Why don’t you play games that don’t allow you to play as one gender? I’m genuinely asking, as I’m not sure I’ve heard of anyone who decides not to play games based on that. How do you feel about other story-heavy games where you play as a man such as Red Dead 2?
Metroid is an interesting example. In some of the games she definitely counts as having no personality or character, but overall in the series she’s been given a story and characterization with personality. Zelda games are in a similar boat; Link shows little personality in most of them but does have an established overall story and personality.
In cases like those two I’ll consider them, but the lack of personality in game is a point against them regardless of the gender involved and honestly that’s discouraged me from playing many games like that (including both those series) for a long while.
Way I see it, modern games have no excuse not to either let me create my own character or give the predefined character a strong personality that shows throughout the entire game.
The point of “strong, silent-type” PCs is so you can fill the boots yourself, so to speak. It’s to give you a chance to make yourself that character, regardless of gender.
Take Gordon Freeman from Half-Life. He says nothing throughout all the games we play as him, and the only backstory of his that we know of is he went to MIT and got a job at Black Mesa as a Theoretical Physicist; and he had a ponytail at one point. The rest of the personality is up to the players to fill in for themselves, their reactions to the events in-game serving as Gordon’s reactions.
When the protagonist’s character, personality, and story is significant, then that’s fine. If I’m playing a game like that I’m not playing a generic character that could be either and therefore should absolutely be a choice.
I’m fine playing a game like the Witcher, Red Dead 2, etc, cause those are the stories of that guy.
Where I won’t play is games that give you a generic protagonist with little to no personality but restrict you to male only, or even I suppose female only, although this is incredibly rare and I haven’t run across it myself.
“Some people are tall, some not. I require a game to give me a choice of playing a tall character”. If the gender is insignificant, why waste the effort of making everything twice just to have that choice?
Why don’t you play games that don’t allow you to play as one gender? I’m genuinely asking, as I’m not sure I’ve heard of anyone who decides not to play games based on that. How do you feel about other story-heavy games where you play as a man such as Red Dead 2?
Or how about female protagonists (mostly( devoid of personality, like metroid games?
Metroid is an interesting example. In some of the games she definitely counts as having no personality or character, but overall in the series she’s been given a story and characterization with personality. Zelda games are in a similar boat; Link shows little personality in most of them but does have an established overall story and personality.
In cases like those two I’ll consider them, but the lack of personality in game is a point against them regardless of the gender involved and honestly that’s discouraged me from playing many games like that (including both those series) for a long while.
Way I see it, modern games have no excuse not to either let me create my own character or give the predefined character a strong personality that shows throughout the entire game.
The point of “strong, silent-type” PCs is so you can fill the boots yourself, so to speak. It’s to give you a chance to make yourself that character, regardless of gender.
Take Gordon Freeman from Half-Life. He says nothing throughout all the games we play as him, and the only backstory of his that we know of is he went to MIT and got a job at Black Mesa as a Theoretical Physicist; and he had a ponytail at one point. The rest of the personality is up to the players to fill in for themselves, their reactions to the events in-game serving as Gordon’s reactions.
Same with Link and Samus.
When the protagonist’s character, personality, and story is significant, then that’s fine. If I’m playing a game like that I’m not playing a generic character that could be either and therefore should absolutely be a choice.
I’m fine playing a game like the Witcher, Red Dead 2, etc, cause those are the stories of that guy.
Where I won’t play is games that give you a generic protagonist with little to no personality but restrict you to male only, or even I suppose female only, although this is incredibly rare and I haven’t run across it myself.
“Some people are tall, some not. I require a game to give me a choice of playing a tall character”. If the gender is insignificant, why waste the effort of making everything twice just to have that choice?