Sunday, July 18, 2010

On Anthropomorphic Characters in Video Games

So, here I am, on a Sunday evening, viciously no-lifing it on Runescape while LOML is playing Magna Carta 2 on the Xbox. Seeing as I have sat through this tableau many times, through games other than Magna Carta 2, I wish to point out what I believe to be serious flaws in the standard design of anthropomorphic races. Or non-human races in general.

It seems as though, no matter the game, especially in the RPGs (Role Playing Game), the game developers feel the need for there to be bird people or cat people or even lizard people. And this is perfectly acceptable. What is not acceptable is for said race to, at the end of each spoken phrase, insert the sound associated with that race. For example: Cat person says, "I'm so frightened, meow, Lord Assface's men are going to attack our village, meow."

And then they will keep saying 'meow' long after their cattiness has been thoroughly established. I mean, I'm a human and all, but I don't go around inserting the sound associated with humans every time I stop to inhale. "I am fine today, blah, lovely weather we're having, blah." I'm normally not an advocate for violence against other sentient races (or I wouldn't be if I knew of any), but listening to a bird man talk in a voice sounding like a effing chicken (and if you try to imagine a chicken speaking English, you'll get my drift), I start fantasizing about creating a video game where you can eat the bird man for dinner if you find his voice annoying. It would be complete with a cutscene showing the party killing the bird man and then pulling all his feathers out, gutting him, and sitting around the campfire with huge drumsticks going, "If our enemies knew how good the bird people taste, do you think that would distract them long enough for us to make an awesome attack that would put our underdog party on top?"

In the case of the cat people your character would have the option to say, "Can you stop saying 'meow' all the time? It's really unnecessary," and if the cat person didn't you'd be able to skin them and wear their fur as a coat.

And before ya'all go crawling down my throat for describing violence, let me remind you: I am talking about video games here. They're pixels, ergo, they have no right to be so annoying.

In real life I just glare at things and they go quiet.

3 comments:

  1. "glare at things and they go quiet" Is that why our office is so silent? XD

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  2. I don't glare in our office!!! =P

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  3. oh? haha! I KNOW that! I'm just kidding! XD

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