Elements of game design, part three: character

So the importance of characters is something gaming companies are beginning to think about more and more these days because the market of shooting games with gorgeous graphics but no story isn't going to attract all people quite frankly.

This is right up my street.

I am so hardcore about characters I really couldn't care about the graphics and effects of games.

Ok so that's not entirely true, of course having good graphics, sound and effects will make a game aesthetically pleasing and beautiful to play, where you will stand around for 10 minutes just panning the camera around the character and admiring the view, I'm pretty sure we're all guilty of this but if a game is beautiful but has no characters to fall in love with or a story to rip you apart then is it really worth playing?

After being emotionally attached to Ezio for three games you witness his death

I actually don't think so, this is why I never really invested in the Call of Duty series, they care about the multiplayer more than anything so the actual campaign storylines are incredibly short, I remember my dad finished it in a couple of days, and my dad's the kind of person who has been trying to finish the main storyline of Fallout 3 for three years now. People have said that Call of Duty has been the same game since the first Modern Warefare but with better graphics, this is why I never played it properly. When I spend £40 on a game I want one that will give me at least 40 hours of gameplay with an emotional story and characters who I can truly fall in love with. This is why I am emotionally attached to Fallout, Mass Effect and Assassin's Creed, even Uncharted, which isn't that long but has such an emotional story and gorgeous characters that it's 100% worth it.

Where's the real story CoD?

So what is it about these games that I love and why I am emotionally invested in them? Well take a movie for example, how about Star Wars (the original three of course)? Three movies of the same characters and you'll eventually grow attached to them, you'll feel such sadness when Luke finds out Darth Vader is his father (spoiler alert! Wait..) and when Vader aids Luke against the the Emperor, losing his own life I'm sure many people have cried over it. It's exactly the same in games, if you find a game that will make you cry because you just love the characters so much then you're doing characters and story right. Go to Tumblr and you'll find thousands of blogs crying over fictional characters (including mine..). So Mass Effect has to be one of the most emotionally draining series I've ever played. Spoilers ahead for a few games by the way.

This make anyone tear up?

Mass Effect is a trilogy and you play as your own Commander Shepard for all three games. In Mass Effect 1, about 15 minutes into it your Turian friend Nihlus is shot dead by the main antagonist of the game, Saren. This is just a big kick in the head for all of the deaths that you will face for the rest of the Mass Effect series, and God did some of those death's kill me. You'll build friendships, close bonds, even romantic relationships with some characters and if they don't die then rest assured Shepard will die instead at the end of Mass Effect 3. Oh yes the 150+ hours you've invested in this trilogy all for Shepard to die. Nice. But as I was saying, the way you will grow emotionally attached to these fictional characters is remarkable, I remember having to play a bunch of side quests which took me hours just because I wanted enough paragon points so that Tali wouldn't die during her quest in Mass Effect 3, that's how much I loved the characters, I would go out of my way to ensure they survived for as long as they could. Apart from Miranda. Because I accidentally didn't warn her about Kai Leng. And I'd been dragging my Mass Effect 3 playthrough for way too long at this point. Sorry Miranda, I'll make sure you survive in my new playthrough, I have more respect for you now that I've seen you die.

"Had to be me, someone else might have gotten it wrong"

Mass Effect is just one game, the same type of emotions will apply to Fallout when you watch dad die after sacrificing his own life for you, in Assassin's Creed where you play as Ezio Auditore from his birth, witnessing the death of his brothers and father all the way till his death after he retired as an assassin through three games and Uncharted where you watch your rival Eddy die at the hands of the descendent monsters. If I can fall in love with a game's story and it's characters then you can tell I will be invested in the series for a long time. So yes, story and characters is so important to me, it's what makes me love the games I love.

"Run."

So this is down to a few things, acting and writing of the characters. If an actor can give life to a wonderful script full of emotion then you will have some wonderful characters that people will instantly fall in love with. If the characters look awesome then even better, I'm sure people have fallen for Garrus Vakarian solely because of the scars on his face.

"The scars have started to fade, I know they drove you wild."

For me I find emotional stories irresistible. If I can fall in love with characters and begin to feel physically sad about the story of a fictional game then I will play it. Haha. All in all if I can fall in love with a game I will never let go of the characters and story, I don't know if this is a mental problem haha but if it is I don't care, because games are my getaway.


Sources:
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3115/common_methodologies_for_lead_.php
http://gamasutra.com/features/20060324/cifaldi_01.html
http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=10216#.UTAOJOsjX6k
http://www.designersnotebook.com/Workshop/CharacterWorkshop/characterworkshop.htm