How are characters handled in video games?

In movies, character is everything. Plot is secondary, or another way to look at it, is that plot is character.
But in games, things are a little different. The goal of a game is to produce, first and foremost, something fun. An entertaining form of escapism that is also interactive.
Movies are not interactive.
There are different genres of video games, just like there are different genres of movies. And just like movies, each genre of video game has its own conventions of storytelling associated with each. My focus for this blog entry will be the first-person-shooter genre (or FPS).

A first person shooter is exactly what it sounds like -- we control a character from a first person perspective, a weapon visible at the bottom right of the screen and pointing forwards. The game I hope to outline in the coming weeks as part of my proposal/script is a FPS (so stay tuned on that front!).
First we had Wolfenstein 3D -- the initial FPS game. Its World War 2. You are an Allied POW trapped in a Nazi prison facility. The story? You are escaping! The plot? Blast the Nazis! The character you are in control of does nothing except grunt. The game occasionally presents snippets of text on screen in-between chapters, narrating your escape attempt. The game is completely and definitively linear.
W3D was released in 1992. It would be in 1998 that we would have any significant development on the narrative front regarding FPS titles.
In 1998, Half Life was released. The developers, Valve software, hired a novel writer as part of their design team. Games had come before, of course, with properly written scripts, intriguing dialogue, and decently-realised characters. But it would be Half Life that would both bring these developments to the FPS genre proper, while simultaneously advancing the state of narrative in the video game world.
The protagonist, the man you are in control of -- Gordon Freeman -- is a mute. Characters talk to him. Instead of delegating important plot points to pre-rendered cutscenes, the game develops right in front of your eyes. You fight your way through guarded checkpoints, pulling levers, travelling around, making things happen.

Ten years on, and the state of the interactive FPS have not come much further. Games like Half Life 2 and Bioshock continue the trend of well-written narrative, but have not challenged existing paradigms.
Who knows? Maybe my FPS title will. Maybe.