The Inner Lives of Video Game Characters
Can video games induce fear, panic, anxiety? Wired reports that the makers of a game based on the Saw horror film franchise are trying:
The “reverse bear trap,” a diabolical metal mask that will slice your head off unless you figure out a way to disable it, is the first nightmare you will encounter in the Saw videogame. I tried out a few minutes of the third-person adventure game, scheduled for release this fall on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC, at Konami’s recent Gamers’ Night event here. Saw’s developer says the game is meant to induce the same sense of panic that the popular horror films do. (Bold mine — PS) In the grisly game, you play a desperate individual caught, like one of the characters who face death in the torture-porn movies, in a booby-trapped environment created by serial killer Jigsaw. Your character begins his ordeal in the aforementioned mask, furiously trying to rip it off. On the bottom of the screen, an icon of a joystick appears, rotating in a circle. If you simply spin your analog stick, you’ll die.
In the movies, the characters caught in deathtraps feared for their lives. And if the movies worked effectively, viewers sympathized with these characters and responded with shared panic. Playing on the universal fear of death is something of gimmick, a cheap way to stir up emotion. But it can be effective anyway, especially in a film that displays a willingness to inflict lasting pain and death on its characters. The problem in video games, however, is that there’s nothing at stake. The character whose life is “threatened” isn’t a person, or even a particularly convincing representation of one, but a pixelated avatar controlled by the player. Unlike a traditional fictional character, it has no inner life, no particular human characteristics except for its virtual shape. It rarely has any specific relationship with any other person, save for you, its controller. Which explains why you probably feel as much concern for its “life” as you would for a puppet — probably less, for a puppet, at least, is physical and hard to replace. The video game avatar cannot be destroyed, cannot actually die or be destroyed, for it does not exist; its presence is virtual from the get-go.
Further releasing the player from the bonds of empathy is the fact that, in video games, death is never permanent, and rarely meaningful at all. There’s no finality to it, for video game characters never truly die; they simply reset to an earlier point. Video games treat death as, at worst, a speed bump on the way to one’s goals. It’s remarkable, really: Even comic books and soap operas, known for their inability to let characters stay dead, still understand that death has consequences, that it is a long-term, meaningful event. Video game death is more like an out of bounds in basketball — cause for a short pause in gameplay before things continue on. But even still, there’s a crucial difference: In basketball, the other team can win the game. In a video game (unless you’re playing online against a human opponent), the game can beat you back, and perhaps you might even give up for a time, but it will never beat you definitively. There’s always another chance. In video games, losing, failing, and dying have no permanence.
I’ve been working my way through Gears of War 2 recently. It’s a fantastic ride and an amazing technical achievement, but that’s all. Part technical puzzle, part roller coaster, it offers plenty of visceral entertainment and not an iota of emotional engagement, which is almost universally true of games.
Even those games with the most involving, immersive environments and stories — games like Half Life 2, Portal, and Bioshock — offer very little of the pleasures of traditional storytelling. Instead, the enjoyment comes from figuring out the game’s mechanisms — the behaviors and systems by which it operates — and from mastering the technical challenges — which fingers to move in which order — required to master those systems. That’s a lot of fun, but it has a lot more in common with, say, learning to build a computer, or learning to shoot a bow than it does with watching a movie or reading a book. Without any good way to represent death as something permanent and meaningful, without the ability to convincingly portray inner life or complex human relationships — all of the attributes of narrative that bond us to characters — video games seem destined to remain primarily technical challenges, devoid of emotion save for the frustration you feel when you don’t succeed and the pleasure of mastery you feel when you do.
Very cogent point. The only exception I’ve ever experienced was the old Lucas Arts game, The Dig, which I actually found reasonably engaging emotionally, as I did the original Myst. Would you say the problem is inherent to video games for all the reasons you say, though it’s particularly true of first-person shooters?
— Tom Meyer · Apr 15, 09:45 PM · #
Tom, without thinking about it too much, I might argue the opposite — that first person games actually are the best attempt yet at creating engaging characters. Think about the other popular genres: fighting games, RPGs, sports games, platform jumpers, party games. In general, these games do even less with their characters than FPS’s, although, in their defense, that’s sort of beside the point as few of them really try to tell human-centered stories. Even RPGs, though, primarily teach players to master the economic systems on which they’re based — perform a task, get X in return, trade X for Y power so that you can perform Z task, etc. Perhaps a combo first-person/RPG like Fallout 3 comes closest to manufacturing real people, because the player character has semi-complex (considering) interactions with the other characters.
— Peter Suderman · Apr 15, 09:58 PM · #
You should check out Passage by Jason Rohrer. Primitive graphics, but does a very good job at making a video game carry some emotional weight.
— Isaac · Apr 15, 10:14 PM · #
“Even comic books and soap operas, known for their inability to let characters stay dead, still understand that death has consequences, that it is a long-term, meaningful event.”
I had an experience last year which refreshed my appreciation for just how important doubt and consequences are in scenarios that offer the possibility of experience a felling of achievement, and I am constantly amazed at how books or movies can create such a high degree of empathy for the (fictional) doubt and (fictional consequences faced by (fictional) characters. It must be some sort of magic.
Maybe when a Wii stick can punch you in the eye game designers will be able to offer emotionally immersive experiences on par with film, TV, or books.
— Tony Comstock · Apr 15, 10:31 PM · #
I’m leaning towards the “you need to play X” position here – specifically Ico and Shadow of the Colossus on the PS2, and Braid on the 360.
Shadow of the Colossus in particular does a rather great job of getting the player involved with the narrative and questioning the main character’s motives – no, the character’s potential deaths aren’t real, or arguably meaningful, but the game is, in a very real way, about death and destruction, and what those concepts mean to the various people in the narrative.
— Chris · Apr 15, 10:34 PM · #
Chris — Doubtful that I’ll get my hands on a PS2 any time soon, so the first two are probably not going to happen, but I’ve heard quite a bit about Braid; I suppose I’ll have to check it out.
— Peter Suderman · Apr 15, 10:36 PM · #
Shadow of the Colossus is one of the best games I’ve played. More developers should be taking cues from Team ICO instead of Bungie. It is the closest any game has gotten to tragedy, which is saying something. Not just that, but the gameplay itself was inspired, challenging, and had really great moments. It’s a game with blockbuster funding, that went the more subtle route. And the only reason I’m considering getting a PS3 is waiting for what Team ICO can come up with next.
— Keljeck · Apr 15, 11:07 PM · #
Ocarina of Time!
— Max Socol · Apr 15, 11:11 PM · #
“In video games, losing, failing, and dying have no permanence.”
They do in nethack. :)
I think your overall point about narrative is pretty much correct, but I think you’re taking your conclusion a bit far. Video games derive their emotional impact from somewhere else besides simply the narrative tension of the player’s actions.
In the case of games like Half-Life 2 (particularly Episode 2), the impact comes from non-player characters whom you do not have control over, but whom you come to care for.
[MINOR SPOILER]
The cliffhanger at the end of Episode 2 does indeed involve the irreversible death of a likable character, and it does have an emotional impact. You the player are powerless to prevent this death. And the fact that it comes after an entire game in which you’ve been able to heroically conquer every challenge just makes it more effective.
[END SPOILER]
But in more cases, the emotional impact comes from the game’s visual and aural aesthetic style. I think Myst is an excellent example here. It is almost impossible to lose at Myst. But that doesn’t make it unemotional. All the emotion comes from the sense of wonder, mystery, and horror engendered by the various environments. It functions far more like a painting than like a movie, but just like a painting, it can have an emotional impact.
I don’t think anyone should expect video games to function like movies. If you just leave that presupposition behind, I think you can discover much different sources of emotional effect.
— Ethan C. · Apr 16, 01:06 AM · #
Braid, incidentally, is now available for the PC. I plan on picking it up soon.
— Ethan C. · Apr 16, 01:13 AM · #
Tom was right. The Secret of Monkey Island is vastly more successful, on the level of storytelling and emotion, than an first-person shooter.
— Freddie · Apr 16, 01:56 AM · #
If you’re talking visceral engagement, you should try Mirror’s Edge. A first person “shooter” with a parkour twist. You are basically jumping from buildings, in freefall, from cranes, landing on small pipes, etc. It’s as white knuckle as they come.
It also has the added advantage of actually inducing feelings of nausea and vertigo in some players. From this perspective at least, video games, at rare moments, can induce some sort of visceral reaction.
As for caring for characters and death, I suppose I’ll take your point and hush.
— Geoff · Apr 16, 02:37 AM · #
I know it’s been rendered more or less irrelevant by the fact that people who have not played the game yet are distinctly unlikely to revisit (or acquire) a PS2 in order to play it, but I’d just add some supporting fire to the contention that Shadow of the Colossus is an enormously engaging game. In fact, I found the by the end it was one of the most depressing games I’d played – in a good way, I hasten to add. Very morally ambiguous and rather tragic.
I think the main point of the post is surely correct. With rare exceptions, it seems to me that the engagement, to the degree that there is engagement, tends to be with the NPCs – the player character can die and the player can simply load up, but if the game has a narrative structure of any depth, ultimately what happens to the NPCs is, in an odd way, forever. I think games such as Fallout 3 are probably those that come closest on this. There are times when playing the game as the proverbial Bad Guy (which one is more or less free to do, though I tend to feel that with these games it’s actually a lot harder to have the complete experience while playing as somebody essentially destructive) can be a genuinely uncomfortable experience.
— Anthony · Apr 16, 03:00 AM · #
I would suggest that you get a PS2 – they’ve just dropped in price. Although it’s definitely a step down in graphics and there aren’t really any new releases to look forward to, there’s a very large library of games available.
Adding to the recommendations for Shadow of the Colossus, I would also say that you should try Persona 4 for the PS2. Persona 4 is, very specifically, a game about the inner lives of its characters, and it’s also one of the best games of the past year.
— Evan · Apr 16, 04:49 AM · #
The death of the main character is (almost) never permanent, but the death of other characters, even enemies, is a perfect way for videogames to engage the players and to communicate emotion. Unfortunately they don’t do this for mostly commercial reasons.
— moromete · Apr 16, 10:51 AM · #
Do video games, as a medium, really lack the ability to show inner life of characters, or have game makers to date lacked the ability to do so?
— bcg · Apr 16, 12:49 PM · #
Well…that why Warcraft is so popular, the social interaction of guilds….rather than emulating emotion, caring for another virtual player, WoW just incorporates it.
But we are hardwired to love to fight, and that is why virtual fighting is so popular.
We are also wired to love games.
I have a hypothesis that our genetic love of warfare will be completely virtualized someday….through the gamer multiverse and militarily through C4ITT— milspeak….command, control, comms, computers, intell, telepresence, tele-operation.
— matoko_chan · Apr 16, 03:16 PM · #
As was mentioned above, the death of NPCs is typically more emotionally involving than anything that happens to the main character. One way this can work in a non-scripted manner is for games like Fire Emblem or Valkyria Chronicles or the like where there’s a large roster of NPCs and tough battles. Half Life 2 does this some with the section where you work with other resistance fighters, but they’re in no way unique so losing one hurts less. Apparently Far Cry 2 sells it a bit more with side characters, which prompted an interesting post by Stephen Totilo called <a href=“http://multiplayerblog.mtv.com/2009/02/09/game-diary-february-9-2009-when-i-let-him-die/”>when I left him die</a>.
Ultimately for non-scripted death to work in a game it needs to be like losing a basketball game but not like losing the season.
Side note: I don’t think the games I’m throwing out are necessarily of the same caliber as the trio listed in the original post or Braid or the like. Grappling with death in a more credible but still non-force-fail way isn’t enough to necessarily make them extraordinary.
— Greg Sanders · Apr 16, 08:46 PM · #
And I would also add that, if I had to choose just one example of a video game death that universally engages players’ emotions, that had such a strong effect that it became a memorable moment for an entire generation of players, I would name a single game:
Final Fantasy VII.
— Ethan C. · Apr 16, 09:29 PM · #
Sigh…poor Aeris.
— Geoff · Apr 16, 10:18 PM · #
In the middle of dinner and suddenly crossed this post with another I read just yesterday by Clarisse Thorn. I think I understand something I didn’t understand before.
— Tony Comstock · Apr 16, 11:09 PM · #
I was trying not to be a spoiler, Geoff. ;)
— Ethan C. · Apr 16, 11:49 PM · #