Dead Space and Being the Silent Protagonist

I love the first Dead Space. By now, the Dead Space series has made a big name for itself and spanned three installments with some games and literature on the side. But before the brand took off, there was just the one really ambitious title. Dead Space has great atmosphere, looks incredible, employs creative enemy designs, and gives players a satisfying variety of weapons. It's also one of the definitive games that emerged from the boom of American-made horror titles in the late 2000s. Don't quote me on this, but I imagine the immense success of Capcom's Resident Evil 4 got that ball rolling.

There is one aspect of Dead Space that I think is vastly understated even today. Later installments even did away with this precedent that I thought was pretty important. I am of course talking about the fact that protagonist Isaac Clarke never spoke. Everyone else carried conversations naturally, but Isaac himself never got a spoken word in edgewise. The game covers for this by having all the conversations scripted in ways that don't require Isaac's input.

The silent protagonist in video games has been around since video games themselves. When the main character of a game lacks a voice, it becomes easier for the player to project themselves in the character's place to be more engaged in the game's settings and situations. Gamers most often think of iconic silent characters such as Crono, Gordon Freeman, Link, and other characters who never actually speak in written dialogue.

Vahn from Legend of Legaia is my obscure silent protagonist of choice

However, are these characters really silent? These silent characters clearly communicate through the course of their games. For instance, a character's dialogue with the main character will come off as a conversation with him or herself. "May I help you? Oh, you want the water gem? I can't give it to you unless you slay the dragon. You'll do it?" In Mario and Luigi: Superstar Saga, the plumbers have dedicated animations for when they speak. Even though their words come out as a string of comical gibberish, they clearly hold functional conversations with the other characters of the game world. There are games out there where the main characters don't communicate, but I feel this has the most impact in Dead Space.

Let's examine the situation: In Dead Space, Isaac is stranded in a derelict space vessel that is infested with horrifying monsters. He is not entirely alone since he maintains contact with two colleagues, Kendra and Hammond. While Isaac braves the depths of the USG Ishimura, Kendra and Hammond remain in relative safety while they figure out what's wrong with the ship and how to escape their predicament. For most of the game, everything Isaac does is not his idea. He simply moves from order to order issued to him by other people.

Further, the game is scripted and acted in a way that Isaac's silence just feels natural. The way the characters interact with him, you get the impression that they are used to carrying a conversation with Isaac. Instead of Isaac simply being slapped with the stigma of silence for effect, that may just be part of his character to be soft-spoken, if spoken at all. All of this, combined with the way he moves like a civilian, has Isaac strike me as an introvert. Quiet, maybe a little awkward, evasive but not reclusive, and generally a softer personality type than what Western media typically offers.

A great documentary going into the thought process of using a nonstandard hero.

Given this, your first impression of Isaac may be that he is a weak character. In fact, his situation could be downright insulting. One of the first things that happens in the game is Hammond ordering you to hack open a door with about as much enthusiasm as turning a doorknob. If you were in a bad mood, you might have felt that your character's life skills and expertise were being marginalized by his role.

You know what, you'd be right. Despite the fierce appearance of Isaac's protective suit, he never struck me as a person of action in the initial minutes of the game. It served as a great contrast for when as the game escalated, we'd see this character forced to rise to the situation.

And even though Isaac doesn't talk, that doesn't mean he can't think or feel. He feels terror plenty. Any time he takes damage or worse, you can hear his muffled cries of pain and fright through his helmet. Should you fall prey to one of the game's gruesome death scenes, you'll hear just what Isaac feels about the situation. I absolutely loved this aspect of the game since the muffled cries invoked a claustrophobic feeling because the character couldn't be heard properly. It goes to show that Isaac's silence becomes a source of strength since he maintains it in a hostile environment. Silence both of word and emotions. He is plenty scared, but isn't letting it affect his ability to do something about it.

The second way Isaac expresses himself is through his personal log. Though it's mostly a game mechanic to remind the player of what they're supposed to be doing next, it's still written in Isaac's "voice." The logs depict Isaac as rational, focused, nonjudgmental, and given the situation, scared. He rarely writes anything personal about others, unless it's a response to storyline developments. This limited exposure allows us to see Isaac as the most level-headed person on the ship. He clearly feels more confident in expressing himself with the written word above the spoken word.

Watch the first minute. Seeing Isaac straighten his posture to fight this monster is my favorite moment.

The big payoff in all of this character analysis is seeing Isaac get work done. Here we have this wallflower of a character and he's the one destroying monsters, making repairs to the ship, and saving the day. It's hard to appreciate this character development when it's actually us, the players, doing the real work. We're more inclined to celebrate our own victories rather than keep our perspectives all within the game world. Objectively speaking, Isaac can deliver. Though not very impressive as a communicator, Isaac shows his strength of character through his actions. We could have had a main character with all the vocalized confidence in the world who could have done the same thing, but because our first impression of Isaac was not as strong, that made his actions all the more meaningful.

The more I think about this and how organic of a character Isaac Clarke is, the more I thought about how this translates to the way we act and see others in the real world. I'll admit right here that I based my vision of Isaac Clarke largely on my own introverted self. As I analyzed Isaac and how his actions have meaning, I came to realize that I too benefit from my actions. Whenever I come out of my shell to do something, it always seems to grab attention. Conversations start, we keep in touch, and before I know it I have new friends and acquaintances that I am comfortable enough around to cut loose a bit more and approach.

Just like Isaac, we all have some area that we have our strengths in, our proverbial "good sides," if you will. We just have to figure out how to display this good side to others and use it as a gateway to introduce those others to our beautiful personalities. This is why self-help gurus often recommend volunteer work to help people find friends. The fact that you are doing volunteer work shows your fellow volunteers and others that you are the sort of person who does volunteer work. If you are artistic, find a venue in which your work can be displayed for others to see. I'm doing that right now by sharing this blog with all of you! And it has worked. I've met some new people and hope to meet many more as I continue to write these posts.

Now, how about you? What is your "good side" that you would love sharing with others as a way for them to get to know you? Can you play sports well? Do you like movies? On the other side of this post, which video game characters do you consider strong and well though-out? Maybe you see a character different than most people do. Maybe your reasons for liking a character are personal. I would love to hear all the varying responses and reasons. Until then, game out.

The Skylanders Mom and Gamer Networking

Given some time, shopping for video games with one's parents is going to become one of those essential childhood memories. I know that I cherish such memories. During my own trips to video game retail stores, I occasionally get  a glimpse into what the whole process is like nowadays. I've seen all sorts of experiences, ranging from the nagging kid whose parent buys a game based off a cartoon, to the encouraging parent purchasing the latest Mario for their grateful child. But sometimes, you see something different.

Browsing in the Electronics section one time, I overhear a mother and son in the Skylanders toys. For the uninitiated, Skylanders is an action/adventure series of games which contains a huge library of playable characters. You gain the ability to play as new characters by purchasing the action figure of that character and using a peripheral to plug the character in the game.

In the store, I actually saw in passing the son placing an action figure on the demo booth to see the character in action. He was seriously deliberating. Eventually, he goes to his mother and says he chose that character. And this is where it gets interesting. The mother takes one look at the character and says, "This looks like a big guy. Don't you play the fast guys?" to which the son responds that he wants to try a slow-but-strong character for once. They went back and forth for a bit, including one time when the kid tried a big character at a friend's house and said he didn't like it, leading to the kid saying he wanted to actually take it seriously.

What struck me about this exchange is that the mother and son were genuinely discussing strategy and logistics about the game. Normally, we'd come to expect the mother to sigh "okay," drop the toy in, and be on with her day. But here, she actually took the purchase seriously and wanted to talk it through first. Not as the credit card-holder trying to stave off a purchase, but as someone who understands what the purchase means to the child. She knew enough about the game to talk about it on the same terms as her child.

Every character in Skylanders comes with its own unique stat spread.

I was floored to hear this. I don't know if this is increasingly common now, but during my youth parents did not try to understand video games. The norm was that video games were not something that required further understanding. They were in the same league as simple toys. It's funny I say this so firmly because one of my parents was a subversion of this norm. My mother, much like the Skylanders mom, actually stopped to look at what I was playing and rationalize the bright colors on the screen. She knew what "characters" meant to video games. She understood what a "hit point" was. She saw how to recognize who the player character was without needing me to tell her. She knew what a power-up was and could alert me to when one pops onscreen.

Hearing the Skylanders talk made me think about a discussion I had before where I tried to make the argument that video games are just as complex and conversation-worthy as any real-world sport. Naturally, the other person had all of popular culture on their side and I had to concede. In light of overhearing this conversation, I'm thinking popular opinion is starting to sway the other direction. Now that video games are on the popular culture radar, my argument for the complexity of games has more ground to stand on.

Lastly, and just as importantly, even I could understand the conversation I was overhearing. Not because I've played Skylanders, but because I've played games in general. Games have a lot of things in common. In this case, the kid was used to characters that moved fast but could not defeat enemies quickly. This new character would move slow, but defeat enemies with less hits. He is swapping out the advantage of speed for the advantage of power and perhaps other capabilities.

Fighting games, by far, most emphasize the differences between characters and topics of discussion.

Thinking on that last point, I have come up with a term for how general video game knowledge allows someone to understand a game they haven't played yet. "Gamer networking" is what I've come up with so far. That is, networking with an emphasis on video games. In this day and age, "networking" mostly refers to a person socially engaging others to build a "network" of friends and acquaintances. People often network by emphasizing things they have in common, such as what movies they like, sports they follow, what they do for a living, and so on. This way a person can have a big network to be well-connected in many places among many types of people.

Gamer networking is interesting because video games are so complex. There are entire genres of games, and each game in each genre can be radically different from each other. And yet, video games all come from the same roots and therefore contain a lot of similarities as well. For instance, Final Fantasy is a very different game from Bioshock. However, both games have in common that the players attack enemies in order to win. In both games, the damage that players deal to enemies is quantified. In both games, the amount of damage can be increased in some way. In both games, the benefit of increasing attack power is taking less time to defeat regular enemies and being able to keep up with the more difficult encounters. Therefore, if a player of either of these games mentions a time for opportunity in which they increase their attack power, the other will know right away the basic benefits of that increase. And yes, players of both of these games will be able to join a conversation on using heavy characters in Skylanders.

Gamer networking is not just for people who freely identify as gamers. People who network over sports have discussions of a very similar sort. And then there's the fact that non-gamers have stormed the scene as casual and social gaming grow. Let's take one of the most prolific games of the modern era, one that every person reading this blog has either played, played secondhand, or heard about. Yes, folks, even players of Angry Birds can get in on the action. Angry Birds is a game more different from Skylanders, Final Fantasy, and Bioshock from each other, yet the concept of "more power" exists there as well.

Though Angry Birds does not emphasize defeating enemies, you still use force to knock down buildings using your birds. The individual birds cannot power-up, but using special birds is satisfying and mostly essential for getting the best results on stages. The Big Brother Bird in particular goes along with my point because it is a straight upgrade from the standard red bird character. It may not be as precise as the red bird, but precision is less of a factor when your bird can just demolish whatever it touches. It's not exactly the sort of quantified power in the other examples, but it is a relative increase in power all the same. Kind of a stretch, but the connection is there.

Just watch the first minute to see the big guy tear it up.

You see, the more you break down a video game into relatable problem-solving tasks, the more easily someone can understand it. The less a person knows about games, the simpler you'll have to get. Getting someone on your level requires effort and patience, but it is worth it. I've had long conversations with people who have no prior interest in games but every good intention to understand what they can, and all because I worked my way up.

It seems that we as gamers also have the progress of technology on our side. The more people come to rely on bright screens and dealing with user interfaces, the less foreign video games feel. In fact, video games may turn around and help us in the real world of situational awareness and problem solving; but that's a topic for another time. Either way, the Skylanders mom provided a good window into what could be when it comes to public knowledge and attitude surrounding video games. Perhaps in the future, more complex games will work its way into global culture; and not just a split-second of Call of Duty or an offhand app reference.

So, what about you? What experiences have you had in gamer networking? Ever tried explaining a game to your parents? Invited your friends over for some game time and had some banter? Or maybe you've butt heads with another game online about the superiority of one character or another. I know we've all done it, and I want to hear it. Until then, game out.