So I buy games these days when I see their prices drop and what not (and sometimes new) but I've done a real ass job of actually playing said games. The backlog is piling up (Jedi Knight II, Freedom Force, GTA3, plus a bunch of older games I'm still meaning to play) but it's just hard to motivate myself to get into anything.
I want to know, has anyone played any games within the last two years that evoked any empathy for characters?
general games question
Moderators: AArdvark, Ice Cream Jonsey
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Roody_Yogurt
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Ice Cream Jonsey
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Oh, wow. That's a great question. Man, I'm thinking this through and having a real tough time coming up with anything. Here's what I've got so far:
o Freedom Force: I am probably as much of a rah-rah commie hater as you'll get this side of a foil hat, but I didn't feel anything towards Minute Man other than anger when he was forced along on another mission. *Maybe* if FF let us pick our own squads each and every time I would have. But Minute Man was just slowing me down. Towards the end of a game, a certain character meets a certain fate, and I can't say I got too worked up for him/her either.
o Baldur's Gate II: Most likely, character you make yourself shouldn't count. That leaves Imoen... and while she's less annoying than she was in BG, I was still not really solving the game for her sake. And when you get to the point where you free her and don't let her join your party (I mean -- come on -- you have *no idea* when you're going to be at the point where she is free... you either play the whole damn thing with 5 characters or you let one of your own guys go when she's free. Not a fair choice, not in the slightest) and she starts whining... well, t'hell with her. The Infinite Engine needed two slots for NPCs and only NPCs.
o Max Payne: Any empathy I felt for his dead kid ended when the devs looped the baby cries over and over again in the umbilical cord level. Sorry, but after wasting several hours of my life on them the kid got what he deserved. Is Max worthy of empathy? After a long ummm I would say no, because he's the narrator of the game, and the narration is just so downright laughable.
o Mafia: Haven't played it enough to really say yet.
o Maximo: With this game, I started blaming my character rather than me. That's a sign of death. Plus, he's a cypher... he's got nothing to say as far as I could see.
o Morrowind: Probably doesn't count for the same reason that BG2 doesn't. The character model I chose for my character is kind of a cutie, though, as Morrowind was one of the first games to go beyond the typical "hard core slut" design that just about every other 3D game went with for their female characters.
o Ico: Ah!! OK, this one definitely counts. It shames me that I didn't think of it until right now. I definitely like the kid Ico in the game of the same name. And it's funny that I do, because he doesn't say a thing. I really need to write up a full review of this. But, right, both he and the ghost-girl that he walks around with were really well-done, and playing the game to "help" them, like they were living characters ala in the Tron movie, is a legitimate feeling.
It could be that I am simply not thinking along the right lines. All of my boxes from the last two years are near the sink downstairs, and within them lie many secrets, secrets whose answers are things like "giant, hidden spiders," "giant, hidden ants," "giant, hidden beetles" and various other giant creepy crawlers whose empires I don't have the courage to disturb at this point. (The marines in Giants: Citizen Kabuto come to mind as another possibility, now that I think about it.)
But my take is that there isn't a whole of characters to care about in games as of late. It's kind of a shame, too.
o Freedom Force: I am probably as much of a rah-rah commie hater as you'll get this side of a foil hat, but I didn't feel anything towards Minute Man other than anger when he was forced along on another mission. *Maybe* if FF let us pick our own squads each and every time I would have. But Minute Man was just slowing me down. Towards the end of a game, a certain character meets a certain fate, and I can't say I got too worked up for him/her either.
o Baldur's Gate II: Most likely, character you make yourself shouldn't count. That leaves Imoen... and while she's less annoying than she was in BG, I was still not really solving the game for her sake. And when you get to the point where you free her and don't let her join your party (I mean -- come on -- you have *no idea* when you're going to be at the point where she is free... you either play the whole damn thing with 5 characters or you let one of your own guys go when she's free. Not a fair choice, not in the slightest) and she starts whining... well, t'hell with her. The Infinite Engine needed two slots for NPCs and only NPCs.
o Max Payne: Any empathy I felt for his dead kid ended when the devs looped the baby cries over and over again in the umbilical cord level. Sorry, but after wasting several hours of my life on them the kid got what he deserved. Is Max worthy of empathy? After a long ummm I would say no, because he's the narrator of the game, and the narration is just so downright laughable.
o Mafia: Haven't played it enough to really say yet.
o Maximo: With this game, I started blaming my character rather than me. That's a sign of death. Plus, he's a cypher... he's got nothing to say as far as I could see.
o Morrowind: Probably doesn't count for the same reason that BG2 doesn't. The character model I chose for my character is kind of a cutie, though, as Morrowind was one of the first games to go beyond the typical "hard core slut" design that just about every other 3D game went with for their female characters.
o Ico: Ah!! OK, this one definitely counts. It shames me that I didn't think of it until right now. I definitely like the kid Ico in the game of the same name. And it's funny that I do, because he doesn't say a thing. I really need to write up a full review of this. But, right, both he and the ghost-girl that he walks around with were really well-done, and playing the game to "help" them, like they were living characters ala in the Tron movie, is a legitimate feeling.
It could be that I am simply not thinking along the right lines. All of my boxes from the last two years are near the sink downstairs, and within them lie many secrets, secrets whose answers are things like "giant, hidden spiders," "giant, hidden ants," "giant, hidden beetles" and various other giant creepy crawlers whose empires I don't have the courage to disturb at this point. (The marines in Giants: Citizen Kabuto come to mind as another possibility, now that I think about it.)
But my take is that there isn't a whole of characters to care about in games as of late. It's kind of a shame, too.
the dark and gritty...Ice Cream Jonsey!
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Roody_Yogurt
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Anachronox, later on in the game, tries to pull a good heart string here or there, and I do have to say, there'e one part where you're just talking to some random joe and the little soliloquy really did the job with me. One of those, 'alright, this makes up for all the ways this game fails' things.
Only because I think I've only played it within the last two years, I'd mention Skies of Arcadia. I can't say that it had a serious emotional impact on me, but at its tragic moments, it came across as a good homage to the console RPGs in the past that did stir something, making the following triumphant moments a bit more successful. Whether I'm getting too old to take silly rpgs seriously is another matter.
The Longest Journey also didn't cause much empathy, but I so much appreciated the kind of issues that it tried to deal with like no other adventure game I've played before it.
Only because I think I've only played it within the last two years, I'd mention Skies of Arcadia. I can't say that it had a serious emotional impact on me, but at its tragic moments, it came across as a good homage to the console RPGs in the past that did stir something, making the following triumphant moments a bit more successful. Whether I'm getting too old to take silly rpgs seriously is another matter.
The Longest Journey also didn't cause much empathy, but I so much appreciated the kind of issues that it tried to deal with like no other adventure game I've played before it.
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Roody_Yogurt
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Just wanted to mention that finally, a new Anachronox patch has been released. I'd recommend this to anyone who didn't finish or hasn't even started the game yet; it sounds like it fixes several issues.
You can download it at http://www.matrixzero.com/anoxpatch/, although I'd also say keep an eye out for the next couple weeks or month just to see if any new revisions come out. Sounds like another one is right around the corner, as advertisements in the game are not animating right now.
Also, since last night, I've been replaying 'the longest journey' and I have to say, aspects of the game are worse than I remember, but the solid stuff is still pretty damn solid (I'm looking forward to when my little brother plays it) and I hope it only gets better in the sequel.
You can download it at http://www.matrixzero.com/anoxpatch/, although I'd also say keep an eye out for the next couple weeks or month just to see if any new revisions come out. Sounds like another one is right around the corner, as advertisements in the game are not animating right now.
Also, since last night, I've been replaying 'the longest journey' and I have to say, aspects of the game are worse than I remember, but the solid stuff is still pretty damn solid (I'm looking forward to when my little brother plays it) and I hope it only gets better in the sequel.