Not only that, but it creeps me out that the characters can have such long conversations with a scary ass quiet dude in a suit that looks like that… If I saw him coming, I would just run…
There was a Drew Carey Show episode where Colin Mochrie plays a co-worker who pals around with - but doesn’t talk to - Drew’s boss Mr. Wick; instead, he relies on facial expressions and body language when they’re hanging out. As he explains to Drew, as long as Colin keeps quiet, he never says anything wrong; Wick can think whatever he likes about Colin. Naturally, the payoff is that the first time Colin says anything to Wick, he destroys their friendship.
So every time I play as Gordon Freeman or some other silent protagonist, I imagine him relying on making faces to communicate with people, too. But that’s the whole point to keeping the main protagonist silent: so his voice doesn’t distract you from your view of who he is and what he should sound like.
EDIT: BTW, can anyone think of any silent female protagonists? I don’t mean anonymous roll-yer-own Jane Does, but games like Half-life and Dead Space which give you a specific character to play, but don’t give her a voice.
The most jarring case of this happened to me in Rainbow Six Vegas 2. You see in the original Rainbow Six Vegas, you play as a silent protagonist. So I assumed you did the same in the sequel. It only when I was halfway through the game and thoroughly confused about what was going on that I finally realized that my character was one of the people I was listening to on the comm chatter who was talking back and forth with other people in the game. That completely threw me. I had not even considered that possibility before, and it was suddenly really disorienting, even after I knew what was going on, that one of the voices I kept hearing was supposed to be my voice.
Metroid
You do? I could’ve sworn that Logan (R6V1’s main character) was pretty chatty.
Is Samus silent in the Prime games too? I’ve never played any of them.
He was? Wow, then I guess I had the same problem with the original game. I guess he must have been one of the voices in the chatter we heard then.
At least in Metroid Prime she is.
That’s a fair response, although I think the Bioshock reasoning only applies if you retrofit it based on the ending. You don’t wander through the game thinking, “Man, they better have a really good reason for not having my character talk.”
I guess I just come from the opposite side of the spectrum. I hate game dialogue, so when it’s mercifully absent I’m happy, regardless of whether or not it makes sense from a purely storyline perspective. I’m definitely one of those people who gets pulled out of the game every time my character makes a dumb quip or a canned display of emotion, whereas with a silent protagonist I just fill in the areas where the character should respond but doesn’t.
I still insist the proper direction there would have been to keep Freeman totally silent, but everyone interacting with him be varying degrees of creeped out by it. Occasionally while you stared at someone, it could play the muted “chh chh chh” since dude was basically Jason Voorhees with HEV suit substituted for hockey mask and half a dozen guns for machetes.
You got me there. I admit that I really didn’t think much about my character’s lack of response in Bioshock. Perhaps, as others have pointed out, Bioshock’s characters and story didn’t seem to be lacking anything when I didn’t respond. Dead Space, on the other hand, screams for Isaac to react and it comes off as really weird that he doesn’t.
HA HA HA! Awesome!
Dead Space Wii Announced. Sort of.
Anyway, if they continue their proud tradition of being in the proud tradition of RE4, this could be great. I would re-purchase at the same 30$ price point I did for Resident Wii-vil.
I don’t know what it is about this game that makes the 3rd person control so incredibly good. It’s the best 3rd person controls I’ve ever experienced, I think. I’ve never been 100% comfortable with a 3rd person shooter before. Not like I am with first person. I can’t decide why it feels so natural, so responsive, so good.
Well, I re-rented this and finished it up tonight, so it’s nice that this topic popped back up today.
It just kept nagging at me that I kind of liked this game, and I felt I should give it another go before the summer avalanche started in.
But man, I really hate some of the level design on this thing. Maybe I should of played it on easy or something, but I just felt like there was too much respawn, and I was struggling to ever feel like I was in the zone on this one. Also, the later levels are designed like multiplayer maps, so it’s hard to find a good place to battle from. That made it feel mechanical rather than epic to me, especially since Isaac is kind of a gimp movement wise.
Ultimately I found a code that let me refill stasis whenever I wanted, and I actually found it pretty enjoyable that way.
The controls are pretty good though, and I’m glad I worked my way through it. I will say that, and I’ve seen this a lot lately, the game has a tendency to give you a lot of build up on certain characters without any real payoff to speak of.
Still, I’d play another one if they decided to make it.
Seriously?
I don’t know how it plays on console, but I tried it at a friend’s on PC a while back, and man am I glad I didn’t pick it up myself.
The controls were the weirdest combination of unresponsive and hyper sensitive. I spend a solid 10 minutes bouncing off walls & going crazy trying to figure out where I was looking. Dead Space felt more like a “drunk driver in a tank with a flat tyre” simulator than a shooter.
Disconnected, you sound like you’re married to your mouse and keyboard and you two are completely committed to each other. But maybe you need to have a conversation about boundaries, and whether it’s okay sometimes to flirt with the 360 controller for Windows. I’m not talk about an open marriage necessarily, but it should be okay for you and a gamepad to hold hands. Maybe make out a little.
At least be open to the concept that not every game is at its best when played with mouse and keyboard.
I may not own a 360 controller, but we’ve got three Logitech RumblePad 2 controllers, one of them hooked up to this machine.
When it comes to shooters, I very much am married to my mouse & keyboard. Not because them newfangled controllers ‘ave ta git off ma’ lawn, but because they’re better tools for the task. It’s the same reason I don’t use a hammer to screw screws, and don’t use keyboard+mouse to play platformers & beat 'em ups.
If Dead Space plays better with a controller, then I’m not the one with the problem. The game is.
But that’s all besides the point. Like I said, I don’t have a copy, I tried it at a friend’s, on his PC, with keyboard+mouse. I’m not even sure if he’s got a controller, though I suppose I could txt him and ask if you really must know.
I’m not sure if it was posted in this thread already but there was an issue with V-Sync causing major problems with responsiveness on the PC. I had no trouble with the controls myself after forcing V-Sync from outside the game instead.
Why would I want to know whether your friend has 360 controller? Now you’re just trying to confuse me, aren’t you?
If Dead Space plays better with a controller, then I’m not the one with the problem. The game is.
I can see there’s no room for rational discussion here. Let’s agree to move on.
On an entirely different topic: It’s so strange that I can find a game so soul-crushingly mediocre since I don’t care one whit about any of it’s characters, or on-going plotlines, and yet still enjoy playing it while I’m playing it.
Game has a very good graphics and sound engine, and the play mechanics are solid. The writing holds it back as well as the decision to have a silent protagonist. I think the game would have benefited greatly from giving you a voice.
If you want to, but if you’re implying a rational argument can be made to the effect that good gamepad controls can be superior to good WASD controls in a shooter, I’d really like to read it.