[QUOTE="skrat_01"][QUOTE="DarkLink77"]
And :lol: at people praising Freeman as a narrative device and then bashing the Chief. They do exactly the same time. Silent protagonist that the player projects on. The Chief only talks when it is necessary to advance the plot, and he only says things the player would say anyway. It's a far better system than Freeman, imo, but Valve does know how to define Freeman's character with Half-Life's supporting cast.
DarkLink77
No not at all.Chief has a character, and a personality; Bungie very specifically removes that during gameplay. When the game breaks into cutscenes of any sort, Chief's character comes into play.
Or well, lack of character.
It's certainly not entirely projection.
Gordon Freeman is pretty pure projection, sure it's no "lost soul" from The Void, hover even the Doom Guy has more character. Irony is Half Life's narrative is light years ahead of Halo's despite the protagonist of the said game(s) actually being voiced, and having an established character.
Though you do have a point, Alyx for instance is very intentionally focused on in HL2 to drive any sense of character struggle in the narrative; something which the 'Gordon character' is completely incapable of.
The Chief doesn't really have a personality outside of the books. He can be a bit sarcastic and banter a bit with Cortana, but a large part of the Chief's character is dependent on the player's projection onto him, and the other character's reaction to him. Valve just does it better in Half-Life 2 than Bungie does in Halo, though it is worth noting that Valve stepped their game up significantly between Half-Life and Half-Life 2 in that regard, and I think Halo was an influence. Storytelling, perhaps. Halo obliterates Half-Life (and most other video game narratives, honestly) if we take the EU into account. There's just far too much of it to fit in game, though the Terminals and the like that are hidden in the games do an excellent job of advancing Halo's lore. I guarantee you that most people who bash Halo's story, even the stories in the games, don't actually know the full extent of what's going on (the Terminals add A LOT to Halo 3). But yeah, Alyx is probably the best plot device that Valve ever added to Half-Life.Indeed projection in the games is a very notable, reality is Chief is an established character, and a terrible one. Are the books better? I wouldn't doubt it whatsoever, problem is it's the games that concern me.Valve do it better, did Valve step is up because of Bungie? Well honestly that's hard to say? In what way? Cortana and Chief versus Alyx and Gordon? Possibly, the big difference being Valve are simply far better storytellers than Bungie (that being said Marathon was quite progressive). EU? The lore? Oh yes. The problem is this is science fiction universes, so we have Star Trek, Star Wars, Warhammer 40k and of course so much more in the mix... and Halo doesn't hold up nearly as strong. Is it still quite great and unique? I'd say so, even with the usual tropes like the others, like Mass Effect. My problem however is the games don't nearly explore it, it's all left in the dark and addressed outside the games. There is so much there, why waste it? The Arbiter for instance was an excellent step in the right direction to this.. and in Halo 3 Bungie turned him into a co-op bot - one of the most compelling characters, and links to the games fiction alternative to Master Chief.... and the former characters own past is also never addressed in the game despite the amazing story potential (remember the E3 Halo trailer, why wasn't this ever focused on in the game?). Instead it's anything but. Which really is a crushing shame, and hurts the games narrative severely, as well as Chief's character. Otherwise Alyx was a great plot device, though I think Valve's dependency on her character is a bit much; if she irritates you then your engagement in the plot would falter. That and the series hasn't moved beyond elaborate scripted sequences and environmental design in the series, at all. 
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