Precisely. Although I love Liam Neeson's voice, your father in Fallout 3 had no distinctive personality so it was really difficult to feel much for him.Not a Spy said:
I was really enjoying the main plot up until you have to go rescue him from Vault 112--I was looking forward to being able to tell him off for stupidly dumping me with the psycho Overseer in Vault 101 while he ran off. But the dialog options and his responses didn't lead to a logical resolution. It was like getting angry at one of those infuriating people who just shut you out by saying "I'm sorry you feel that way" without ever letting you address the issue.
That, and the fact that you're standing on the other side of a glass door with a majorly powerful gun during the scene where he kills himself inspired a serious facepalm. I really wanted to yell, "Open the door, goddammit, so I can shoot this god damn idiot in the god damn back with my god damn gun!! Oh, you're going to irradiate yourself to death. Good job, you moron!!"
That, and the fact that you're standing on the other side of a glass door with a majorly powerful gun during the scene where he kills himself inspired a serious facepalm. I really wanted to yell, "Open the door, goddammit, so I can shoot this god damn idiot in the god damn back with my god damn gun!! Oh, you're going to irradiate yourself to death. Good job, you moron!!"
I was in a discussion in another board about creating feelings of sadness in tabletop games and the requirements I came up with were these:
1. You must be personally involved in the situation somehow.
2. There must be an unfortunate outcome involved.
3. The outcome must be logically necessary in a way the involved person can understand.
That's your scene setup. The subtle tricks that wind up satisfying all three of those conditions are too many to list.
That's just for sad scenes, there are other emotions you can evoke and they all have different requirements. Gothic II has a great (for me) scene about halfway through the game that almost got me to plant my face straight into my desk.
The first half of the game revolves around the wizard Xardas sending you to get a special amulet from the Paladins. You go through a *lot* of crap to get this amulet, going on an entire series of quests and doing some ridiculously dangerous travel. So, FINALLY, you march up to present your credentials to the chief Paladin, and he says, yes, we have no choice but to turn the holy relic amulet over to you. So he tells you where to go pick it up and you set off.
When you arrive at the monastery, you find out that it's been stolen. So, off you go, chasing after the thief. You finally chase him down and retrieve the amulet off his broken corpse, only to find . . .
It's now broken.
When you arrive at the monastery, you find out that it's been stolen. So, off you go, chasing after the thief. You finally chase him down and retrieve the amulet off his broken corpse, only to find . . .
It's now broken.
I have never had a better "Oh no, they didn't!" moment in a game before, it had me laughing even as I was shaking my head.