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Poll: Prefer a silent protagonist?
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Yes i would.
11.76%
4 11.76%
No, Simon is ok.
88.24%
30 88.24%
Total 34 vote(s) 100%
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Would prefer a silent protagonist. [spoilers]
Petike Offline
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#11
RE: Would prefer a silent protagonist. [spoilers]

The lack of a voiced protagonist would actually render a lot of the thoughtful dialogue from the finished game impossible. This is a problem I have with silent protagonists in games in general, Half Life and Dishonored being good examples of when using a silent protagonist can lead to contrived moments. I understand that game developers like using this sort of narrative setup because they want players to imagine themselves directly as the protagonist, and fill in the blanks themselves when it comes to guessing what the protagonist would reply in a conversation. (The other reason is that it's cheaper.) That said, this attempted illussion can fall apart very easily. If the player always sees and hears other characters miming a conversation with him, but he has limited interactivity to reply, the flow of these conversations might start seeming highly artificial after a while, and maybe even pointless. If you have too many blanks to fill in yourself and NPCs have to telegraph the direction the narrative is going to take, being a strictly silent player character feels more limiting than liberating.

I think the old Thief games did the best compromise possible: In addition to briefings and cutscenes, the protagonist sometimes quipped pre-scripted remarks in-game, despite being mostly silent throughout all missions. This solution still gave you the impression the character's truly there and reacting to things, but it wasn't excessive. It struck a good balance. That said, those games are very different to what any of FG's survival horrors are going for in terms of narrative and dialogue. Frictional's games have always depended on being fairly linear and narrative-heavy, for the sake of focused storytelling.

If you look through Frictional's back catalogue, you'll notice that even Penumbra's Philip technically wasn't a true silent protagonist. He doesn't say a single spoken word outside of the prologues, but you constantly had insight into what he's thinking, so I suppose you at least had internal monologue reactions to story developments. It's somewhat ambiguous, as he could just as well be saying some of that stuff out loud, e.g. some of his communication with Red over the radio. But regardless of whether he's talking audibly or just thinking to himself, he's still reacting, adding to the player's own impressions. A fully silent protagonist could never provide that sort of thing.

I found Simon a perfectly adequate character, his voice actor did a good job. I rather liked that he wasn't panicing every other moment, but tried to sound calm and press on, even though you could clearly tell from his voice that he's feeling tired and disappointed over everything. I think he had a surprisingly good rapport with Cath, considering how different in personality they seemed to be, Cath all aloof and distant and sometimes unnervingly upbeat.

"You... silly Billy !" (Clarence, Penumbra : Black Plague)
(This post was last modified: 09-08-2016, 08:42 PM by Petike.)
09-06-2016, 05:42 PM
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RE: Would prefer a silent protagonist. [spoilers] - by Petike - 09-06-2016, 05:42 PM



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