I am tired of first-person shooter games featuring a cookie cutter main character. I can see why some would need to, and I can understand given a context of fighting soldiers and what not you'd need to have a character that fit the bill, but I raise this counter argument.
Name the main character of Pariah. Good, now name the main character of F.E.A.R.. Excellent. Now, name the main character of Half-Life 2. Well done.
Gordon Freeman is lauded as one of the best examples of the FPS protagonist in gaming history. He's a non-military man, a physicist. We as a gamer connect to him better, he makes more of an impact on us, I think. One other great example is Riddick. "Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay" is considered one of the best Xbox games ever made. Riddick isn't a a trained military man, but he is naturally talented and his world is much more interesting than one filled with super soldiers and the like.
Give me a game where the protagonist actually seems more human, maybe even cheerful at times? I'm tired of all this "My name is Blah-dy McBlahperson, and I know the truth/I used to be like you/I remember when it started."
Maybe I'm flowing a lot of hot air, but we've got a lot of room to grow as designers right now, and we need to take advantage of it. The new game coming out of Hi-Voltage Studios, "The Conduit," sure looks interesting and all, pushing the Wii to it's graphical best, but the story/aesthetic looks so boring/done/trite that I'm really not interested in the game at all. I feel like all I'd need to do is watch a video of someone playing for 10 minutes, nod at the great graphics, and go play something else. I'm sure I'll play it eventually, but they could have done so much more with story and development and character, but instead it looks like an amalgam of "Psychic Soldier Battles Aliens from Dimension X". I'm more interested in Capcom's Dark Void, and I've only seen a few screens/videos from it.
A note to any developer trying to press the limits of graphics and graphic capabilities on consoles: Don't let the story lag behind. Tacking on a story that's full of particles and normal maps won't leave a mark. Take the time to fill the world. It needs love too.
Posts
Some of my digital art
8 years ago
1 comment:
The question is why do audiences demand white, male, right-handed, uber-muscled military men? Why do publishers not want to throw their money behind a game featuring a woman, black man or god forbid, a LEFTY? I feel that Capcom took a huge risk with Sheva being black and woman and a lefty. For instance, my brother insists that Sheva runs in a strange way due to her left handedness. Perhaps audiences need to evolve out of their shell before the industry can.
Post a Comment