This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
Working Title: Generic Military-Themed SciFi FPS Plot: From YKTTW
- Is this actually a Dead Unicorn Trope? Very few of the examples hit more than 30% of the criteria listed above, and some of the ones that they do hit are very broad (he's either a generic grunt or an elite soldier. So, bascially, he's a soldier. Oh, and you have a radio. A soldier with a radio to recieve orders? You don't say...). The closest seems to be Halo, and even that only hits about 50% of these.
- Does Mass Effect really count? It's not really an FPS, Shepard isn't referred to as a space Marine(AFAIK), is an officer not a grunt/elit grunt, talks constantly (in fact it's about the only Bioware RPG where the main character does speak) and your squad (as a whole) doesn't get killed off. While the setting is more than a bit Alien/Aliens, the game itself doesn't really follow the trend, partially by being an RPG, and partially by giving Shepard a relatively developed, pre-existing personality.
- Luc: Fair enough. If you think it doesn't fit, remove it. I haven't played it, so I wouldn't know one way or the other.
- Alot of the entries on the list don't follow it perfectly.
- For that matter, does Samus from Metroid really fit? She's a space-fairing hero, but she isn't a space marine (since there are space marines in the series, and she's not one of them,) and she doesn't have many of the listed qualities. Offhand, she fights alone, has a powered suit, is in a sci-fi setting, and has a timed retreat sequence after the final boss.
- This seems like it has alot of overlap with the Standard Sci Fi Setting.
- I'm not sure, because I just remember it from Starcraft and Halo, but the phrase "I read you five by five" may need to go with the Aliens quotes in the introduction. Origanally it was the stereotypical marine dropship refering to radio reception (the closest thing nowadays would be cellphone bars).
- ...except that it was actual military jargon.
