Christ Centered Gamer

wferwfer wrote:I think master chiefs character is that he doesn't have one, he's just a silent BA work horse of the military and you fill his shoes. Kinda like in Half Life, where Gordon Freeman doesn't even have ANY dialogue. And what do we know of him? He has a beard, glasses, has a good science resume, and does BA things, like the chief, as a silent always working protagonist. Of course Valve creates character depth elsewhere, but the point is that not every game (or perhaps story in general) needs to have you looking into the main characters friggin' childhood or something etc.

Who is Master Chief? Who is he?

We begin the first game, dropped onto this ring world called "Halo." The marines hail the man as a hero. You do some pretty amazing stuff. You fight off hordes of Covenant, and finally the Flood. Yet the only exposition (and yes, wfer, exposition is very, very important in stories, even when the best exposition is a lack of exposition) that we have about the Chief is through Cortana and Sgt. Johnson. That's all well and good, but there is very little to go on about the character, beyond what little is provided in games, and the official backstories/side stories that Bungie has provided through the Halo novels.

Story requires exposition. Maybe we don't need to see what kind of childhood they had, but I never asked for that, and I'm pretty sure no one else did either. What we need are adequate motives. And while saving the world and trying to "finish the fight" are all well and good, that's not enough for me.

For example, let's take a look at the protagonist Frodo, from Lord of the Rings. Different character, right? But there are similarities. He ends up on an almost one-man quest to stop the evil and save the world. That's pretty impressive, and that's what the Master Chief does. But why does Frodo do it? His initial reason for this long, epic journey that he undertakes is that he is attached to the One Ring. But there are other elements. He feels that this task is his duty; this is evident when Boromir attacks him, trying to take the Ring for himself, which results in Frodo breaking the Fellowship.

Later, we find that Frodo is becoming physically ill from the Ring. Further impetus to destroy it, and end the journey. He tries to sever his relationship with Sam, the only person who was helping him. And through this, we find a character of courage and weakness, an ordinary person who is called to the extraordinary.

We know nothing of his childhood (yes, we do in the books, but who actually read those?). His character is portrayed through his actions.

Because of all this, I think your point that Marcus has more character is actually a bit off. With the chief, you could pontentially see more character by looking at the psychological role he plays as a the silent shell you take control of, an person that society elevated above other humans, but at the same time stripped of individuality and those dimensions of thought we consider so human through his transformation into their weapon.

Master Chief's actions, while heroic, have no face. He is a blank slate, and the player inhabits him. This is why Marcus from Gears' is miles ahead of him. Marcus has conflict. He has a personal life. He has a backstory. He has all of these things, and he is not a blank slate. His personality is not filled out by the player.

I think you're reading a bit too much into the Chief's intentions. He has no "psychological role." He is, for all intents and purposes, no one. He is every player. And while that's a sly, subtle take on the phenomenon of gaming's recurring "silent protagonist," it's hardly a character.

I mean I'm kinda giving Bungie more credit then they deserve here, this is kinda how I look at it in the game's universe. And Bungie has talked about looking at chief a bit as I just described him above, but we all know on the drawing board of the original game he was just a cool looking dude with guns. They could have done more in their games to emphasis the Chiefs character, which is his lack of character, but even still his empty shell personal is, to me anyway, more withwhile than Marcus', which is just like "I'm a testoterone, steroid fueled jacked dude who kills stuff with only one emotion and occasionally curses." He's boring, at least the chief is cool.

Bungie wanted - and wants - the Master Chief to become an in-game embodiment of the player. When Cortana cries out to the Chief, they want the players to identify with that. She is, in a way, the love interest of the story... though it's hardly a conventional romance, and proves more personal to the player than to the Chief. This is because the Master Chief is the player, and the character in-game has no emotions that we can see, apart from our own.

Again, Marcus Fenix is pretty much exactly the opposite, which makes him far more of a character. Characters are what their writers established; they aren't avatars - embodiments - of the players themselves.

Drewsov wrote:Who is Master Chief? Who is he?

We begin the first game, dropped onto this ring world called "Halo." The marines hail the man as a hero. You do some pretty amazing stuff. You fight off hordes of Covenant, and finally the Flood. Yet the only exposition (and yes, wfer, exposition is very, very important in stories, even when the best exposition is a lack of exposition) that we have about the Chief is through Cortana and Sgt. Johnson. That's all well and good, but there is very little to go on about the character, beyond what little is provided in games, and the official backstories/side stories that Bungie has provided through the Halo novels.

Story requires exposition. Maybe we don't need to see what kind of childhood they had, but I never asked for that, and I'm pretty sure no one else did either. What we need are adequate motives. And while saving the world and trying to "finish the fight" are all well and good, that's not enough for me.

For example, let's take a look at the protagonist Frodo, from Lord of the Rings. Different character, right? But there are similarities. He ends up on an almost one-man quest to stop the evil and save the world. That's pretty impressive, and that's what the Master Chief does. But why does Frodo do it? His initial reason for this long, epic journey that he undertakes is that he is attached to the One Ring. But there are other elements. He feels that this task is his duty; this is evident when Boromir attacks him, trying to take the Ring for himself, which results in Frodo breaking the Fellowship.

Later, we find that Frodo is becoming physically ill from the Ring. Further impetus to destroy it, and end the journey. He tries to sever his relationship with Sam, the only person who was helping him. And through this, we find a character of courage and weakness, an ordinary person who is called to the extraordinary.

We know nothing of his childhood (yes, we do in the books, but who actually read those?). His character is portrayed through his actions.
...

Bungie wanted - and wants - the Master Chief to become an in-game embodiment of the player. When Cortana cries out to the Chief, they want the players to identify with that. She is, in a way, the love interest of the story... though it's hardly a conventional romance, and proves more personal to the player than to the Chief. This is because the Master Chief is the player, and the character in-game has no emotions that we can see, apart from our own.

Again, Marcus Fenix is pretty much exactly the opposite, which makes him far more of a character. Characters are what their writers established; they aren't avatars - embodiments - of the players themselves.

I agree that storys need exposition but the bar for video games should be set lower than that for movies or books. Movies and books are always about story, games have always primarily been about experience first, because while eventually people became more interested in games having stories and not just stomping bad guys, technology limits and the interests of gameplay limit the development of story. Even the best developed game stories are rather poor when held up to good books and films. What makes them have impact on us is that the combination with other things like gameplay.

For these reasons I feel your LOR comarison is unbalanced. Of course even for a video game, the first Halo was pretty bare-bones in story, but I think you have to keep in mind that it was a first person shooter back in 2001. I mean the FPS genre isn't exactly ideal for story-telling, even now. Aside from Half Life 2, I can't think of a compelling game story, although even in that game, your criticism of the chief kind of applies, because all Gordon really is, is the player.

The point of all this though isn't to really say that the Master Chief is some superbly done character, I just don't think he's a bad one like you seem to feel. At least if we're going to compare him to Marcus, I feel obligated to defend him. I know he's not as good as the average RPG character. I know he's mostly a shell, but I think he kind of developed character in people's minds through experiencing things through him, like Freeman. In that way his character is well done; there are plenty of huge games that have characters people don't really form a connection with. No one really cares what Links backstory is, or really delves into the Metroid lore exploring Samus.

And, I think the general universe should be a consideration when judging a game's story. Look at star wars, that universe is so awesome because of how it has evolved over time, if you watch the original movies more than half the stuff that has evolved isn't there. The backstory of the republic or more developed understandings of what the force is, the different worlds; A New Hope was pretty much the traditional good guy overcomes evil thing. We don't learn that much about what the empire is really like, they're just the soldiers Luke's fighting. I've never liked game novels that run with the universe subject matter and build too much on the shaky foundation of most games, but the general Halo universe is worth considering when judging it's characters I think. Most characters in games get a lot of their development outside of the actual game. The Master Chief does have motivation because it's the cliche fight for humanity thing, and you can infere that as a super soldier molded over this like by the military he's probably buys into the whole army thing a lot, as opposed to some shmuck who gets drafted. Like in real life, where the elite soldiers are pretty hardcore.

Master Chief's actions, while heroic, have no face. He is a blank slate, and the player inhabits him. This is why Marcus from Gears' is miles ahead of him. Marcus has conflict. He has a personal life. He has a backstory. He has all of these things, and he is not a blank slate. His personality is not filled out by the player.

I think you're reading a bit too much into the Chief's intentions. He has no "psychological role." He is, for all intents and purposes, no one. He is every player. And while that's a sly, subtle take on the phenomenon of gaming's recurring "silent protagonist," it's hardly a character.

I know I'm reading into it a bit, that was part my annoyance that I think bungie could have been more serious about the story. I mean that most games are pretty light-hearted in the sense that they don't go for gritty realism and giving you emotional impact like a movie about the war in Iraq. Most are like playing through a Rambo movie, you're not thinking about the moral issues of war or the soldiers. I like the Halo universe, I think they could have made it a more serious, and slightly more photorealistic game, and I think the Chief would have thrived in that environment a bit. Like the single player in Halo 3 was completely without any impact, I didn't even have that much fun.

And really, Marcus is a tool. He's just a meathead, I don't know what you see in his character. You talk about how little the chief is developed, at least there's some interesting dialogue with Cortana, in the first Gears, he literally just grunts his way through the whole game. Like in the beginning when Carmin's like "Hey, aren't you Marcus Fenix, that guy who did that cool thing?" And Marcus goes "yeah." Carmine - "Wow, that's cool." He's the cliche jacked FPS army dude who just wants to kill them baddies. He literally doesn't have any story. All I know is that he has a dad, his dad was imporant, and Marcus went to jail for something. Personal life? Conflict? Did I miss something?

He's a guy in green armor that shoots aliens.

/thread

There are novels that give more info into his life. >_>

I'll make this simple for you all (except Keero, he gets it):

I think Halo is a pretty cool guy, eh kills aleins and doesnt afrade of anything

wferwfer wrote:No one really cares

And that's the problem with the entire gaming industry.

/thread

wferwfer wrote:I agree that storys need exposition but the bar for video games should be set lower than that for movies or books. Movies and books are always about story, games have always primarily been about experience first, because while eventually people became more interested in games having stories and not just stomping bad guys, technology limits and the interests of gameplay limit the development of story.

I was having this conversation with Drew earlier.

Gaming is not a traditional art form or storytelling medium. Books, film, etc... these things are one-way communication. The author, director, cast and crew, they're telling a story for you, the end user, to absorb and later dissect and interact with.

Gaming gives us a whole new approach to art, though. As you said, it is about experience. Most mainstream art forms are not truly experiential (even if we call watching a movie "an experience," the act of viewing is a one way affair and it is only as we mentally process it after viewing that there is any interaction). The thing that has to be done is removing the 1:1 connection of storytelling to art and meaning.

Drew and I, unless I greatly misunderstand him (or he me), agree that gaming's optimal state as art is a combination of experience and exposition as a rule of thumb. However, to limit gaming to either category seems a huge mistake to me. To say that gaming "shouldn't be held to the same standards as film" is ultimately fair but still misleading. If a game intends to tell a story, then its stories and characters need to be compared with other stories and characters regardless of medium. These things transcend form.

However, there are games that have no exposition whatsoever and remain very profoundly art. I cite Flower as a chief example. My experience is limited to playing the demo, but the demo contained no storytelling, characters, or anything else of that nature. However, the game is absolutely art just as a painting is art.

What you have here is an experience. You feel, you interact, you think... all of these I mean on a deeply emotional and/or psychological level. It is a masterpiece, but it has nothing to speak of in terms of exposition.

Still, I consider it the most excellent example of gaming as a true and meaningful art form. It is far closer to the canvas than it is to the silver screen or parchment, but it is still something that no other art form or creative medium can capture.

Gaming does not need exposition to be meaningful. However, that doesn't mean that the exposition found in the medium can be held to a lower standard simply because it is a different medium from exposition-exclusive mediums.

wferwfer wrote:I agree that storys need exposition but the bar for video games should be set lower than that for movies or books. Movies and books are always about story, games have always primarily been about experience first, because while eventually people became more interested in games having stories and not just stomping bad guys, technology limits and the interests of gameplay limit the development of story. Even the best developed game stories are rather poor when held up to good books and films. What makes them have impact on us is that the combination with other things like gameplay.

Technology has nothing to do with the way a story is told. You're confusing storytelling with pretty graphics and cutscenes. That's a pretty big mistake.

I'd cite any of the first twelve Final Fantasy games as evidence of this (except XI, because, well, it's an MMO). Are any of them technically impressive now? In their art, yes. In their graphics? No. Not generally. Yet they present stories that, despite flaws and cliche, have captivated players for years.

I'd look to point and click adventure games as examples of games that are not technically amazing, yet still hold their ground in their stories. Look at the Gabriel Knight series. Look at the Broken Sword series. Or if you want to go back to JRPGs, look at the Parasite Eve series, or the MegaTen games (Shin Megami Tensei series of games, in case you didn't know). These are all games with examples of involved, sometimes innovative stories.

The reason that game stories tend to be poor is because of the players and the developers. Players do not want mature themes in games. Developers want to appeal to the kid in everyone, while trying to create "cinematic" moments. These are people who would never touch an Oscar-winning movie, yet we're relying on them to create stories that we might hold dear. That isn't exactly fair, and it goes to what Kenny said earlier regarding experience and exposition (which I agree with).

For these reasons I feel your LOR comarison is unbalanced.

In case you missed it (which it seems that you did), I'm comparing the Lord of the Rings to Halo simply because of the nature of the quest. I wasn't shooting for an in-depth analysis. I don't care to do that.

Yet, this is interesting; you cite that my comparison is unbalanced, yet provide no reasons why. Mind clarifying?

Of course even for a video game, the first Halo was pretty bare-bones in story, but I think you have to keep in mind that it was a first person shooter back in 2001. I mean the FPS genre isn't exactly ideal for story-telling, even now. Aside from Half Life 2, I can't think of a compelling game story, although even in that game, your criticism of the chief kind of applies, because all Gordon really is, is the player.

You can't think of a compelling game story, or you can't think of a compelling story within the FPS genre?

Go play Bioshock, Metro 2033 and Cryostasis: Sleep of Reason. Those are just three of the countless stories that were done right within a FPS.

The point of all this though isn't to really say that the Master Chief is some superbly done character, I just don't think he's a bad one like you seem to feel. At least if we're going to compare him to Marcus, I feel obligated to defend him. I know he's not as good as the average RPG character. I know he's mostly a shell, but I think he kind of developed character in people's minds through experiencing things through him, like Freeman. In that way his character is well done; there are plenty of huge games that have characters people don't really form a connection with. No one really cares what Links backstory is, or really delves into the Metroid lore exploring Samus.

I never said that I believe that the Master Chief is a bad character. I simply find him effective at getting what the developers intended accomplished.

And don't use Zelda or Metroid to try to dismantle what I said. Both Link and Samus have character because they do have that backstory; we've just played through it. Ocarina of Time and The Wind Waker were two of the most emotional games I've ever played through, precisely because of Link and the relationship he had with Zelda. The Metroid games are very much the same.

And, I think the general universe should be a consideration when judging a game's story. Look at star wars, that universe is so awesome because of how it has evolved over time, if you watch the original movies more than half the stuff that has evolved isn't there.

This discussion would be easier if you actually focused on the topic at hand.

We're not talking about game universes. We're talking about character, and its place in story.

The backstory of the republic or more developed understandings of what the force is, the different worlds; A New Hope was pretty much the traditional good guy overcomes evil thing. We don't learn that much about what the empire is really like, they're just the soldiers Luke's fighting.

Why was Star Wars awesome? Was it because it was Luke fighting a bunch of soldiers that we didn't really know much about? Was it because Jedi powers are awesome, and everyone loves James Earl Jones?

No.

Star Wars was awesome because the characters were archetypes. The universe grew around the characters, but the characters, and the classic story they were in, drew the people into the overall world.

I've never liked game novels that run with the universe subject matter and build too much on the shaky foundation of most games, but the general Halo universe is worth considering when judging it's characters I think.

Why is that?

Most characters in games get a lot of their development outside of the actual game.

Um.. explain? Because your statement is contradictory to what you said immediately preceding.

The Master Chief does have motivation because it's the cliche fight for humanity thing, and you can infere that as a super soldier molded over this like by the military he's probably buys into the whole army thing a lot, as opposed to some shmuck who gets drafted. Like in real life, where the elite soldiers are pretty hardcore.

You missed my point. He has no motivation but that. There is no conflict for the hero. He does not follow the hero's journey, thus he is not a character that follows any established archetypical ideal, which means that he is, as I said before, a blank slate.

I know I'm reading into it a bit, that was part my annoyance that I think bungie could have been more serious about the story. I mean that most games are pretty light-hearted in the sense that they don't go for gritty realism and giving you emotional impact like a movie about the war in Iraq.

That's hardly true.

Most are like playing through a Rambo movie, you're not thinking about the moral issues of war or the soldiers.[/quote]

Do you play a lot of Call of Duty, wfer? Because that's what you're describing.

I like the Halo universe, I think they could have made it a more serious,

Serious?! But the world's gonna end. That's pretty serious.

and slightly more photorealistic game,

There you go, confusing graphics with story again.

Let me repeat. How a game looks does not affect how it plays or how the story is told. At all. Environmental cues can tell a story without intense graphical effects.

Like the single player in Halo 3 was completely without any impact, I didn't even have that much fun.

Why was it without impact? What didn't it deliver for you?

And really, Marcus is a tool.

Wow, constructive. So what is this? Is this essentially you saying, "Gears sucks but Halo rocks and here's why" and then not presenting anything solid to back up your claims, but instead trying to destroy my ideas on story? And if it's not that, what is it?

He's just a meathead, I don't know what you see in his character.

I don't see a lot. Remember that I said that he was one-dimensional. That should tell you my thoughts on him.

Personal life? Conflict? Did I miss something?

I'm not defending him, and I'm not defending that game.

Neither Halo or Gears is a particularly good example of story in gaming; Gears just did it better, and it's because of the character (read: one-dimensional character) of Marcus Fenix.

Kendrik wrote:

wferwfer wrote:I agree that storys need exposition but the bar for video games should be set lower than that for movies or books. Movies and books are always about story, games have always primarily been about experience first, because while eventually people became more interested in games having stories and not just stomping bad guys, technology limits and the interests of gameplay limit the development of story.

I was having this conversation with Drew earlier.

Gaming is not a traditional art form or storytelling medium. Books, film, etc... these things are one-way communication. The author, director, cast and crew, they're telling a story for you, the end user, to absorb and later dissect and interact with.

Gaming gives us a whole new approach to art, though. As you said, it is about experience. Most mainstream art forms are not truly experiential (even if we call watching a movie "an experience," the act of viewing is a one way affair and it is only as we mentally process it after viewing that there is any interaction). The thing that has to be done is removing the 1:1 connection of storytelling to art and meaning.

Drew and I, unless I greatly misunderstand him (or he me), agree that gaming's optimal state as art is a combination of experience and exposition as a rule of thumb. However, to limit gaming to either category seems a huge mistake to me. To say that gaming "shouldn't be held to the same standards as film" is ultimately fair but still misleading. If a game intends to tell a story, then its stories and characters need to be compared with other stories and characters regardless of medium. These things transcend form.

However, there are games that have no exposition whatsoever and remain very profoundly art. I cite Flower as a chief example. My experience is limited to playing the demo, but the demo contained no storytelling, characters, or anything else of that nature. However, the game is absolutely art just as a painting is art.

What you have here is an experience. You feel, you interact, you think... all of these I mean on a deeply emotional and/or psychological level. It is a masterpiece, but it has nothing to speak of in terms of exposition.

Still, I consider it the most excellent example of gaming as a true and meaningful art form. It is far closer to the canvas than it is to the silver screen or parchment, but it is still something that no other art form or creative medium can capture.

Gaming does not need exposition to be meaningful. However, that doesn't mean that the exposition found in the medium can be held to a lower standard simply because it is a different medium from exposition-exclusive mediums.

And also what Kenny said, though I lean more towards exposition in story. It's the writer in me, what can I say?

Drewsov wrote:And also what Kenny said, though I lean more towards exposition in story. It's the writer in me, what can I say?

That it's the writer in you that influences your tendencies of thought and preferences.

Oh wait. You did say that.

10 days until Reach!

Spartan_117 wrote:10 days until Reach!

Heck yeah!

My friend pre-ordered it, so I think we're gonna have an all-nighter thing that Friday.

Well... it's official. I'm excited for Reach.

o.o

Drewsov wrote:Well... it's official. I'm excited for Reach.

o.o

O_o?

Though I haaaaate my 360... Reach looks cool. But I'm not popping down $60 on it.

Keero wrote:Though I haaaaate my 360... Reach looks cool. But I'm not popping down $60 on it.

I'll take your 360 off your hands if you want.

Pheonix wrote:

Keero wrote:Though I haaaaate my 360... Reach looks cool. But I'm not popping down $60 on it.

I'll take your 360 off your hands if you want.

I would, but it'd Red Ring before you open the box.