<![CDATA[Kotaku: shhh...]]> http://tags.kotaku.com/assets/base/img/thumbs140x140/kotaku.com.png <![CDATA[Kotaku: shhh...]]> http://kotaku.com/tag/shhh http://kotaku.com/tag/shhh <![CDATA[Kill The Silent Protagonist?]]> Over at Midway studio Surreal's 'Surreal Game Design' developer weblog, Rick Luebbers, has found a blight infecting games, and he's not afraid to shout about it. What is it?

This evil, this disease, is the idea of a Silent Protagonist. Its symptoms are easy to diagnose: the protagonist never speaks and as seemingly important events fly by he/she says nothing... further, all the NPCs go to great lengths to talk around the player and advance the story almost in spite of him... It appears as a terrible, horrific, mark upon otherwise good or even great games. Half-Life 2 and Dragon Quest 8 are perfect high profile examples in people's recent memories.

Luebbers believes that "...the whole premise is counter-productive and totally immersion breaking" - but how about you good folks? Are you happy for the main character to shut up and 'be you' while you play?

Kill The Silent Protagonist [Surreal Game Design]

]]> http://kotaku.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=325121&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[New, New Console Info Hitting at Midnight]]>

Expect to hear some kinda interesting news about a very interesting upcoming console at 12:01 a.m. EST Friday. The embargoed news was sent out to a bunch of newspapers and websites with the understanding that no one would print the information until first thing in the morning.

While I'm sure you will all find it endlessly fascinating, in the end it really won't get you any closer to the news most people want to know.

Make sure to head back to Kotaku one minute into tomorrow to read the details and see a wee bit of analysis. Brian Crecente

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