The crying game...

[kacation_man]

1up.com: "The crying game... "

news article at 1up.com, Marc Laidlaw gives his 2cents on the topic so i though t it would fit in here. Also, in their experiment to create a tear jerking game they mention a few things such as realistic characters, facial structure to give life like emotion, and getting rid of sketchy cut scenes or just throwing them out all together. Reading through all this after first skimming trough " Skip the movies " i couldn't help but think: "Half life 2 already pulled that off..." and reading the paragraph "In the upcoming Medal of Honor: Airborne..." ( third from the bottom ) The character I thought already and currently in this "emotional" position for players and fans alike is none other then Alyx Vance... She is definitely one of the most realist video game characters of all time and although she hasn't died... yet... we all know every one here at halflife2.net along with the rest of the Half life 2 fan base and growing community would be completely devastated to see her die( if she dies). After reading all this i thought, The worst in the Half life 2 universe is yet to come, and although I'm fairly certain it wont make me cry (because the last movie that made me even the littlest bit upset was "Pass it forward") I'm sure it will be fairly upsetting to see any main character die considering Valve did such an excellent job in creating characters that I even some times forget are only part of a game.

 

[Sam]

In episode 3, it turns out she is a man.

 

[kacation_man]

D:

 

[DeusExMachina]

Meh. I won't care that much.

There'll be an "aw," but not much more.

 

[kacation_man]

well that's what i figured, the point i was just trying to make was that they are trying to do something Valve basically touched upon but making you cry obviously wasn't their goal. If this team wants to accomplish something like this they are going to have to work harder and do better then valve did with their characters... and I'm not sure that ever possible.

 

[DeusExMachina]

There's been plenty of games where I felt very attached to my characters. Plenty did better NPCs as well. The KOTOR games, Planescape, etc. RPGs mostly, yes.

Not to say Valve didn't do a great job with NPCs.

 

[Asknoone]

Valve probably have the most 'human' character ever made. I've never cried in a game, though, and depending on how well they pull off the character death it may change. I very rarely care about the characters in games.

HL2 characters are human, and that is why they are the best. They are simply down to Earth. As for other games? Hmm...Deus Ex, actually.

 

[Krynn72]

Yeah, Deus Ex was one of only two games in which I actually cared about the characters. I tried to play the game through, doing things different every time, but I just couldn't let Paul die in the hotel.

Also, Final Fantasy 9. Vivi was an awesome character.

 

[kacation_man]

call me kiddy and immature but the only other game i cared for the characters about was kingdom hearts... not that i could really do anything about it, i just didnt want the story to go any more sour. I always get all butt hurt during a game ( or a movie for that matter ) when the bad guys kill a hot chick... always disappointing and seems like such a waste.

 

[AJ Rimmer]

Grim Fandango did choke me up a bit, and Mafia did, but other than that it's hard to get attached to most NPC's. If Alyx died I'd probably be a pit peeved because I liked her, but please, not Barney! Not Baaarneeeey!

 

[kacation_man]

I personally think that barney will be the first to go, dont get me wrong but i dont wanna see him go, but i think if anyone him or eli will be the first to go.

 

[Flyingdebris]

I'd really miss barney if they finally killed him off.

I did my best to keep every single barney and scientist alive in hl1

 

[LGs0pHT]

Emotionally involving - let me tell ya:

Deus Ex Series (Dialogues, Interaction)
Mafia (Frank / Paulie Affair, Soundtrack, Cutscenes)
The Max Payne series (Soundtrack, Comics)
Half-Life 2 (Choreographed sequences)
Prey (Plot changes of the story)

 

[kacation_man]

is prey any good, I havent looked into it yet but I wanna get either prey or F.E.A.R. I like the whole scary/horror thing in games but im tired of zombie and/or zombie like creatures. I have a fear demo and I like fighting humans with that creepy girl popping up every once in a while. Its more scary knowing you cant blast away at the thing scaring you.

 

[AJ Rimmer]

In fairness I'd say Prey is decent. It's not great but it ain't crap either, it *could* have been great if they had just skipped the whole indian-theme and a few other stupid things. But mainly the indian-thing.

 

[DeusExMachina]

Oh yes, I forgot all about Max Payne. Sam Lake is an excellent writer with dialogue and plot.

 

[AJ Rimmer]

Oh yes, I forgot all about Max Payne. Sam Lake is an excellent writer with dialogue and plot.

Indeed, and incidentally, Alan Wake has the potential to be beyond awesome!

 

[St4n]

I tend to only really get attached to characters in television programmes or films and thats rarely. For instance i was sorry to see futurama go but i got over it. With half life 2 i have grown especially attached to all the main NPCs. It must be the only game or one of few games that i have really gotten attached to the characters. If Alyx or Ely died i would be upset for a while afterwoulds. At the end of Half life 2 i believed all the main characters to be dead which upset me for a while but then episode one came out and i had something to look forward to in a game again. Not only was half life 2 evrything i looked for in a first-person game (huge variety of game scenarios, awesome characters, amazing story-line, varied range of enemies, and superb graphics) it almost became an obsession (sad, i know, heard it all before) and to me seeing really any main character die now would be really upsetting, i highly doubt i'd cry though.

 

[kupocake]

In episode 3, it turns out she is a man.

Meh. I won't care that much.

Neither will I. I'm progressive.

I like taking things out of context.

The only game I remember tearing up to was the old cliche, Final Fantasy 7. However, not at the moment most people usually cite. Nah, the bit that gets me is earlier when you see the soft side of Barrett when Marlene turns out to have survived the disaster in the slums. I just found that rather poignant. Bad things happening to children has the most tear-jerking potential, which unfortuantly means that Half-Life 2 has handicapped itself. The only character at this stage who has that kind of power over the player is Alyx, however, Valve have shot themselves in the foot in that respect by hinting on too many occasions (particuarly the episode 2 trailer) that her life could potentially be in danger. If she cops it in early 2007, we're all going to be saying "I saw it coming" rather than drowning in tears.

edit: on a side note, CliffyB is far too metrosexual even for a progressive person like myself.

 

[Opheli@r]

Right....
The last time i cared about a character was Alyx.... that blessed train scene.... what a moment.

 

[Darkside55]

I'm glad to hear that these game studios are looking to make players feel a wider range of emotions. Establishing strong emotional ties between players and NPCs is a very important step in making games a form of entertainment that can stand up to other forms of media, books and movies and TV shows. That's the big separation right now...very few people will cry during a game, whereas it's an emotion that's often elicited by other media, especially movies.

Valve in particular has done a good job with creating strong bonds for characters. A lot of it is in having these characters have lives outside of the player; that is, they have their own feelings and important details, their own relationships and goals and dreams and fears. Their own stories. Things that make the player identify with the character (and not necessarily in agreeance, but just that they understand them), these real three-dimensional characters we can learn about and get attached to. That's probably the most important part, if you want to have a player get emotional about an NPC, and I don't mean just crying, but feeling any emotion.

In order to get a player to cry it takes an especially significant event. It has to be a situation and a feeling that most people can relate to, something where you can put yourself in that character's shoes (or even in your ingame avatar's shoes) and feel those feelings yourself. Cliff Blezinski's example of Lunar, running to tell a girl who'd completely forgotten about him that he loved her, that's pretty powerful. It combines love, anticipation, brings up all the past memories of that person ingame.

Speaking personally, I've cried during games before. Kacation mentioned Kingdom Hearts; a friend and I can't get past the ending of KH2 without tearing up, but for completely different reasons. And there are a couple other tear-jerker moments in that game too. And I've said a couple times on this forum that if a certain Valve character goes, it'll get tears out of me.

These situations differ from person-to-person, though. What strikes an emotional chord for one player might not work on another. Some people might cry at one moment and others the next. Some might not cry at all. I don't know if it's possible to make a game universally sad; I don't know if it's possible to make any kind of 3rd-person experience (as in media) universally sad. But if these games can reach most of players, give most people the desired feeling of sadness the scenes are meant to achieve, I'd say it's an accomplishment even without tears.

 

[kacation_man]

Kacation mentioned Kingdom Hearts; a friend and I can't get past the ending of KH2 without tearing up, but for completely different reasons. And there are a couple other tear-jerker moments in that game too.

I thought the end of KH2 was pretty happy cuz they all ended up together and made the player happy as well making them believe there will be a third game, as i cant remember the whole game, in KH2 i found that one of the saddest parts in the game was some where in the beginning where kiri couldnt remember sora, who he was, what his name, was or anything, cuz any one who's played through both games just wants the see them 2 live happily ever after.

 

[Darkside55]

It was a happy ending. They were happy tears, which might actually be something harder to make players feel than sad tears. Causing a tearful reaction through, say, a death is easier than causing a player to cry because something good happened.

(Also just in case you're wondering, the part that makes me cry is the bit at the very end where Sora and Kairi clasp hands and you see Roxas and Namine for a moment. I always felt for those two characters more than Sora and Kairi.)

 

[kacation_man]

really? whys that?

 

[Darkside55]

Why'd I feel for them more or why'd I cry about the end? The first part is because they're Nobodies...no real feelings, but they could have artificial feelings when they were around people close to them. For the most part Roxas didn't even know that until the end of his journey, when he was forced into being absorbed by Sora (to which he rebelled...I thought it was shitty that he didn't have a choice, he was created by a strange circumstance and then he ends up getting put back into Sora's body when he wanted to live his own life. Made me feel bad for him).

Namine too was pretty sad because she didn't have anybody, she could only affect the memories of those close to her, and try to get friends that way. She was made in an even stranger way than Roxas was, and then at the end when she's "outlived her usefulness" the Organization attempts to kill her. Then she also gets absorbed.

By that point I was like, "Now they're just part of Sora and Kairi again. They'll be together, but only because Sora and Kairi are together." And then you see them in the end and I was like, "YEAAAAAH!" =*)

(Man, this forum needs spoiler tags; I feel like this whole post should've been spoiler'd)

 

[kacation_man]

well in all fairness not many people come to a half life 2 site and find such thing, but i suppose thats the "trap" hu? this site should have spoilertags, like default ones.