understand why they wouldn't used her if they already had her on grunt duty for the previous games. She can certainly handle lines.

 

[Queen Michael]

So Gordon Freeman is like Gromit with a pry-bar fetish?

No, he's like Chuck Norris in a geek form!
(cookie for reference!)

#Fight for freedom
with a brainstorm#
#Gordon Freeman saved my life#

Here you go!

What I really don't get is why they switched voice actresses for Samus. You see, while all she ever did was grunt and scream in the Metroid Prime series, the person behind these grunt and screams was Jennifer Hale. Now, I'm not sure how many people have heard of her, but I can guarantee you've played or watched something with her in it. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jennifer_Hale] She's one of the most used voice actors in the industry, and for good reason. She's really good at what she does.

So...why the hell did they switch out Hale for an actress that only seems to have one emotion? (Bored)

Agreed. Jennifer Hale is a good actress. I can't understand why they wouldn't used her if they already had her on grunt duty for the previous games. She can certainly handle lines.

So true. Her voice acting is one of the reasons I fell in love with Emma Emmerich.

 

[wooty]

I prefer the Zelda series without voices at all, its keeps to the origional set up of games as a whole and I think its better like that. The only characters who should be allowed to speak are the fairies, just hearing the "hey" and "listen" often puts me in that "Zeldary" mood