FACELESS MONSTROSITY

Being a '90s kid, I have fond memories of gaming. Raised on the n64!
Grown through blocky visuals and sticks that went pew-pew (at the
time, we were lead to believe they were guns, but come on, with the
graphical abilities of that generation what James Bond held in
Goldeneye was anyone's guess.)

You could say I have fond memories of the old days. And I do. Largely
because I don't remember the games for their gameplay, but for their
story telling and the characters. Back then we couldn't wow you with
hi-def, mind-numbing, eye-destroying sights of such amazing stature
that everyone will cream their tighty-whities when they turn their
retinas upon them. No, all we had was some vaguely recognisable
shapes, zero voice acting, and plently of good times. We all got
through the games not due to of their immersive gameplay (or often
lack thereof), but because of the stories and the characters. Games
had to rely on those two things.

I find myself often comparing this generation of games to my childhood
ones, and in terms of plot and characters, the old ones shine best.
Why? Well, it's simple, and I could probably sum it all up in one
sentence, but that wouldn't make for an interesting read so I'm going
to stretch this out into a few paragraphs and try to hold your
attention for long enough to stuff my argument down your mind before
you wander off to play some flash games.

If you asked a gamer today to look at his current gen games collection
and point out the most memorable character, chances are he will say
something like Master Chief, or General Shephard. While it's fine that
these two are sticking in people's memories for what ever reason, I
contend that they are in no way as deep as any character from the
past. In fact, it seems a lot of games these days in whole don't even
compare.

I'll take a few examples and we'll compare them, right here, right now.
On one side we have the Master Chief, Niko Bellic, and Ethan Thomas.
On the other side we have Solid Snake, Duke Nukem, Cloud Strife.

comparison time.

What do these chaps have in common with one another? Practically
nothing bar the fact in their respective games they pretty much all do
what people love: bash in the face of their enemies with many bullets,
blunt objects and weapons. Each of them are fighters. Raw brawlers who
want to save the world and hopefully live to see their pension kick
in. If heroes even get a bloody pension.

In Halo, the Master Chief is a gruff future soldier who practically
lives in his trademark green armor like some sort of sea creature in a
shell. We never see his face and he barely even talks much. He pretty
much lets the bullets do all the work for him. He spends his days
giving aliens lead enemas. For the most part, sadly, The Chief is an
emotionless husk, a gormless grunt who could be replaced with a brown
mug filled with turps and no one would notice the difference.
Especially in conversation. While the game he comes from is pretty
enjoable, filled with explosions, gun action and little midget aliens
screaming in high-pitched voices (which was fun), the story is pretty
basic. It all boils down to "here be aliens, here be you, here be gun,
go there, shoot, and win all the cake." The Chief is tasked with
taking out the alien forces. That's about it.

Niko Bellic and Ethan Thomas are pretty much along the same lines.
They've got some stuff to do, and an implied lack of time to do it in.
Both of these two are on the run from the law for various reasons, but
their stories don't seem to do too much with them. It's like their
respective plots are really bored children waving around flimsy toys
with all the enthusiasm of a leper at a jamboree. There's almost no
growth. What do they learn? Not much. They don't really become better,
or worse, people for the events that happen to them, despite these
events being very big, life changing rollercoasters of thrills. The
two of them are just strolling through their worlds, getting form A to
B waiting for the next cut scene.

So in what way are the other three different? Well, let's see.

Solid Snake is a gruff, smoke 500-a-mission, terrorist/philathropist
trying to get rid of Metal Gears which every bad guy in the world
wants a hold of despite never noticing all the bad luck that happens
to surround the metal beasts at every turn. Through the Metal Gear
series snake, I'll admit, hasn't changed too much, but we know that
through the things he's done, he's changed a little (and aged a lot.)
He's not a fantastic example of character growth, but his respective
game is a shining example of what every
action/adventure/thriller/japanese/rockemsockem/runaround/hideandwait
game aspires to be. In terms of plot at least. The writing in these
games is fantastic, long winded, but fantastic. Drawing you in, and
making you give a bit of a damn about the whole situation and maybe
care about your character enough to not through him into enemies just
to watch him die when you get bored.

Beside him, I've chosen Cloud Strife as another good example of a fine
character. Not everyone knows who he is, because Cloud hails from turn
based fantasy games which aren't exactly a hot choice in the west.
Essentially, he's a spunky, little runt with hair spiked like
piss-coloured mountains, who maintains that everything is his fault
and can be generally quite unlikeable. But he changes. He drops the
emo act after a while, and thanks to the help of his token bla--I mean
Barrett, and the token hot chic--I mean Tifa and Aeris, he becomes a
protective warrior out to bring a stop to the bad guy, Sephiroth. The
story is a little unoriginal and if you've ever played a fantasy game,
you've played this one, but the point is that Cloud has left a huge
mark on many people, and remains even to this day a favorite of
thousands, something that doesn't happen often these days.

Finally, we come to the Duke himself. Duke Nukem. He's a no-nonsense
tough guy protecting hot chicks from ugly pigs by shooting his way to
the end of the game. Sure, his personality has always remained the
same, but he's always been... Different. Duke is everything people
loved about the 80's. He spouts off snappy one-liners every few
minutes, he's banged more chicks than you can shake a stick at (no pun
intended), and he's just plain awesome. The guy kicks serious ass. Not
exactly a deep, poetic type, Duke is a rare, uncensored piece of
action that will be with us always, leaving us quoting his lines like
it's going out of style.

At the end of the day, in my eyes, we might not see another Duke Nukem
or Solid Snake coming around in games for a while. Master Chief will
be forgotten in a few years and replaced with another faceless, silent
hero and a different franchise, but characters like the ones we fell
in love with all those years ago will never lose their touch. Even
going back now and playing some of the old games (a good number of
which can be purchased off Xbox Live) I see that they are just somehow
more fun. Maybe it's the dated graphics making me nostalgia, the
bruising insults from Duke, or the repetitive but timeless theme tunes
that surround Cloud Strife. Or maybe I'm just incredibly biased. But
hey, aren't we all? Without bias, opinions can often be quite boring,
so yeah, this was all a little one sided. But it's all just opinion.
Frankly, we're all different, I just prefer the classics. That's not
to say I don't enjoy my 360, however.

So even if you disagree with me so much that your eyes have shot out
of your face and embedded themselves into your fists due to rage, just
remember that it IS all just opinion. Thanks for reading, anyway.