Loyalty: your favorite factions and characters.

[Vindekarr]

Ive been a gamer for a decade next month, since I was nine years old, and Im going to celebrate that milestone by greifing some Hulks during EVE online's Hulkageddon week, replaying some of the first great games Ive played, and posting a few of what I hope are interesting threads.

 

 

Factions and characters are a very important part of any story driven game. Im a writer in reality, and in the 3 years of work designing a fictional universe to set my current project in, 2 of those years were writing the charactersm factions, and planning out their stories and how their relationships with other characters.

 

Its if anything more important to a game's success than a novel's. While I respect my audience too much to give anything less than 110%, some authors get away with rather major gaps in faction character and plotline, such as twilight.(shudder) In gaming however it really is make or break, the complete lack of personality from any of the lead characters, and the game's shear inability to explain and introduce me properly to the factions broke mass effect one for me-I just found the emotionless faces, wooden voicing and truly aweful "reveal" of the faction so frustrating I never actualy finished it.

 

Its one those things that you need to do well if you're going to do anything. There are of course exceptions. R-Type was a fun quirky little shooter with hours of fun in it, but didnt have a single individual character: you piloted a ship to fight the resurgant bioweapon race attacking your homeworld. The story was 3 paragraphs in the front of the awesomely thick manual, no cutscene, not a single line of voice, no plot, just you, your guns, the enemy. And a lot of really good fights and bosses. But for the most part, in my view, if a game has great storyline and characters, ones that you really do feel a sense of loyalty to, then it becomes a lot easier to forgive its other shortcomings.

 

But what are the thoughts of the community?