the player character is heard saying, “No no, that’s not what happened.” In terms of
story these games really are more interactive movie than game. They emphasize the
designer’s story as the definitive story and do little to foster the player’s story. These
games prove to be successful because they contain such well-written designer’s stories
and feature extremely good gameplay mixed in with it.
It is interesting to note, though, two games that deliberately went out of their way
to have main characters who stayed mute and were thereby more iconic:Grand Theft
Auto IIIandJak & Daxter. What’s most interesting is that for the sequels to both of
these games, both of their respective developers decided to make their main characters
talk, thereby diminishing the potential for player immersion.Grand Theft Auto IIIof
course was a massively popular hit and featured a character who never said a word
throughout the game. The game was still filled with well-written and interesting char-
acters that the player met as he moved through a seamy underworld milieu, but the
main character was specifically designed to have an everyman quality to him and never
spoke. Through his actions he exuded a street tough and cool attitude, but his lack of
dialog made it easier for players to project themselves into him. In the next game in the
series,Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, the game was improved in nearly every way with
tighter game mechanics, better graphics, resonant licensed music, and a more colorful
and well-written cast of supporting characters. In this game, however, the main charac-
ter talks quite a bit, both during cut-scenes and occasionally during gameplay. Though I
would say the cut-scene dialog works much better than the in-game dialog, neither did
anything to improve the popularity of the game with fans or critics, and overall the
game did about as well as its predecessor. (This may be unfair since the first was so pop-
ular that it would be very difficult to be more popular.) A game that was somewhat less
of a hit though still quite popular wasJak & Daxter, which also contained a mute main
character. Commenting on the first game, Naughty Dog co-founder Jason Rubin stated,
“[Jak] doesn’t speak much either, so you don’t feel like you’re playing Gex, and you
don’t want to play that character — you don’t feel turned off by it.” When the first
game failed to sell up to expectations, many elements were changed for the sequel,
including adding a voice to Jak. Interestingly, the game proved to be a bit less popular
than the first, both with fans and the critics. Of course there are a myriad of reasons
220 Chapter 11: Storytelling
Prince of Persia: The
Sands of Timefeatured
a very well-written and
strong designer’s story,
making it more
important than the
player’s story.