I miss the days when characters were considered badass because of what they accomplished, not for what they said.
Remember when we were first introduced to Mario? An overweight out-of-work Italian plumber? Yeah, that sounds really heroic and badass, doesn't it? And this guy, without a single word, goes and stops an entire ARMY (of anthropomorphic turtles and mushrooms, but still) to save a princess. Repeatedly, at that!
Remember back before the cliche of the badass space marine was born, and all we had was the DooM marine? There's another guy who never said a word (beyond grunting in pain, anyway). And he literally went to Hell and back, TWICE, to battle a demon invasion. All without even a single catchphrase uttered, too.
But I guess developers weren't satisfied with the "mute hero who's a badass for what he does, not what he says" thing. It was kind of quaint when it started back with Duke Nukem 3D, especially since the catchphrase-spewing character had some real personality to him. But what happened after that? Everybody got into the catchphrase thing. It became a tired cliche. And how did they spice it up? With swear words, making an already tired gimmick also immature? How sad.
I say bring back the days of heroes who made you cheer for how badass they were because they could do what nobody else could, because they could be awesome even if they were just an otherwise unimpressive everyman. Anybody can swear like a sailor. But how many can be a badass without trying to be one?
Sky Render - Sanity is for the weak.
