Video Game Heroes: Silent or Talkative

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Personally, I like video game characters to be the strong silent type. Do you like yours silent or talkative?

This minimalist style of characterization worked for Half-Life, it worked for BioShock, and, even though your characters only kind-of-sort-of talked in Borderlands (they never commented on the plot), it worked there, too. So when I was tasked to help write Borderlands 2, there wasn't even a question in any of our minds—just do what we did last time. I personally preferred silent protagonists to talkative ones, but that's only because, you know, I was smart and everyone who disagreed was stupid.
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Really depends on the role and the culture of the game.

Master Chief talking his head off would have been ridiculous.

But Mario is famous for "Woop", "Wahaa!", "Lets-a Go".

Japanese characters in general (games, movies, anime) are quite, and it fits them well.

Then you get someone like Flynn from Skylanders voiced by Patrick Warburton. It would be a sin to keep him quiet :)
 
Depends on the story of the game. Generally I do like them talking. Like Duke Nukem for example or Serious Sam.
 
There's nothing better than when the character says exactly the right thing at the right time, and that should be the metric for choosing how talkative the character is. Totally silent characters don't seem human; sometimes, that's the right way to go, but it's not the right thing to do all the time every time, which is the way the gaming industry usually goes.

Prey stood out in its time and genre because most other games like it then did not give the character any sort of voice at all, or have the character saying things like "Oh, GROSS!"
 
If I wanted to hear someone running their fucking mouth, I'd just go outside.
 
I dislike silent protagonist in RPG's or story focused games because then they have no personality. In other games, it doesnt matter as much.
 
westrock2000 said:
But Mario is famous for "Woop", "Wahaa!", "Lets-a Go".
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Oh God No! Adding voices (err, sound effects) to Mario and Link was one of the worst things Nintendo ever did.

Maybe Zelda: OoT was a good game, but just having to hear the whining of the fairy and Link made me want to take his sword and cut out their vocal cords.
 
It depends on the game/story. I'll use the Ace Combat series as an example because the three PS2 games had different story telling styles but all with silent protagonists:

- AC4. It worked because in the game you played through the missions and no one directly talks to you save for a few non-personal lines. The cut scenes were told from a neutral point of view of an entirely different person, who is not seen, mentioned or even known in the actual gameplay. The "antagonist" likewise did not know the player and never talked to them in game; only vaguely mentions you in a cutscene. He did not know the player by name/face and only used you as an example of an enemy that is not a coward. The silent protagonist make perfect sense and worked very well in this game.

- AC5. Personally I thought the silent protagonist did not work in this game. Your wing men (who were all annoying) talked to you in game. You could answer their questions via a Yes/No prompt, but you had no voice. Enemies knew who you were; yet you would not speak when spoken to. The cutscenes were mostly shown in the present, and shows your wing men talking to each other. Yet the player is never seen, never speaks or interacts with them. I found that extremely awkward. Why doesn't your player talk back? Where is he?

If the story is "in your face" then IMO the character shouldn't be silent. It just seems silly for other characters to talk directly to you and for your character remains silent.
 
Depends. Is your writing shit? If so, make the protagonist silent. No? Give them a voice.

For that reason I think most games should have silent protagonists.
 
depends on if there is actual different plot lines, like dragon age or mass effect. or at other times it can be used to advance the story, like when the character reveals knowledge to the player through his actions.
 
Depends on the talking.

If they're well-written and clever with their words, it adds to the experience. If they just say tedious random crap, no thanks.

Max Payne talked/narrated frequently and I couldn't get enough of it. On the other hand you have the mute, Gordon Freeman, and that's fine too.
 
Having just played though the single player plot of Portal 2 again, there were times that I wish I could have have thrown some witty retorts back at GlaDOS, or at least told Wheatley to shut up.
 
Unless a game has a very deep set of gameplay choices, so many that voicing all of them is impractical, then give the player character a voice. Unless being mute is actually part of the character's story, I think it breaks immersion when the character won't talk while others in the world yak it up.

This doesn't make Half-Life or Bioshock any less cool but it's not like you can really pretend you're Gordon Freeman. The dude [most likely] looks nothing like you. He's a scientist. He's shooting otherworldly creatures!

While making the player character speechless (as opposed to physically mute) can be an artistic choice, I think it's more commonly the easy choice and/or the safest choice - "this is how successful FPSes are done. Let somebody else take a risk."
 
Babbster said:
This doesn't make Half-Life or Bioshock any less cool but it's not like you can really pretend you're Gordon Freeman.
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Wrong, me. Of course you can *pretend* you're Gordon Freeman. You should have said "it's not like you can really believe you're Gordon Freeman." Get it together, man.
 
Don't care for chatty games. Still haven't been able to finish a Mass Effect game and all the endless chit chat sessions. The best are the Stalker games. No chit chat, no silly women battle companions- just a bunch of stalker guys saying get lost.
 
The argument can be made that a talkative protagonist generally removes the player from the game. You are usually left with the jarring feeling of "I wouldn't say that." A silent protagonist lets the player decide what the motives really are. Of course, this ploy only works in first person scenarios where enough information is withheld to allow the character depth (i.e. Master Chief).
 
Context.

Shepard spoils me--any other RPG that doesn't have protagonist voicing (even though I understand completely trying to record lines for every single permutation in a game like Fallout 3 is cost-prohibitive) seems empty to me.

A yakking Master Chief, as others have noticed, would seem off.
 
The less you say the more powerful you are are I like Dark Souls characters how they speak just Narrative and don't do much action.
 
Dragon Age Origins: Silent protagonist was perfect, it allowed you to not only voice your character yourself, but opened up all the options for races and backgrounds. Also the dialogue trees are more complex when the protagonist is 'silent' though the option text showed what your character 'said'.

Mass Effect: Wouldn't be the same without speach, but the game was completely built around Shepard as the protagonist.

Not every game is Mass Effect, nor should it be, the dialogue options and voicing is fun, and works for those specific RPG's but they are really not full fledged (C)RPG's at that point, they are ARPGs. I love Divinity, Baldur's Gate, Never Winter and DAO for the fact that I get to role play that character, games would be bland if they never let you imagine anything. Then again, I read books.
 
I just want consistency.

If my character is audibly spoken to, I want him to audibly respond. So many games that I have played lately have fouled on this.

"Hey there, who are you?"

"..."

"Quiet one, huh? Where are you headed"

"To the mines" (in text)

It's just a jarring change in tempo of the story telling.

Might just be me though. /shrug
 
One of the most off-putting things about Halo 4 was the amount of dialog from the Master Chief. The first three games he only spoke during cutscenes and only like ten of them.
 
GTA 5 has silent characters and the game constantly toys with that. Again it has to match the story and be relevant.

I will say THE DIG is one of the most enjoyable voiced over games I've played ever. Zork Grand Inquisitor is another favorite with plenty of lines and yet a silent protagonist.

Bioshock Infinite it worked well when he talked. Unreal tournament 3 is an example of terrible voices. the auto-taunt was abysmal to the point of comedy. I still wish youtube had the one video of the auto-taunt being incredibly stupid and funny. Destiny had some very shitty lines that make my brain hurt.

Silent works as long as it works with the story/plot. Vocal works if you don't have terribly inadequate story telling going on.
 
GushpinBob said:
One of the most off-putting things about Halo 4 was the amount of dialog from the Master Chief. The first three games he only spoke during cutscenes and only like ten of them.
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You mean halo reach right? That other halo 4 doesn't exist.


(I'm pretending dammit!)
 
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