Definitely Love. The only time I've ever seen this is in Mass Effect 2 when you talk with Ashley on Horizon.
What's the hardest emotion to express in a video game?
- Thread starter beniki
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Yeah it's not in a lot of games. But I can think of one example. Companion cube. It's there to help you through obstacles, and does so without any thought to itself or deceiving you. That's a silly example really, but there are some minor support characters who do this.TheCorpseMan99 said:
And thinking back, maybe Saria from Ocarina of Time. She just wants to be your friend, with no strings attached, and even lets you run off to save Hyrule without too much guilt.
This might have more to do with the general craziness of our game worlds. In his world Mario is the uncomformist because he's not a mushroom or a turtle. And disgust and guilt are hard to instill when we already accept mass murder as a valid game.Popido said:
I do remember one mission in a Hitman game though. You go into an abatoire to rescue a young girl from these rich people having a party. I snuck through the level very well, and didn't arouse any suspicion. It should have been obvious to me, but when I found her, she was already dead, and cut up into little pieces. All that you could take back to her father was a severed hand. I remember the disgust I felt then. I slaughtered everyone at that party, just to appease it.
Mr. Budding comedian, you need to swap around your 'You's and 'I's. No one wants to spend an evening listening to some guy tell them how stupid they are, but they'll watch a guy make a fool of himself all night.CrazyCapnMorgan said:
To quote a great man; 'You be short and angry, I'll be tall and lazy, but we'll both be idiots.'
Is intelligence an emotion? I have to agree though, we never see a lot of real intelligence in game characters. We're presented with the 'smart' person all the time, but because of the constraints of the game they can't ever be more intelligent than the player.Squilookle said:
And yeah, JRPGs are about as subtle as a giant fire breathing lizard destroying Tokyo.
I concur as well, but I Think that is due to more of a culture thing than anything else. When Japanese think we're very over emotional when expressing our emotions... ya know there is gonna be a lack of sublety. Everything from japan is over the top emotions.beniki said:
Anger, and not just frustration because I keep getting killed, anger at something in the plot, as that requires I care about the characters a lot.
Well, I suppose sadness is a hard emotion to express within the game. Whenever a character cries in game, it feels forced, as some sort of cheap way to extract tears from the audience. It's even worse when it's the beginning of the game because the audience has no time to actually feel bad for the characters.
Oh my god, school life. That's so over the top compared to space marines.
Honestly, the extreme japanophobia here makes me think everyone's family here was killed by JRPGs.
Squilookle said:
Oh my god, school life. That's so over the top compared to space marines.
Honestly, the extreme japanophobia here makes me think everyone's family here was killed by JRPGs.
The key to a lot of emotions that run counter to the concept of a game is not to rely on instilling them in the player.
Hope is out, because the player knows that by definition at the very least the protagonist will prevail, thus killing the "in the face of an impossible mission" angle, and no game publisher would allow a downer ending because it tends to hurt sales of the sequel and be a poor way to build a mainstream franchise.
Despair doesn't work, for the same reason. True despair would be in making the finale an Unwinnable Boss Fight, which players would decry as a shit sandwich ending.
Love? Oh dear gods, no.
However, you CAN instill these things in NPCs and allow the player to feel a strong sense of immersion and attachment to a character. A man whose wife dies in his arms, the bubbly perky sidekick, who is going to get Aeris'd as a way to stir up rage against the main antagonist (after seeing that scene unspoiled by the Internet I was determined to make Sephiroth pay), the village of people whose only hope is the player...
You do it right and (in the words of Data's daughter Lal on TNG) "I will feel it for both of us."
Hope is out, because the player knows that by definition at the very least the protagonist will prevail, thus killing the "in the face of an impossible mission" angle, and no game publisher would allow a downer ending because it tends to hurt sales of the sequel and be a poor way to build a mainstream franchise.
Despair doesn't work, for the same reason. True despair would be in making the finale an Unwinnable Boss Fight, which players would decry as a shit sandwich ending.
Love? Oh dear gods, no.
However, you CAN instill these things in NPCs and allow the player to feel a strong sense of immersion and attachment to a character. A man whose wife dies in his arms, the bubbly perky sidekick, who is going to get Aeris'd as a way to stir up rage against the main antagonist (after seeing that scene unspoiled by the Internet I was determined to make Sephiroth pay), the village of people whose only hope is the player...
You do it right and (in the words of Data's daughter Lal on TNG) "I will feel it for both of us."
I think World of Goo showed hope beautifully. No, I'm not kidding. The game has some really complex undertones to it's apparent happy-go-lucky style. To summarize, you are working for the World of Goo Corporation which is exploiting the goo balls for its own profit. About two thirds into the game you start to realize this and begin working to stop them. By the end of the game, there are very few goo balls left, but with the ones you have, you are given the impression that they will still live on.
The story is told very subtly, and the music and the art really help you to feel like rooting for the goo balls.
The story is told very subtly, and the music and the art really help you to feel like rooting for the goo balls.