Do you miss badass 80s-90s protagonists?

I remember a time when video game protagonists were just a vessel for the player to have fun or go wild.

Nowadays it's all about le emotionz. Can't have Kratos angry all the time, we made him a dad now. Can't have Lara Croft being able to deal with every situation, she breaks down and cries now.

Do you miss having a badass character, or is the situation better than it was before?

Yes. I miss when games could just be gamey ass games, man. Ever since media wasn't allowed to run the risk of offending anyone anymore, things got really fucking boring.

It's so pathetic because a lot of people scour the internet, looking to be offended.

There were two games I loved playing this weekend, one of them was Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness.

But two times I clicked on the community hub, and before even reading the forums and reading like minded people I found out that the prime subject of conversation was politics. And I just rolled my eyes, I'm the idiot looking for escapism away from the state of the world, and two times I got confronted by whoever got elected in the US and whatever war is going on in Europe.

(I'm not trying to downplay these issues, I'm trying to say that gaming is supposed to be something else: fun and lighthearted)

@R4gn4r0k: Characters don't need to be bad arse though, just allow the player to just have fun, and games still like this exist, but yes you need to look harder to find them. You should try games like Evil West, Remnant 2, Just Cause etc.

@last_lap: good examples, and yeah the player can certainly have a say in this: what games he plays, or if he decides to make a character himself. Have it be run of the mill, or special.

Yeah I agree we don't get a many as we did before but we still have some badass characters.

Doomguy aka Doom Slayer is still awesome and in the upcoming Dark Ages he still looks great. And we had Warhammer Space Marine 2 where Titus is also a badass.

I really don't like the new Doomguy. Before, he was the last marine alive, and just naturally badass. Now he's "the chosen one" by some god? Boooooring.

Doom really, REALLY didn't need more lore.

@BassMan: playing through Chains of Olympus right now, this game is bliss.

See big weapon > point big weapon at enemy > destroy said enemy.

Duke Nukem wouldn't be allowed to exist today.

Game journos were so offended they tried to pretend Duke3D wasn't one of the best FPS made.

Very silly.

Duke Nukem is like every 80s action movie star thrown together.

I really miss this style of movie: badass dude pulls out a gun and starts blasting, very entertaining.

Now Thor spends half the movie talking about his feelings.

Not really. That was more of a Western trope. I mostly grew up with Japanese games. I never liked the Duke Nukem or Kratos types even back then.

That's not to say Japanese games didn't have their fair share of badass protagonists, e.g. the likes of Ryu Hayabusa or Solid Snake. But Solid Snake actually showed emotions. And while Hayabusa didn't show emotions, he was well composed and didn't go around slaughtering innocent villagers like that scumbag Kratos.

So no, I don't miss those Duke Nukem or classic Kratos types, since I never liked them to begin with. But it's ironic just how much Western AAA games have swung in the complete opposite direction over the last decade or so. It's like there's no middle ground for Western AAA devs.

Not only that but as long as that greasy Randy Pitchford owns Duke Nukem, we will never see a game with him ever again.

True, there are better examples from both sides. We can have emotional layered characters that don't turn the game into watching a TV drama. And we have badass characters that have more to them than "grrrrr, kill"

Yeah, I mentioned something like that in my edit. It's ironic just how much Western AAA games swung in the opposite direction a decade ago. It was basically a reaction to the culture war that has taken over much of Western pop culture.

Nah, Master Chief, Marcus Fenix and Commander Shepperd.

Doesn't get mooaar badass than them. lol :P

@SecretPolice: that guy from Grabbed by the Ghoulies is the ultimate badass

Absolutely badass male characters. only Doomguy exist now and thanks for Id not turn him into woken.

now game characters gotten woken.

I just tried making a thread about this and included a shout out to you but for some reason it kept telling me I couldn't post it in SW. ;o

You try. lol :P

Xbox Boss Phil Spencer Issues Update on Rare’s Long in Development Everwild - IGN

I guess but I kinda stopped caring about stories / characters almost a decade ago b/c alot of games started taking themselves too seriously ...so I'm closer to being indifferent.

I think that an entertainment medium that struggles as much as gaming to tell good stories should probably lean more into the empty vessel approach... Or at least tell the story in the ways games like elden ring and botw do... Environmental story that does command you to be subjected to God awful writing. Like, how dare they make a single cut scene if they know their stories are shit.

I don't really as much care about what the character looks like per say, but the hobby really needs to grow away from chasing Hollywood cinematic story telling. It's killing the uniqueness of being an interactive passenger in the game.

So do I take it you just stopped playing AAA games in general?

Yes and no.

As a 90's kid, I was raised on action movies of the 80's and 90's. Stallone, Arnold, Bruce Willis, and so on.

But at the same time, those characters also lacked depth. Detective John Kimble from Kindergarten Cop was about as much growth in an action movie hero as we ever really got to see on the screen back them. Well, maybe the last five minutes of Terminator 2, too.

I don't know, man, I think Duke would totally be allowed to exist today. Only thing you'd need to change is his preference for strippers, but there really wasn't anything objectionable to him (and I personally don't care, strippers or no) back then that wouldn't fly now.

I mean, we still have Doom Guy, we still have hyper-masculine Gears of War dudes, we still have John-117 from Halo, and personally I really hope to see Max Payne make an appearance some day soon. On the female front, Marvel Rivals came out and all the ladies are pretty sexy and people love that game. Same with a slew of Japanese, Korean, and Chinese games that have both received good reviews and have hot babes.

I think as long as the game is good and the social boundaries aren't overstepped (i.e. Duke Nukem doesn't grab some chick's ass without invitation), then everything is OK.

You need to realize that the same people that don't like it when women are objectified also support things like making sex work legitimate, so they don't inherently dislike things like prostitutes and strippers, they just don't like seeing them portrayed as objects and not as people.

I think gaming can tell so many stores in ways people don't even think about. Gordon freeman is a voiceless protagonist and Valve does so much to draw a players attention to certain events that happen in the world, almost dynamically.

Whenever I'm presented with a voiceless protagonist: I think 'this is fine'.

But whenever I'm playing as some protagonist and he says something I wouldn't... it's offputting.

I love the design of immersive sims, first person games that just give you tools. Bioshock has such deep storytelling to me because it's the player that discovers all of what's been going on. It always feels like you're the one going through this world so it sticks with you.

And then finally we have Dishonored; A game that has some very unique endings, and to me it presents those very different aspects of revenge in a unique way becaue you as a player enacted them. You caused those endings to happen. That is something a book or a movie could never do.

I can enjoy games that have a "outsider looking in", but I'm entertained way more when they make the most out of the interactive medium.

Duke nukem today would be woken.

imagine woke duke.

Woke Dukem

I've skipped some of the story heavy ones and the ones I've played I often skip cutscenes.

That's fair. I'm sort of in the same situation.

I think AAA development got a little too big for their britches. Apparently video games now make more money than movies, television, and streaming combined so it's less about making a quality product and more about keeping the gravy train rolling.

My tastes in gaming have obviously changed over the years but I find myself mainly focusing in smaller studios and independent games and things of that nature. I will dabble with AAA games and larger titles, sure, but they don't hold my interests because they're just filled with too much fluff. I think sometimes they try too hard to be "epic" and they forget that they are games.

@mrbojangles25:

I've found that my preferred games are often made by bigger companies - but they are ok not selling 20 million copies - so don't have to cater to everybody. Nioh and Doom being some of the best examples . And while I think Astrobot and Space Marine 2 are both overrated to some degree - they are also good examples. So atleast some people in the industry are paying attention.

2016 was just the right amount of story , Eternal went off the rails.

Kind of agree, but I think the talking and cutscenes in 2016 felt very out of place too. Eternal did indeed double down on that crap.

No, not really. Kind of prefer having characters with more depth to be honest. Duke Nukem had some funny quips and the old Tomb Raider games were fun at the time but I never felt any real attachment to the protagonists. Always thought old Kratos was just a straight up a**hole so certainly don’t miss that character. Feel like we get plenty of badass characters these days that are also just better characters overall.

They never left so not much of a chance to miss them

people used to complain about huur too many dude bro games and anyone like mens shooter cruxified for liking generic grey realistic looking shoooter.

now see games getting woken and cartoonish

@ghosts4ever: No it's the same dudebros just now they're beardos, just slap beards on everything because bros are bro-ier than ever now.

Kratos, now with beard. CoD, now with beard. Streets of Rage, now with beard. Street Fighter, now with beard. Snake, now with beard. Got games like Predator Hunting Grounds and Robocop making those franchises keep coming back. Last FF had bros on a road trip. Even indies got bros coming out the ying gang, with Brotato, Bro Force, Bro Royale.

80s and 90s games were soft, you couldn't even show blood. Now we're doing x-rays of bones shattering and internal organs exploding. Gamers seem spoiled now and don't appreciate what they have.

@ghosts4ever: A lot of females grew up playing as Lara Croft, and they liked playing as a badass female.

Not sure if there are any females that like to play as Pax, from Dustborn, who just looks like a whiney brat.

Anyway my point is, a lot of these new or modern protagonists. I don't know who they speak to, I don't know if this audience actually exist.

While I mean, a lot of these progonists that were obviously aimed towards adolescent males... a lot of them are for the ages.

Look at GTA protagonists, or Mafia protagonists: it all speaks to this human urge to appreciate and make heroes out of villains or baddies.

My issue is not about the protagonist, its with the games themselves. Games are so high budget productions that there is no imagination. I actually appreciate protagonists that can be normal relatable characters. Just like every movie can't be a Rambo summer movie, games need to be diverse too. The art form is big enough to support different approaches.

To be fair, Hollywood writing isn't much better than video games nowadays. Hollywood's quality of writing has significantly declined over the last decade or so. The writing quality of your typical modern Hollywood blockbuster isn't much better than your typical AAA game. It's no wonder that video game adaptations are starting to do well in Hollywood, because Hollywood itself has lowered its standards down to the level of video game writing.

I miss kratos being an asshole don’t know why but sympathetic just doesn’t work for him

Streaming is technically bigger than video games. But it's true that video games are bigger than movies and television combined.

I also find myself moving away from the big-budget AAA games towards lower-budget AA and indie games. The big-budget AAA games are trying too hard to be like Hollywood, whereas the AA and indie games still feel like video games.

@girlusocrazy: "Gamers seem spoiled now and don't appreciate what they have."

😆 Yeah, this is pretty true.

I agree... Super dead end road... Gaming should see itself as an elevated form of entertainment, not dumb itself down with a dying medium like movies or even TV...

@Jag85: yes, AAA fail to appeal to anyone because they want to attract everyone.

As for AA there are some great ones I've enjoyed over the years, but recently my love goes out to Banishers and Helldivers 2.

Indeed. We took it for granted.