Recently I finally decided to go back and play through the first two Brothers in Arms games. For those who don't know what those are, they're hybrid FPS/RTS games set in the Second World War, you control a squad of soldiers from a first-person perspective and complete multiple objectives that usually involve defeating enemy infantry, gun emplacements and later armour. The games are fairly well made (except for a few niggles I have with the shooting mechanics) and present a reasonably authentic combat experience, as far as I can tell. However, there is one major problem I found with the way in which the game's plot and characters are presented to the player.
The story follows you and your squad and centres mostly around the tragic loss of life in war, portraying this through the deaths of your squad-mates at intervals throughout the story. I commend the developers for realising the potential of the video-game medium for the telling of these sorts of stories. We're quickly approaching the point at which gaming is capable of the same emotional scope as, for example, movies. However, I do think the developers of Brothers in Arms failed to do this in a way that was as meaningful as it, perhaps, should have been, and the way in which they failed is in their characterization.
When it comes down to it, while this is just my opinion, there just wasn't enough of an emotional attachment formed between the player and the squad-mates that they're supposed to feel bad about when they inevitably die. The reason for this is because the action starts kicking off without any real introduction of the characters. Sure, there are moments of witty banter and the like, but without a proper introduction, none of the characters become anything more than just the NPCs that you're expected to lead around, let alone actually care for when they get shot down in the line of duty. Even the lines spoken at the start of each mission by the protagonist showing affection for his dead squad-mates just aren't enough.
I can say the same for Brothers in Arms that I could for a lot of games depicting war; they set out to establish a moral precedent and emotional scope capable of telling a story about soldiers, but in some way or another they miss the mark and don't tell as good a story as they should have been capable of. In the end, the war games where I become the most attached to the NPCs I'm sharing the experience with, will be the RTS games like Close Combat where, while they have no individual personalities or indeed anything to distinguish them from any other soldier on the screen, you get attached to the squads you've been fighting with throughout the campaign simply because you've had them for so long.
tl;dr - Characterization in war games is not what it could be. Are there any games you've played that have similarly failed, or perhaps have succeeded?
The story follows you and your squad and centres mostly around the tragic loss of life in war, portraying this through the deaths of your squad-mates at intervals throughout the story. I commend the developers for realising the potential of the video-game medium for the telling of these sorts of stories. We're quickly approaching the point at which gaming is capable of the same emotional scope as, for example, movies. However, I do think the developers of Brothers in Arms failed to do this in a way that was as meaningful as it, perhaps, should have been, and the way in which they failed is in their characterization.
When it comes down to it, while this is just my opinion, there just wasn't enough of an emotional attachment formed between the player and the squad-mates that they're supposed to feel bad about when they inevitably die. The reason for this is because the action starts kicking off without any real introduction of the characters. Sure, there are moments of witty banter and the like, but without a proper introduction, none of the characters become anything more than just the NPCs that you're expected to lead around, let alone actually care for when they get shot down in the line of duty. Even the lines spoken at the start of each mission by the protagonist showing affection for his dead squad-mates just aren't enough.
I can say the same for Brothers in Arms that I could for a lot of games depicting war; they set out to establish a moral precedent and emotional scope capable of telling a story about soldiers, but in some way or another they miss the mark and don't tell as good a story as they should have been capable of. In the end, the war games where I become the most attached to the NPCs I'm sharing the experience with, will be the RTS games like Close Combat where, while they have no individual personalities or indeed anything to distinguish them from any other soldier on the screen, you get attached to the squads you've been fighting with throughout the campaign simply because you've had them for so long.
tl;dr - Characterization in war games is not what it could be. Are there any games you've played that have similarly failed, or perhaps have succeeded?
