First-person video game characters: Should be voiced or silent?

Best topic ever dude ! OMG :P !

Well, if you played Postal 2, imagine Dude being silent all the time :P
It totally depends on game, though.
Option to turn off voiced protagonist might be best solution, but voice > no voice :)

I prefer silence. I like being the character. When nothing is said, it can't contrast poorly with the actions I'm taking. A silent character can not be poorly written. Also some characters can just be annoying. I really didn't like the player character in Far Cry 3 at times. I could only roll my eyes at his joyous enthusiasm while getting high burning a field of... cannabis plants I think? That felt out of place for someone in such a serious and stressful situation.

In games where story isn't the main focus of the game, voice acting can add a lot of 'character' with ambient dialog. But at the same time it can be polarizing, if you enjoy the characterization, or would rather imagine the character as yourself, saying the things you want to say instead.

In games where the story is the main focus, I personally feel that voice acting is universally bad, because it inevitably reduces any story they want to tell down to bite-sized voice clips; and dramatically limits how much flexibility the story can have due to the difficulty of recording a variety of different lines- compared to merely rewriting text.

And don't even get me started on 'semi-cutscenes' where you can do nothing more than stand around, waiting for spoken dialog to play out before continuing the game.

As with anything, being done well is more important than the presence or absence.

I always liked the way of the silent protagonist.

They must be potatoed!