Nothing quite like realizing it’s almost 10:00pm and you haven’t blogged yet to get your ass into gear. Right. So. Blogging.
I’ve been playing Brutal Legend lately, and it’s been a blast. I’m only maybe four hours into it, but it’s been really fun so far. (Except for the driving. I have never been good at driving games, so whenever I’m driving with a deadline I hand the controller over to Chris.) I love the writing and the characters and the amount of ass-kicking I’ve been getting to do. It’s very enjoyable, and it’s been making me think about a particular debate that recurs amongst developers. Do you want the player to empathize with your character, or do you want the player to become your character?
It’s the latter idea that creates most of the Silent Protagonists in video games. A lot of people think that if the main character never speaks, the player will project him or herself into the character’s world, and become the character. Frankly? I think this is kinda bullshit. I never see myself as Link, I never see myself as Chell, and I don’t feel like I’m my Fable II character. I don’t even see them as extensions of myself. (Maybe if I got to choose some dialogue for my Fable character I’d feel differently. Seriously, everyone wants to marry her and I can’t explain to them that she’s not ready to settle down right now, damnit! Leave her alone! She has a world to save!) Link, for one thing, is depicted as having an actual personality, even if he doesn’t speak. I like Link because he’s Link, not because he’s an extension of me. Chell probably comes the closest to making me feel like I am the character, but that’s a factor of the game design. Since there are no other humans in the game, and she never speaks, and the only things that speak to her are AI that don’t use her name, it’s pretty easy to start thinking, “Shit, they’re shooting at me!” rather than “Shit, they’re shooting at her!” In Fable II, I actually feel way more connection to the NPCs in the story, because at least they have personalities! The only thing that makes me feel connected to my character is her dog.
I tend to prefer games that feature an interesting character that I can empathize with. Eddie Riggs is funny, badass, and kinda sweet. I want to play the game just to see what happens to him. Same with Beyond Good and Evil (if I can ever get past this stealth part). I like to play as a character who interests me, who seems like a real person in some way. I want to have a connection with the character, and I usually don’t get that with Silent Protagonists. That doesn’t mean they can’t be part of a good game, of course, it just means I’m going to be playing the game for the game, and end up having less invested in it. When I care about a character, I want to get them through the game unscathed because I don’t want to see them hurt. When I don’t care about a character, I just want to get them through the game unscathed so I don’t have to repeat sections.
Silent Protagonists aren’t bad, per se, but I don’t think they do what some developers think they do.
I think games should try to provide both types of lead characters. Hopefully, at the same time. I want them to provide enough backstory that I undertand the motivation of the playable character and am able to empathize with him/her but I also want the game play to be engaging enough that I feel pulled into the game. But in general I think that whether or not the player becomes the character or just is empathizing with the character is determined more by the personality of the player than the design of the game. Some people fall into that mindset more easily than others and it doesn’t matter if the protagonist is silent or not.