A game character is a potent weapon in the portraiture of a world. Through the use of characters like Roman, Brucie and many others Liberty City feels more like a world in motion than a bunch of city geometry and cop simulators. Each character is different, seems to add something momentarily funny or insightful to the portrait, and then passes out of view again.
Establishing character is not the same thing as character development. Character development in a dramatic arc is a long and complex process, but in a game it’s completely at odds with what a world needs to achieve. The art of establishing characters is conveying an impression of who they are in totality, because they are just a part of a world.
A game character needs to be established with a light touch, so that it’s the player’s choice to like or loathe at their own pace. Take that away, or foist exposition on the player, and intended feelings of sympathy quickly turn to antipathy or boredom.
The other mistake that bad game writing makes is in trying to establish the player’s doll. While it can work to turn the doll into a character temporarily (especially at the start of the game), it doesn’t really work when the player is actually controlling the doll. God of War manages to establish Kratos using a few arresting cut scenes, and the Max Payne games use comic sequences to establish Max. After that, establishment is pushed to one side. Compare this to Halo 3 where the game stops player for ham-fisted brain-woozing moments from Cortana, and the difference is clear.
The worst examples of establishment are when games talk at the player and try to make him feel. Whether trapped in a room with a game character talking to camera, a belaboured cut-scene sequence, or pointless segments of enforced branched dialogue, talking at the player to induce him to feel is just very bad game writing.
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