Time is a very limited resource, at least to a human being. There's only so much of it in a day, and only so many days before your time runs out. For better or worse, video games tend to take a long time to finish. One of the most distressing problems that this causes is that it makes discussion difficult. A group of friends can go see a movie together, but a video game simply takes too much time for most people to enjoy simultaneously. Someone will get ahead of the other and be left waiting for the rest to catch up. Personally, this problem has helped instill a love of watching others play video games in me. This way I know everything that's happened, and can talk about it immediately. Discussion flourishes under such conditions, but it can be difficult to set up, especially as we grow older (and thus burdened with more responsibilities).
Sometimes it's nice to chat.
Amongst my friends, I tend to lead the front; finishing games months or even years ahead of the others. This gives me a lot of time to analyze my experience, draw conclusions, and generally refine my thoughts on the game in question. Certainly, this has proved true with Mass Effect 3. Of my friends, I'm the only one who even owns it yet. But the internet far outstripped even myself, and I've only recently begun to catch up to the conversation.
My posts last week were written as a way for me to work out my personal feelings on the end of the game. They were a way for me to get the bad taste out of my mouth so that I could enjoy the rest of the otherwise fantastic game. Not taking the time to really analyze my experience, or catch up to the discussion was an error. A mistake. My blunder was not in making my posts, which really did help me deal with my feelings about the end of the game, but in not catching up to the current conversation. My true error was not finding about the Indoctrination Theory until now.
Read on to find more about the Indoctrination Theory and what it has to do with the ending of Mass Effect 3.
Style. That organic, enigmatic thing. Style is easy to see, easy to feel, but difficult to describe. Anyone can tell you that the last two Harry Potter movies are much darker than the rest, but when you press for specifics, it becomes difficult to describe. Certainly more characters die. More bad things happen. The film certainly has less colorfulness, that is to say there is less difference between each color and grey (not a bad thing when used well, as in this case). The music contains more minor keys and tones. However it comes about, it is a darker set of films than the rest.
What do the Harry Potter movies have to do with Mass Effect? Find out after the break.
Decisions. Choices. Options. Staple of the Western RPG, the ability to make decisions for your main character has been both praised and criticized. Some see it as the ultimate destination of video game narrative; the ability for a player to tell the story they want, to interact with it. Others see it as a weakness. An obstacle towards crafting a cohesive story. Personally I think both styles have their advantages, and it really depends on what kind of game is being made, and how good the writers involved are.
For better or worse, the Mass Effect series, and Bioware games in general, utilize a decision based dialogue system. The story is told through character interactions and the player is allowed to choose what their avatar says or does from a set of given options. Personally, I think it’s a great fit for the series, but it’s also a major contributing factor to the disappointment I, and others, have for the ending.
Why is decision making important to Mass Effect’s story? How does it enhance the game’s narrative? Let’s discuss, after the jump.
Warning! Once again, the rest of the article is filled with major spoilers! You have been warned!
Edit: Having problems with Blogger, should be fixed shortly. Edit2: Fixed, kinda...
Continuing our discussion on Mass Effect 3, I would like to transition from talking about the active game elements (i.e. combat), to the passive. In this case I would like to talk about the characters. This is not going to be a detailed list of all the characters, and what was done well or poorly with them (though if there is interest I wouldn’t mind a project like that in the future), instead I just want to give something more akin to an appetizer, a taste of how the characterization and character interactions have changed over the course of the Mass Effect series.
Warning! Massive Spoilers ahead, including one of the best scenes in Mass Effect 3. Continue at your own risk!
Wow. I can't believe it's been over a year since I last made a post. It really does take something monumental for me to make my opinions known it seems. Well that, or I took a year off for personal reasons, but there's no way that's true. Right? If you follow anything even remotely video game related, you've no doubt heard something about the controversy over Mass Effect 3's ending. Going into the game, I expected all of the internet rage to be hyperbolic, as the internet does favor extremely strong opinions. In the end, however, I found I agreed with what I'd heard online, even if I didn't share their reaction.
While much of internet appears angry, even furious over the ending, I find myself more confused and disappointed than anything else. I sincerely doubt that I'll be treading new ground here, as by now the internet has probably discussed this issue to death (I did my best to avoid spoilers until I had finished Mass Effect 3 myself). Still, I would like to explain my feelings, if only to get them out of my system. I will not, however, be jumping right into discussion on the ending, as I know I have some followers who have not, or will not play the game, and I think it's important to understand the rest of the game in order to truly 'get' how disappointing the ending is. Thus, I declare this week to be Mass Effect week for A Curious Tale. Here's a rough schedule of what I have planned for this week's discussion:
Monday: Combat
Tuesday: Characters
Wednesday: Decisions
Thursday: Style
Friday: The End
I will attempt to limit spoilers, but I am going to be discussing the end of the game, as well as some of the best scenes in detail, so take heed. In addition to this influx of content, I shall be making my (hopefully) glorious return to twitter, where I can be found at Corynrags. Let's start things off then, shall we?
Combat is, hands-down, the best part of Mass Effect 3. I loved the combat in Mass Effect 2, and the 3rd has made nothing but improvements since then. Leveling has been extended, as have the number of powers each class has, greatly increasing the player's options in combat, while not sacrificing the balance that Mass Effect 2 added (global cooldowns and limited ammo in particular). The enemy forces, while fewer in factions, have much more diversity; to the point of forcing the player to change their tactics based not only on which faction they're fighting, but also based on what enemies happen to be around at that exact moment. The enemy A.I. is much more aggressive, and will attempt to flank your position, even on the easier difficulties, which, combined with some of the new enemy types, results in a much better flow to the combat. You are forced to find new cover periodically, rather than just hang out at an entryway and poke the bad guys to death (unless you choose to play as a vanguard, in which case, CHAAARGE!). All of these things contribute to make combat more fun, but it's the restoration of Shepard being able to use all weapon types, regardless of class, from ME1, and the associated weight system that really gels the combat together.
In ME3, you are given a weight limit, and each weapon has an associated weight, as your weight goes above the limit, so do the cooldowns on your abilities, and vice-versa. This creates a situation where an adept, who was forced to use only pistols and smg's in Mass Effect 2, will likely choose to do so in 3, as the lowered cooldowns are more powerful for that class than the benefit of the heavier guns. Yet, an adept is not forced to such a situation, and if someone wants to be a sniper rifle wielding adept, or sentinel, they are free to do so. Power gamers have more fun, as they can game the system for maximum combat potential, Role-player's can have fun, using the weapons they feel their Shepard would, even casual gamers find themselves rewarded, no longer having the confusion over why they can't use that awesome assault rifle they just picked up. This change is a wonderful one, and works beautifully in conjunction with the weapons themselves.
Mass Effect 1 had boring weapons. All the shotguns were shotguns, all the assault rifles were assault rifles, etc… The only difference between weapons were damage, accuracy, firing rate, and how many shots you could fire before they would overheat, and almost all categories increased as you bought the higher level weapons. The weapon mod system helped alleviate some of the boredom, but most of the choices came down to more damage. Mass Effect 2 mixed things up, guns were now much more individualized, having special properties, and really felt like different guns, but there were still usually optimal choices, and without the weapon mod system, most people ended up using the same weapons. Mass Effect 3 brought back the weapon mod system, but modified it to make it more engaging. Now I can choose to have a shotgun with an extended barrel that does more damage, or a blade on the end for more melee damage, or a larger clip, or a scope, or more accuracy. All meaningful, visual changes, as opposed to ME1's. Personally, I'd rather choose between a scope and being able to shoot targets through cover, rather than between extra poison or fire damage.
The Best Pistol
And then there's the new guns. ME2 may have introduced guns that felt different, but ME3 really makes each gun unique. From pistols that fire miniature sticky bombs that explode into miniature biotic black holes, to sniper rifles that fire laser beams after charging for a second or two. The guns really feel unique, each having its own distinct 'personality', bringing back fond memories of Goldeneye and Perfect Dark. Even melee attacks have been buffed. Not only are there gun mods and skill trees that help improve melee damage, but there's also a new three-hit combo for standard melee attacks, a new heavy melee attack, and a new storm-melee attack, some of these even change depending on your class. As a player, you have a vast array of techniques and weapons for taking out your opponents, which leads to more fun.
ME3's combat is such an improvement over it's predecessor's, that its multiplayer mode, which is reminiscent of a slightly (and only slightly) toned down single-player, is as fun and addicting as some of the more recent Call of Duty games. I find myself receiving the same endorphin rush for killing an opponent in multiplayer as I do in Call of Duty: Black Ops, a game well noted for tapping into that sensation. They did a great job with the visual and audio rewards. It's incredibly satisfying charging at a Guardian and as he flails about trying to regain his balance making his head explode with a blast from my tricked out shotgun.
To be honest, I never understood the relatively large mass-market appeal of the Mass Effect series. A sci-fi RPG seems precisely like the kind of game that would be relegated to the niche market of hardcore gamers and nerds (which while large, and larger than it used to be, is still niche in the grand scheme of things). Instead, it seems to have found a home in the same crowd that sits down with some beers for a night of Halo or Call of Duty. Certainly, the first game's combat was clunky enough for me to have this disconnect. With ME3, there's no disconnect. Halo had fun combat. Call of Duty had fun combat. Mass Effect 3 has fun combat.
At the end of the day, I have only three real complaints about Mass Effect 3's combat, and they really are minor. First, all of the enemies that can instant kill you are annoying. It's not fun in multiplayer, and it's pure bullshit in single player. At least give player's some kind of animation to look out for, or some way to know how to avoid the attack besides 'don't close to melee distance with certain enemies'. This is especially annoying for vanguards, as for them, the strategy with anything problematic is to charge right at it. Second, I really hope they release all the extra weapons that the collector's edition, or certain pre-orders received as DLC. I wouldn't mind paying a few dollars for a gun I didn't get because I decided not to preorder with Gamestop. That's fine. Just give me the option (though I do understand that this is unlikely due to contracts and all that jazz). Really, I just like playing with all the guns, and wouldn't mind some more. Third, new game+ lets you keep all of your guns and weapon mods. This is great, as some guns are unavailable until the last few missions of the game, and you barely get to play with them. So why am I complaining? The ending. The bad part of the end is short, maybe five or ten minutes, but it's completely unfun. It actually detracts from my experience, from my enjoyment. I just don't want to force myself through it just to get to the new game+.
My final consensus? Mass Effect 3's combat is a hell of a lot of fun. I could honestly play it for hours, and while I was surprised by it's inclusion, I am grateful for the developers spending the time to make the multiplayer mode as solid as it is so that I can enjoy it whenever I want.
I cannot stress this enough, but if you have anything to say, positive or negative, please do so. You can leave a comment here, contact me through Twitter (@Corynrags), or even my e-mail. I like discussing much more than I like preaching, and I would love to hear some other people's thoughts.
Edit: I apologize for the formatting, blogger is... problematic at times.
I hadn’t really planned on picking up Dragon Age 2, but curiosity got the better of me and I decided to try out the demo. I was pleasantly surprised by what I found. I had heard about the changes in the dialogue system (a good choice I feel, considering Bioware’s writing strengths), but I had no idea that they had changed combat as much as they did. Rather than gritting my teeth in frustration every time a new group of enemies would spawn, I grinned in anticipation. The combat in Dragon Age 2 wasn’t the boring slog of it’s predecessor; it was actually fun! So fun in fact, that I was a little disappointed when there were no more enemies to kill and I actually had to listen to some of the story.
At this point I was thinking that I would wait for a price drop and pick up the game then (combat was fun, but the characters and writing weren’t really catching my interest). Then Flemeth showed up. You see, one of my major complaints about Dragon Age: Origins was how forgettable the character designs were. They were serviceable to be sure, and outside of the funny hats, Morrigan’s outfit, and all of the heavy armor, they were pretty realistic, but it wasn’t good design. I couldn’t pick any of the characters in DA:O out from their silhouette. Don’t quite get what I’m saying? Then how about an example. Here’s Flemeth in Dragon Age: Origins:
And here she is in Dragon Age 2:
The design is wacky, even hilarious (older gal’s got quite the body), but it’s strong, has presence, and most important of all, it’s memorable. Seeing her character design sold me on Dragon Age 2, and that very night I pre-ordered it. I should have listened to my first thoughts.
Dragon Age 2 is not a bad game. It’s quite fun, and there’s a lot of good things to be found in it. I might even be tempted to call it a good game in certain situations. That said, it’s a broken, buggy, unfinished mess.
Quests fail to trigger, trigger early, and become uncompletable. There are multiple game breaking-bugs (there’s a way to permanently lower the main character’s attack speed everytime a party member leaves your party). Almost all of the quests in the game use one of five maps, with only which doors are locked to differentiate them. I hated this in Mass Effect, and I hate it still (though Mass Effect at least had a fluff reason for the buildings to all be identical). All of these I can deal with, assuming some of the bigger bugs get patched later on. What I cannot handle is how unfinished the game is.
It’s hard to describe exactly what I mean by unfinished. It’s like, the second half of everything that’s in the game is missing. Quests end before a full resolution can be made, or you don’t get to see the most important parts (Hawke’s return from the Deep Roads, Hawke getting the estate, Aveline confronting the corrupt captain of the city guard, Aveline’s marriage, etc...). Fights never progress in design beyond, enemy appears, you kill them, second group of enemies appear, you kill them, third group of enemies may or may not appear. Even bosses follow the same exact routine. The entire game is a dark build-up. Hawke (the main character) grows more and more important, but he loses more and more each time. The entire game is filled with points where no matter what Hawke does, he can’t succeed. All of this culminates in the final hour or so of the game, becoming one complete and utter failure for Hawke as a hero. And then, when things are at their darkest, the game ends.
I’m a fan of many different kinds of endings. Dark endings, sad endings, happy endings, crazy endings, even wtf endings. The one thing all of these things have in common is that they are endings. Dragon Age 2 doesn’t end. Everything goes to shit, and that moment when Hawke actually has the chance to do something, to make up for all the things they couldn’t change throughout the entire game, and Bioware doesn’t give it to us. This is not The Empire Strikes Back folks. Things got dark in that movie, but it had a true and proper ending. There was a final fight and the heroes lost. That doesn’t happen here. Sure, there’s a final fight, and you even win, but then the story basically acts like you lost. You can’t have it both ways and call it an end.
The fact is that we’re either going to get a proper ending in Dragon Age 3, or more likely since Flemeth is almost assuredly going to be the big-bad in that game, it’s going to come as DLC or an expansion pack. Before you try to explain to me how expensive video games are to make and how dirt cheap they are for entertainment, I’ll just say that I know, and I’m not like that. I’m fine with selling extra bits of content, things that couldn’t be finished in time, or anything like that. Even paying for content already on the disk doesn’t bother me that much. But the goddamn ending to your story better be in the fucking game when it ships, especially when the game is as buggy and needing of some playtesting as this one. Fallout 3 had more of an ending than this game, and I hated that game’s ending.
One thing I’ve avoided discussing is the game’s writing. I wanted to save this for last, being the area where I have to most knowledge, and thus the most to complain about. I’ve always enjoyed Bioware stories. They may not have the best writing, or the most complex ideas, but they’re fun It’s like playing an action movie. For the past few games, Bioware seems to have understood what they’re good at, making games where the main character is increasingly badass and well... action hero-like. They didn’t do that this time. Bioware decided to take a page out of Obsidian’s book, and tried to make a darker story, with more difficult choices and less clear-cut good guys. Bioware tried to make DA2 a game that’s less about black and white, and more about shades of grey... and occasionally the succeeded at it. There is a long chain of quests regarding someone killing women in the town, and it gets quite dark and tense towards the end. When it hits the end of the quest though, Bioware cops out. They make the murderer a complete stereotype (and completely unrelated to everything else in the quest), and they completely deny his impact. I’m impressed that they tried something so difficult, but the fact is that you really should stick with what you’re best at, especially in writing. Obsidian gets away with making morally complex stories, because they have very talented writers that understand morally complex situations. Bioware has decent writers, but they’re about as morally complex as white bread. They just don’t understand the different scales of evil enough to write those kinds of stories. On the other hand, I have no doubt that Obsidian writers would fail flat on their faces if they tried to write a story as black and white as the original Knights of the Old Republic.
The companions in this game are, much like the writing a very mixed bag. Aveline manages to strike the perfect balance between being a stuck-up bitch, and an actually likable person (she’s probably one of the most complex characters in a video game, not to mention a strong female character). Meanwhile, Anders is whiny, annoying, and generally just a terrible person. They had something interesting going on with Merrill being nerd-bait/girl-next-door but having horrible dark things happen to her, but in never goes anywhere (her character is exactly the same the entire game). Fenris could have been a great joke about emo-characters if he wasn’t taken so seriously within the game. I didn’t use Isabella enough in my play-through to see what her writing was like. Hilariously, their best character turns out to be Varric. Upon first meeting Varric you would assume that he’s a typical con-artist. Nice and friendly, then he takes your money and runs-off. Instead you get a decent person with a good sense of humor. He’s basically the best friend I’ve seen in a video game. He’s a wonderfully fresh take on the charming rogue. I mean, he even calls Fenris “broody” (note Varric has a nickname for every character except for Aveline, seeing as how she’s the only character developed enough to avoid being a stereotype I find this hilarious).
Speaking of Aveline and Varric, they both happen to be the only companions in the game (ignoring DLC characters and siblings) that can’t be romanced. Considering two of the best characters in Mass Effect, Wrex and Mordin, are also unromanceable, I find this to be quite telling about Bioware’s writers. Personally, I subscribe to the belief that every good story is at its core a romance story. Sadly, romances in video games have rarely helped prove my point (although it may help explain why so many video game stories are so bad). Bioware in particular has always had very awkward romances. They didn’t break that tradition in this game, and I believe that I may have found part of the reason why:
"I don't believe in happy endings when it comes to love." - D. Gaider (Lead Writer for DA2)
I’m not sure of the veracity of this quote; I found it on a forum online. Regardless, of whether it is true or not, it accurately depicts my feelings on Bioware’s writers when it comes to romance. have you ever read anything written by somebody who was just dumped? I have, and they get written just like in DA2. Bioware romances tend to come in three types. Purely physical, where it’s all about sex and power (Miranda in Mass Effect 2). Painful, where the character doesn’t want to be in love (Morrigan in DA:O). Or last, but probably creepiest, true love, where the character admits love immediately and becomes super-attached and creepy (Liara in Mass Effect). I honestly can’t think of a Bioware romance that seems actually healthy, but considering how few relationships actually are in the real world, I could deal with that. What bothers me is how incidental romances are in these games. In an action movie the guy getting the girl is just as important as saving the day, and often being forced to choose between the two is the antagonist’s final weapon.
I know I’ve listed a lot of faults, and it may seem that I hate this game. In the end, I found Dragon Age 2 to be a fun, albeit unfinished game. If I had paid $40 or less I would have been perfectly satisfied with what I get, as it is I am only mildly disappointed. So long as you don’t go into this game expecting GOTY 2011 and you assume that your choices will only effect dialogue rather than the story itself, you should have a fun time.
Every day movies rely more and more on digital animation and effects, meanwhile video games gain access to higher quality voice-actors and get ever closer to building a bridge over the uncanny valley. As this gap between video games and movies closes, interactivity grows more and more important as a dividing line between the two media. Perhaps my favorite methods of interaction is the player’s ability to alter the story.
As far as I’m aware, player interaction within a game’s story first appeared in PC games, specifically RPG’s. Most notable of these were the D&D based games, such as Baldur’s Gate or Planescape: Torment. These games allowed the player to decide exactly what it was that the main character said. The vast majority of these “dialogue choices” were nothing more than fluff, meaning that they had no impact on quest lines, romances, or the overall game story. However, some choices were meaningful, and capable of changing even the ending a player received. A good example can be found in the Blade Runner video game. As the movie had different endings depending on which cut you saw; the game had multiple endings based upon the choices the player made during the game. These choices never altered the final scene of the game, but they did change whether the main character was actually a robot, or if they even knew what they were.
As the years have passed, developers and writers have honed their craft. Where it was once blindingly obvious what choices would change the story, it has become much more difficult to tell with recent titles (at least on the first time through). Mass Effect, Mass Effect 2, and Dragon Age 2 have taken an interesting turn with letting the player choose the main character’s dialogue (especially for such a formula based developer). Rather than showing you exactly what the character will say, and leaving him unvoiced, in these games the main character has voiced lines, and the player can choose from not only vastly reduced lines (down to 3 on average from 6 or so), but what the player is shown on screen is only an approximation of what the character will actually say. These semi-hidden options work with the voiced dialogue to move the player from being the main character, to being the main character’s director. You can’t choose what your actor will say exactly, but you can guide him along the path you want in order to tell the story you want to tell. In this position the game becomes less about a specific story, and more about the player telling the kind of story they want (which is why I find it so enjoyable with Bioware’s action-hero narratives). It’s a very neat effect, and is something I’ve personally wanted to see happen ever since I was a little kid at the movie theater.
Not all games that offer story interactivity allow control over a character’s dialogue. It is, in fact, more common (among games that let the player change the story) for the player to have only a few chances for this interaction. Nier is one of these games. You can never choose what the main character will say, and for most of the game you have no control over the story. A few times the game gives you a choice as to do something or not, but these are tricks. Known as “but thou must”, these options only allow you to pick one choice. Choosing anything else results in someone saying something similar to, “but though must!” and placing you back at the initial choice. Well hated among video game players, because of the false depth they provide, in certain, very emotional places (the end of Metal Gear Solid 3 comes to mind), they can help enhance a player’s emotional state. Sadly this, proper use, of these false choices is very rare. The power of Nier’s story comes mostly from extremely strong writing, but the few choices it allows within the story, even its “but though must”’s add just the proper amount of player involvement to take complete control of your emotions. By letting you, the player, make these extremely important decisions, it makes their results entirely your own.
These two examples are very different in the amount of control you have in the story, but they are both success stories. Where a video game’s story fails, is when they don’t allow player involvement. The worst thing a game can do is have the player think, “Why can’t I do that?” A good, well-designed game never breaks a player’s sense of freedom and immersion. This is not to say that players should be able to do everything, not even Rockstar (developers of the Grand Theft Auto games) has been able to do that. But if you’re going to block a player’s path, or kill off a character, you have to make it seem like there is no way that they could save them (or get through that path). In the end, video games have less in common with movies and books than you’d think, and more in common with storytelling. A good storyteller adapts their tale to the audience at hand, and a good game conforms to its audience’s expectations.
I always appreciate comments, and criticism. Especially criticism. So please, let me know if there's anything I can do better, or that you want to hear about. Leave a comment here, contact me by e-mail, or send a tweet @Corynrags.
Hmm. It looks like I’m going to need a little more time/coffee before I can condense my thoughts into something readable. I’ll give you guys a little preview of why I started thinking about this subject to help tide you over.
Like many gamers, I’ve been playing Dragon Age 2 recently, and I’ve been enjoying it quite a bit (in spite of its flaws). Of course, while playing I couldn’t help but compare DA2 to its predecessor, Dragon Age: Origins (never played Awakenings personally), and its in-company rival, Mass Effect 2. To me, DA2 seemed to bridge the gap between the other two games; offering the voiced main-character and semi-hidden dialogue wheel from Mass Effect, while retaining some of the more grindy, free-flowing aspects of DA:O.
Another game that I’ve been playing recently, and have recently completed, is Nier. I could go on for days about how astoundingly, and surprisingly good that game is, and I likely will in the future, but for now just take my word that it is a decent game that tells a phenomonal story. Part of the power of this story, is the player’s interaction with it. The points where the player can affect the story are rare, and very limited in the options available, but they hold enormous power. It is the comparison between these limited interactions, and the plentiful choices offered in DA2 that I hope to discuss tomorrow. Until then, have a good night!
You know, if anybody actually read this site I would have been worried about letting people down over the past two months. Luckily for me, nobody does, as I've been spending most of my time job hunting and working on my friend's role-playing site. Regardless, that's not what I cam here to talk to you about (though you should go take a look at it), I wanted to discuss something very important to me, video game music.
For most people when they think of video game music they think of bleeps and bloops, or at best something like the soundtrack to Tron. This wasn't even really a fair estimation back in the 80's, but that doesn't change people's perceptions, instead you should listen to me and realize that men and women with P.H.D.'s in music agree that the best classical music in the last twenty years has come from video games. While modern, classical composers (that's a bit of an oxymoron) focus on making their pieces technically impressive, video game composers are focused with entertaining their audience, much like Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, and all the great names had to. If you don't believe my words, then perhaps you'll listen to this:
This is a re-orchestration of the soundtrack for The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, done by the wonderful people of at Zelda Reorchestrated found here. From their site you can even find links to download the entire soundtrack, a whopping 80+ tracks, absolutely for free. Go check it out, this is some of the best music you'll hear all year. I'm working on a secret project right now, but I may give a small hint as to what I'm working in the next week. Until we meet again!
The long wait is finally over! Today is the official grand opening of A Curious Tale! From here on out expect a wide variety of content filled posts, primarily related to video games. For those who are not interested in video games, or have no previous knowledge of the subject, worry not! My goal is to make my content accessible and interesting to all parties. To prove my point, I'm going to start with the beginning of beginnings: what is a video game?
Merriam-Webster defines a video game as: "an electronic game played by means of images on a video screen and often emphasizing fast action". This is a perfectly accurate definition, but it doesn't help a parent looking at the latest XBox360 titles for their eleven year-old son. And what exactly counts as a game? Do the "find the animal" games in Dora the Explorer count as video games. They are games and are played "by means of images on a video screen", and yet they aren't video games.
To me, a better definition for a video game would be: "an electronic game played by means of a controller device and images on a video screen." While this is technically untrue (there are video games that can be played by voice commands alone), it is, for the moment, a correct definition for more than 99% of all video games ever made.
A controller device, or more commonly, a controller, is essentially a simplified T.V. remote. You have a number of buttons, that when pressed cause an action on the screen (much like pausing a movie with a remote). Recent advances have even made wireless controllers (do I really need to explain?) commonplace, further cementing the similarities to a remote control. There a many different types of controllers; different video game systems (referred to as consoles) use different controllers, different games on the same system will use different controllers (Guitar Hero titles use a controller shaped like a guitar), and computer games will use a standard mouse and keyboard (most of the time).
However these controllers look, they are all used for the same purpose, controlling the action shown on the screen (or more commonly reffered to as "in the game"). We'll start with the very first game (generally regarded), Tennis For Two. Actually, I lied the original Tennis For Two (pictured above) was played on an oscilloscope display and was significantly more advanced than the game it inspired, Pong, which will actually be my example.
Pong (for the Atari, I'll explain in another post) is played using a controller that has as it's primary inputs (the buttons you press to make things happen) a single button and an analog stick (a stick you move in a 360 degree radius, the Atari controller is pictured below to help you). The button does very little in the game, but the stick can be pushed up or down to move your "paddle", a white bar displayed on the screen. The game consists of two white bars and a small white square which bounces back and forth across the screen. If the square reaches either the left or right side of the screen the person controlling the paddle (the player) opposite of that side gains one point. The side that has more points when you stop playing is the winner. To see Pong being played, click this link.
As the years have progressed, video games have gotten more and more advanced, but this simple facet of using a controller (of some sort) to manipulate what appears on the screen has remained the central tenet of video games.
If you have any comments, concerns, or suggestions for things you would like me to discuss, feel free to leave a comment or send me an email at corynragsdale@gmail.com.
P.S. Sorry Oxford English Dictionary, but your site costs money to get a definition.
Apologies for the late post, excessive heat plus too many cheese sandwiches turned me into a moron rolling around on the floor in agony.
As I said before, mods come in all shapes and sizes, one of the smallest and most common comes in the form of a cosmetic change.
The above image would is on the higher end of what one might consider a cosmetic change. In this case, the modder created unique models in a 3d modeling program and tied them with unique items the modder created within the video game's world-editor (in this case, Oblivion). Remember that most video games do not include a world editor or other modding tools. For each item that the programmers include, the easier it is for modders to add new content and the more likely it is that a healthy modding community will develop.
When the developer goes through the effort, and adds modding tools for their playerbase to use (especially one as relatively easy to use as Oblivion's world editor) modders can add wonderful (if copyright infringing) content like this to their games.
While this is a very impressive modification, and it represents at least a couple of weeks worth of work if not more, it is not as far as mods can go.
The above video is a sample video of gameplay in Half-Life 2. This doesn't include everything you'll see in Half Life 2 obviously, but you can see what it generally looks like. Note the first person perspective, and the realistic graphics, these are consistent throughout the entire game. The video that follows is a mod for Half-Life 2.
Obviously mods can add a ton of greatf content to video games, but there are dangers to such freedom. Tomorrow I'll give you a slight glimpse into the dangers of modding.
You've tracked down the princess, solved all the villagers minor squabbles and are ready to end it once and for all. It's time to fight the Final Boss.
Final Bosses are the culmination of everything you have accomplished in your time with the game. All that you have learned gets put on the test in this final exam. Final Boss' are the developers most important weapon; it is in the final boss fight where players set their impression of a game in stone, and a weak final boss can ruin what is an otherwise astounding game. Just like a fireworks display, we feel disappointed if the final bang doesn't give the biggest boom. Unlike a fireworks display, the Final Boss must tie together all of the narrative points, gameplay experiences, art aesthetics, and musical themes for a single moment of connectedness. The Final Boss is the time when you want your audience to finally understand everything that the game has been trying to say. From the tireless perseverance of Mario's search for the missing Princess Toadstool in Super Mario Bros., to the crushing fate of death in Persona 3, it must all be encapsulated in this final climactic scene.
Final Bosses come in all shapes and sizes. They can be multiform monstrosities that eventually shapeshift into building size blobs of flesh, or they can be a normal human being. For the most part, however, Final Boss' tend to sit in two categories: human-esque opponents and what I define as the more monstrous encounters. The following videos present a view of these two categories:
Human Type - Final Fight with Ganondorf from Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess: -(note there are three fights before this one)
Monster Type - Mother Brain from Super Metroid: -skip to
I will say that both of these are considered examples of extremely good Final Boss fights, with the Mother Brain fight from Super Metroid known as one of the best boss fights in video gaming (how much of this is rose-tinted glasses is unclear as I am most certainly wearing mine). Bad Final Boss fights are a dime a dozen, and most games tend to end quite weakly, and usually on the wrong chord. One reason for this neglect, of what I consider to be the most important part of a video game, is that unlike movies or books, which most people finish eventually, video games rarely get finished. I myself had this problem, and only in the past four years or so have I really tried to get to the end of video games (time constraints coupled with most games averaging in at 50-60 play time to complete made me only invest in beating the games I really, really liked). Developers are aware of this, and so they spend the majority of their development time working on the beginning of their game, in order to hook players into investing their time (and more importantly money) into the rest of the game. Since the least amount of people will see the end of the game, why should they spend the most effort on it?
Still, I feel that a fantastic Final Boss can take even a mediocre game to the stars, and some games have been entirely defined to me (and my peers) by their final encounter. Perhaps the most haunting of all of these is the final boss of Earthbound (what the image up top is depicting).
Warning! These two videos will make very little sense to you without the context of the entire game. Try not to understand the plot, but instead focus on the way the music works together with the shifting background to convey a sense of hopelessness and dread.
I was going to talk about Final Boss encounters today, and the I saw this, Top Gun. That link will take you to a forty-minute video talking about Brandon Crisp, a young man who died last November after running away from home because his parents took his XBox360 away from him. The video talks about Brandon's death, his obsession with video games that led to his running away, video game addiction, and professional gaming.
Let me preface everything I am about to write by saying that Brandon's death was a tragic accident and I would never wish for this to happen to anyone.
This video perfectly demonstrates how those in video game culture (or the industry) see those who aren't, as well as how those outside of the culture see those who are in it. The scenes between the professional gaming team and the interviewer I feel are the most pronounced in this aspect. Here we have a woman who has almost no knowledge of video games, asking weighted questions to a group that in order to exist has to legitimize gaming in the eyes of people like her. My favorite moment is when the interviewer presses the group on the fact that they are killing people in these games, as she makes a legitimate statement, but you can see in the gamers' expressions that they can't make her understand with just words, as she'll just keep going back to that single point. The group does a very good job of keeping their cool, as I'm sure that if I were in that situation I would either burst out saying, "it's just a game!" (thus countering my own attempts to legitimize my career) or going off on a long tirade about how when you really kill people they release their bowls and can't come back to life in fifteen seconds.
The most heartbreaking scenes in this video are those with the parents. It's just so sad to see them, that even after this tragedy, they don't understand their kid well enough to know why he ran away after they took his XBox. The father talks nonchalantly about having to go in and rip the cords out of the wall sometimes (did he never learn that this could damage the system?). The saddest to me is how they begin to learn that their son wanted to be a professional gamer, but decide to create a scholarship in his name that promotes "real" sports, completely neglecting the fact that their son began to game in the first place after he got kicked out of Hockey because he was too small to be a goalie. It's like watching them spit on their own son's grave. It just seems to me that Brandon would have preferred that they try and make a scholarship that would help someone break into professional gaming (not an easy task considering you won't see any monetary rewards until you are among the top 100 or so gamers amongst several million rivals, all while your practice is looked down upon because you're just playing games).
The video is an interesting look into both of these worlds, and even though it does some things that make my blood boil (ignore the fact that he got kicked out of hockey for his size and putting the burden of parenting on game companies) it is still a very interesting video to watch.
As a final note, most professional gamers make roughly $30-$40k a year, and this is not including those who can't support themselves by gaming alone (the vast majority). This is most likely why the professional gamers refused to answer how much they make, which is a very personal question anyways.
In a video game some of the most defining moments are the clashes with dramatic and powerful figures that test player skills to their limits. These encounters are extremely unique with the enemy often having a special model and sometimes even their own theme music. These are bosses, one of the most important pieces in video game design.
Bosses can best be thought of as tests or midterm exams. Bosses are much more difficult than everyday assignments (regular enemies) or quizzes (mid-bosses) and are given more of a chance to overcome the player (just as it's much easier to bomb your midterms than it is a regular exam). Bosses also comprise many elements of previous encounters: in the skills required to defeat them, the aesthetics in their design, and in the themes they present (again much like how a midterm is comprised of questions from your previous homework assignments and quizzes). Bosses also provide a place for designers to really show off what they can do.
However, some games ignore bosses or use them improperly. Often games will fail to implement bosses (not knowing how to work them into the narrative or not seeing why they are necessary). These games often suffer, as without boss encounters to test player progress, game difficulty often ramps up excessively or fails to challenge (interest) players. Furthermore, without these extreme encounters, players often begin to get bored of doing the same things over and over again (imagine the most boring job you've ever performed). Some games refuse to use boss encounters because of their genre; a puzzle game that has no boss encounters, because why would a puzzle game have bosses? These are poor design, as even in puzzles players need lulls and highs, here a boss could be a particularly difficult puzzle made of the solutions to multiple previous puzzles.
I present to you as examples three video games and their takes on boss encounters (the videos include the boss encounters).
- This is the only boss encounter in Fallout 3, and it takes place fairly early within the game. Notice how quickly the encounter ends (despite the fact that the player is playing on the highest difficulty level). Note also that there is no unique music for the encounter. While the enemy model is unique, there are fifteen or so more super mutant behemoths like this within the game (though this is the only one who attacks suddenly and is referenced by other characters within the game). One of Bethesda's largest failings with their open world titles is the lack of bosses. There are simply too few unique enemies, and Fallout 3 is the worst offender. Aside from this beasty, every major enemy encountered in the main storyline is the same as the regular enemies you encounter randomly. The "final boss" of the game is a human who dies in two shots, not exactly the way to put an endcap on your story.
#2 Prince of Persia
Prince of Persia takes the opposite approach from Fallout 3. While Fallout 3 has one, questionable boss encounter, Prince of Persia has only a few fights that aren't boss encounters. Or perhaps I should say that it only has a few fights that aren't with boss characters. You see Prince of Persia has five main enemies (The Hunter, The Alchemist, The Concubine, The Warrior, and one more...)that you fight over the course of the game. You have many fights with each of these bosses, but they are small skirmishes that merely teach you the skills necessary to defeat them in their final boss encounters (much like the quizzes from before). The start of this video is one of the six encounters you have with The Warrior, and you can already see how much more developed an encounter this than Fallout 3 and it's super mutant behemoth. Note how the player must utilize certain strategies, and how much more cinematic the camera angles and arena are. Note (though it is difficult to hear in the video) the music that matches the event so closely. A vast improvement over Fallout 3.
#3 Shadow of The Colossus
This is a special video, as Shadow of the Colossus is not an ordinary game by any means. Shadow of the Colossus has 16 enemies in the entire game, the first being the one shown in the video. Each of these enemies is a full-fledged boss encounter, though each one teaches you something new that must later be applied to the final boss. I included this video not to praise such a strategy, as I feel that normal enemies and mid-bosses are just as important as homework and quizzes, but because it nails exactly what a boss encounter should look and feel like.
Bosses can be a very powerful tool, and can truly define a gaming experience, but when used incorrectly they can vastly weaken what may be a solid experience otherwise.
I realize now that during my discussion of the previous two games (Fallout 3 and Prince of Persia)I have neglected to make any mention of the music. I consider this to be a grave offense, as nothing truly shapes a video game experience as much as its music does.
Fallout 3 presents its music in two forms: its original compositions which consist mainly of brooding background songs, or two in-game radio stations that play violin music and 50's era tunes (Butcher Pete) respectively. While the original compositions mesh well with the game I soon turned to the radio stations, as the game was lonely and devastated enough without similar music. The radios on the other hand were soon replaced by iTunes being run in the background. While the songs were engaging enough (I especially enjoyed the juxtaposition of upbeat 50's tunes while blowing apart super mutants), there simply weren't enough songs for the game. Including original compositions I would estimate that there were roughly 50 songs in the game, a respectable number normally, but not wen over half of those songs weren't made for the game itself. The problem is that songs written for video games have much more to do with classical compositions than more modern tunes. You can sit down and enjoy listening to a new pop song, but you can't listen to it over and over again, as it simply isn't designed to be repeated in rapid succession.
A further strike against Fallout 3 is the mind-boggling decision not to give easy access for players to make their own radio station. Previous Bethesda games have made it extremely easy for players to add their own music to the game, and I cannot figure out why they did not continue to do so, especially when there is a radio station system within the game. I mean, what's the point to having radio stations at all when there are only two of them?
With all of these musical woes we also see the narrative being weakened as well. With no music directly tied to the narrative (there are no boss songs, no theme song for the main quest, etc...), and with music playing that often undermines the gravity of scenes within the game, it is no small wonder that players find themselves very distanced from their avatars and the events within the game. Fallout 3 attempts to engage the player by tying an emotional connection to them with their avatar's father, yet many players couldn't care less for him (even if he is voiced by Liam Nieson). Had there been some musical themes (perhaps one of loss that could be tied to the world and the players search for their father, and one for their father himself) I may have formed more of an attachment to the character.
It seems that as Bethesda becomes better and better and making large, free-roaming worlds, they have been getting worse at constructing an interesting and engaging narrative. As Morrowind's music stands unforgettable in my mind, and Oblivion's title theme gets my heart pumping, Fallout 3's music is as dry and forgettable as the wasteland it contains within.
The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess is a good game, and if you have a Wii or Gamecube and enjoy Zelda games I can only recommend its purchase. Please understand that this statement is true, no matter what I say from this point onwards.
#1. I hated playing Twilight Princess.
Twilight Princess was the first Legend of Zelda (LoZ) title that I have played for the purpose of "finding out what comes next." A Link to the Past, Ocarina of Time, Wind Waker, these three titles I spent more time just dicking around and having fun than following the story. Heck, I never even got around to beating Wind Waker. I played these titles for fun, and that was it. I didn't give a second thought to the story.
Twilight Princess was the exact opposite. I would get frustrated and angry when solving a puzzle took too long. I blazed my way through Twilight Princess, there was no five minute breaks to go hop over that fence or half-day detours to see if I can jump from from the top of the fire temple and land at the entrance (something I have done more than once in Ocarina of Time). I entered a temple, and within two hours, finished it. I did not toy with bosses, because I thought they looked cool or they were fun to fight, I decimated them, because Link had to save the princess.
Twilight Princess takes the Zelda series into a whole new world. The characterization and story, while not top-tier, are amazing and unheard of in the series. Link has a life before you come in, Hyrule is a world that continues to live and breath after you leave. These are great things, but they did make me feel a bit like a visitor. I felt more like a wanderer who just happens to brush through town when things are a little hairy. I saved the day, and then I leave, and not one person knows my name.
Notice that I have been making a distinction between myself (the player) and Link. While Link is, as he always has been, silent, through his expressions he conveyed much more of a character in Twilight Princess than we've seen before; and through the interactions with his friends, I got to learn a bit about who he was. We both wanted to save Hyrule and Zelda, but he was going to stay and live in that world, while I would leave for another land. I have never felt this kind of separation in a Zelda game before. Not that I hated it, on the contrary it made the world a lot less lonely (unlike, say, Metroid Prime), but if I was already feeling this separation, then they may as well have given Link a voice. Of course, link wasn't the only one to help the world feel less lonely, Midna was there as well.
Midna was, a genius idea. Take Navi, make her useful, then make her sneaky and self-centered, and you've got a bit of what Midna is like. Midna is, by far, the most complex and fleshed-out character in Twilight Princess, and she's also the only one with you the entire time (almost). Midna has her own desires, her own goals, and, contrary to her role, she often makes Link figure things out for himself rather than just give him the answer. The result is a companion that you can really bond too, and perhaps the greatest achievement of Twilight Princess. Every game could gain by following her example.
Gameplay is standard Zelda fare, if you've played Ocarina of Time, Majora's Mask, Wind Waker, then you've played Twilight Princess, except maybe a little more fun. Twilight Princess adds the ability to turn into a wolf for certain sections, and while this does help break up the monotony, the gameplay in the Zelda series is fun enough that it really wasn't necessary.
Honestly I hated the wolf thing, I didn't like the way it played, and I hated how all of the wolf sections were exactly the same (since the wolf never got any new skills, the puzzles for it never changed). The worst part about it was that you couldn't ride horseback when you were a wolf, and the horseback riding/fighting in Twilight Princess were, far and away, the funnest sections of the game. I can't say anything without having spoilers, but just know that all of the fights on horseback were amazing and that there should have been more of them.
All in all Twilight Princess is much like the time of day it focuses on, twilight. It's a liminal space, not quite day, not quite night, and Twilight Princess is a liminal game, not quite amazing, but not quite average. The story is a good step forward, Midna is a very good step forward, but the wolf sections are two steps backwards. I love what Twilight Princess means for the future of the series, but by itself it pales in comparison to its predecessors.
Also when the fuck are we going to learn what's up with Ganondorf, I mean the guy is essentially immortal (it's the same guy in every game, whereas Zelda and Link are "reincarnations"), yet all he wants to do is conquer Hyrule, he's got to have something more behind him than just that. I want to hear his story.
Edit: Shit! I forgot about the music! It was nice, standard fare, Midna's song was quite good (it's the song that plays after you beat a boss), but other than that they only time I noticed the music was when it was playing remixes of Ocarina of Time songs (which isn't a good sign). Also the wolf howling sections can bite my ass. Seriously, whoever thought those up must have been deaf, because changing the pitches of wolf howls does not equal an actual instrument. My ears bled from those sections.
Apparently I forgot to write up my post last night, so um, sorry. It's really kind of sad considering I spent most of the day thinking about what I wanted to write about as well as lining up the articles that I was going to discuss. In all honesty I wanted to stop talking about men and women, but then monday morning I found three new articles that were written in response to Hymowitz' article (or at least mentioned it). Three three articles: Kathryn Jean Lopez on Juno, Kate Muir's The Dark Ages. and Amanda Marcotte's response to these articles.
I'm not going to go really into depth on these articles (though I feel each one is worth reading for one reason or another), but I guess I can give a little bit of my thoughts (if you want more of my thoughts just ask me questions in your comments).
Lopez makes a solid argument and a nice review for Juno unless you've seen the movie (or in my case guessed the plot and talked for a couple of hours with someone who had seen it without them realizing that you hadn't seen it, just for kicks), in which case you realize that Lopez focuses her article a surprisingly large portion on one of the smaller characters while completely neglecting to mention the other male who is interested in Juno (the pregnant teen), but isn't a complete douchebag (Marcotte brings this up much more eloquently, and she also brings up an interesting note on the douchebag character that I hadn't thought of). Lopez also seems to fall into the pitfall of using fiction as evidence or support for things in real (like Hymowitz though not nearly as absurd).
Kate Muir starts off her article sounding completely ignorant of what gaming and men are really like, but towards the end of her article she actually seems to get a little more intelligent and actually seems to understand that men are losing all of the things they can do to show off their manliness (sports is really the only area left relatively untouched), and that games are a new venue for this (honestly, what's more manly than chainsawing your way through an alien army trying to destroy everything you care about, chainsaws are manly, killing armies is manly, and protecting your home is manly).
Finally, Marcotte's article (post?) was something that I wasn't expecting, what with female gaming, especially female gaming that isn't in the casual market (Bejeweled, Solitaire, Tetris, Mahjong). Marcotte makes some generic comments against feminism, though her wording sometimes gets a little awkward and it was hard to tell if she though feminists hated men or not, but that isn't the real meat of her article anyways (despite its title). The real meat of Marcotte's article, at least for me, came in Marcotte's insight that if your boyfriend or husband or whatever is sitting around playing XBOX all day, that you can go do something yourself (outside interests for women? Why I never), play with him as if he's playing Halo 3 it definitely has Co-op (two players or more working together to complete objectives, assuming you don't want to kick his ass which is always a possibility. P.S. Most guys will stop playing games when they start losing a lot, so if you "really" want him to stop playing, just hop on and beat his ass down) and you might even have some fun, or if he really is just playing games entirely and completely ignoring you, then dump his ass. At this point in my life I'm used to women not realizing (or wanting) that they can play games with their guys rather than just sit around and watching them but I just don't understand this complete ignorance of the fact that if they don't like a relationship they can just up and leave the guy hanging. WOMEN, you are much hotter than guys, every guy in a relationship that I know of thanks the stars that their girlfriends don't realize how much better than them they could do (though most of my friends at least have good personalities and intelligence to boost them up). And for god's sake if there is something in your relationship that you don't like, tell your partner about it, if the two of you can't work it out, then LEAVE!!! I'm tired of seeing battered women who don't leave their terrible boyfriends/husbands, because they think they can't do better.
Sorry for the massive asides and terrible grammar above, but, well, I just got a bit riled up. My point is that women have a lot more on their side, and a lot more options than they think they do (at least in my experiences with women). And for pete's sake ladies, go out and have fun!
-Cory Ragsdale
P.S. After I get out of class I'll be writing another post today, as an article just came out that may help explain why women don't play games as much and may explain exactly why I'm so interested in finding one who does.
First things first, I did not post yesterday as I decided that trying to post every single day while going to school and hang out with my friends leads to posts like the one on Friday. As such I will no longer be updating on Friday or Saturday unless I really feel like it. With that out of the way I would like to talk about a subject that is near and dear to my heart, Silent Protagonists.
Once upon a time voice acting in a game was all but impossible, as such game designers opted to have written dialogue for their characters. This worked fine for the most part, but sometimes game designers noticed that players wouldn't really connect with the main characters in their stories, simply because that character's personality, what he chose to say and do, didn't mesh with how the player envisioned the character as a hero. The solution to this dilemma was deceptively simple, remove every single line of dialogue that the hero (the character in question and avatar of the player) had, turning them into a mute.
These days with voice-acting and stories that spoon-feed the player information as to how they should feel have become the norm, and many game designers have begun to declare that the era of the "silent hero" has passed. I think that they could not be more wrong. While I believe that voice acting has done more to improve storytelling in video games than anything else, and I very much enjoy games that have no silent protagonist (The Final Fantasy series comes to mind) and tell a definitive story, I do not think that the silent protagonist cannot coexist with these games.
The power of the silent protagonist comes from the players imagination; while the character may say nothing in the game, the player will almost always respond to the situations in their mind, deciding on a personality for the character that is similar to their own. This connection turns the silent protagonist into an avatar for the player who becomes much more invested in the story. The best part of this arrangement is that since the player "is" the protagonist, when that character inevitably saves the day, it's the player who gets to be the hero.
However, just like any design decision, there are some drawbacks and pitfalls that come with the silent protagonist. The designers must be very careful when making situations where the protagonist fails/looks like a fool/falls into an obvious trap as the player will take these as attacks upon themselves, or even worse, disrupts the personality that the player has created for their avatar. The other problem is that no matter how well you design the game, there are going to be points where the player's idea of what his character would do or care about is going to conflict with the designer's. A good example is Half-Life 2, there are a lot of people who like the Alex Vance character and enjoy her interplay with their character (Gordon Freeman), but there are people who don't like Alex's personality, and so when the game seems to be developing a relationship between the two characters the player feels that their own creative ideas (their idea of who Gordon Freeman is) have been snubbed, and nobody likes that feeling.
In the end I believe that as long as you recognize the risks that come with making a silent protagonist that it is a stronger format than the other option. Silent protagonists are the best heroes, they never say anything stupid, they never complain, and when push comes to shove they are ready without a word, and in my personal opinion they have made the best heroes to appear in video games: The Boy(Secret of Mana), Gordon Freeman(Half-Life/2/Episode-1/Episode-2), The Student(Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3), and of course Crono(Chrono Trigger).
-Cory Ragsdale
P.S. I am not one of those who hates Alex Vance, I mean come on, a strong, smart, hot girl with infinite ammo who doesn't have to be rescued from every single little headcrab that comes your way, sign me up!
Edit: The origins of silent characters that I mention are entirely my own thoughts, I'm pretty sure it was probably just lazy programmers who didn't want to get/pay a writer to come up with the dialogue. Also, I almost forgot, Persona 3 uses dialogue options given to the player to diminish the chances of interrupting a player's perception of the protagonist.
