"Emotional choices" is the current buzz word for big-buck role-playing and adventure games. Bioshock says it has them, Mass Effect says it'll make you feel things - but do either of them actually click our emotional buttons?
RTS legend Chris Taylor, who's currently trying to work a little feeling into his own project Space Siege, thinks the games industry has still got a way to go before it makes us cry...
"Hollywood has a cry button. They can go, 'I think we're going to make them cry now - buzz!' Hollywood waits another seven minutes... 'I think we're going to make them cry again; buzz!' That's damn refined art," Taylor told CVG this week.
"In videogames do you think we can make people cry with the press of a button? I think it's going to take us a lot longer."
"Movies have been around for a hundred years. I don't think in the first 20 years they had complete command over the human emotional spectrum," he added. "It's like science. They were in a lab researching it and refining it. It's the science of refining the art and the tools and it'll take us years and years."
Taylor and Gas Powered Games' RPG Space Siege features a cybernetic upgrade system that (in theory) will have players asking if it's OK to replace their body parts with mechanical limbs.
"The first time you play through you're probably going to say 'yes, yes, yes - give me the cybernetics' and you're going to be a hulking cybernetic master," says Taylor. "But you're ending's going to reflect that - you'll walk into a room and people will scream and be like 'who the hell is that?! That's the hero?!'"
"It's a process. We're working towards it because we think it's important to have an entertainment experience pressing emotional buttons."
Have any games "accidentally" hit the right emotional buttons though? "Someone said they cried in Final Fantasy VII..."
Football Manager used to rule my moods quite effectively. It got to the point where I'd not play it, if I had something important to do, just in case it plunged me into a foul humour.
The story of Tenendaum and her development of the Little Sisters in Bioshock got to me as well.
Games regularly anger, frustrate, amuse or delight me but sorrow is a very rare occurence. Any game that can spark that has to be something very special.
Not to some people. But to others yes. The people that cry at romantic films or your soaps these are the ones you can get to cry when developers finaly pull their fingers out & create good stories as well as blood letting.
But for people like myself - never cry at films etc - niot going to happen. Ive cried from frustration & anger towards a game in my youth but never from anything trying to make me cry
it's an interesting topic, and one that ive noticed CVG take note of a lot of developers POv's over the past few months. i did a piece of writing on this subject a few years ago when i was at university. One major point you need to be aware of is thus: you play a game for the parts you interact with, not for the sometimes drawn out cut-scene. To be able to fully develop an emotive game experience, you can't rely on using cut-scenes to drive emotive narritive like in a movie.
The secret, i feel is in developing these emotive cutscenes interactively. At the end of the day, the *gamer wants to PLAY the game, the choices and actions they take follow a path to the games conclusion. What drives this story, is through a series of instructions. the key is in portraying these instructions as subtley as possible. so the free man chooses. the introduction of multi-outcome "Story arcs" will go a long way in weaving an emotional response.
take the following example - *an npc is in danger, *you have the choice to save the NPC or not. doing either will open up, and close different storylines. now, at this point in a game, you'd not have much problem with creating a save file, doing one storyline and complete the game. then reload the game, and play through the other storyline. This is one thing a lot of people did in Knights Of The Old Republic when they became a Jedi. BUT what this unforunately does, is give you a safety net. If you lived your life in the real world without risk, it'd be a dull and awful experience devoid of any emotion. This same point can be said for computer games. ESPECIALLY the ones which aim to provoke emotive responses. IF a game retroactively changed your master save file (and any subsequent saves from that paly through) at key points in the game, it'd add actual risk and reward, emotional bonds with characters and choices.
lets go back to the scenario above, the NPC is in mortal danger, and you either choose to let them die, or you fail to save them.
if you choose to let them die, this is noted in the master save, and if you try to reload prior to this event. you'll automatically choose to let them die without you being able to "cheat" the system.
if you fail to save them but try to, a different arc of remorse is presented to the player.
if you save the npc, they're in your debt and a different arc opens.
but the key is, you have one chance, you cant go back and change the future on that play through. this risk, goes hand in hand with interactive storytelling and mirrors film and TV that provokes many of us to tears.
people get drawn in and feel while watching Film, because they CANT go and change what's happening, they CANT go and make everything better. and the limitations of being unable to make everything "easy" is a key aspect to making us cry.
FFVII is a great example of just this. You have no control over saving Aeris, and if you could, it wouldnt be anywhere near the same.
i'm in the process of serialising my paper on emotional responses to computer games at my site www.nickyp.co.uk
I've never cried, but some games have captured emotional moments very well. Namely the end of ICO (possibly my favourite game ending ever just for how beautiful it is) and certain moments in Beyond Good and Evil.
I also feel Mario's pain when he's told for the hundredth time that his princess is in another castle.
I don't cry, but I do feel the emotion in movies sometimes. If they could actually do that in games it would be very impressive.
One of the factors is realism. You need to accurately model facial features if you want them to look believable when they're emotional. Otherwise it's just someone crying over an emotionless face. We're getting there now, but it's not perfect.
We also need more character depth and storylines for the characters. If you want someone to feel bad, you can't just throw them in at the end of a level going "Oh, their friend just died" and expect you to care. You need to get to know them and their friend. They need to have individual personalities, so you're not just thinking "That's NPC_04 out of the way then" - it has to be "Damn, I liked them!"
Soundtrack also helps, but that's about suitable scoring rather than anything programmers can do.
To avoid spoilers I'll talk about the Halo 3 intro. After the tutorial mission, you arrive on deck and people talk about how fantastic it is to have a real live Spartan on board. The soundtrack builds and I feel a sense of pride there. Emotion #1. That's a feeling I've never really got even in the similar situation in HL2 and I'm not sure what the difference is.
But for actual tears you need to feel loss. Again, take HL2 and Alyx. I wouldn't be that bothered if she got killed in Ep3 (she might in Ep2 for all I know). Is it because the episodes are short so you're not "in" the game long enough to adopt the character? Hard to say.
But I do think it's possible. They might just want to get movie writers or novelists to write them instead. Maybe it's just the quality of the writing that seperates the two.
I'll admit Final Fantasy VII made me cry. Although it was the part where a section of Midgar fell and killed a bunch of your friends that made me cry. The bit with Aeris getting killed just p**sed me off because I spent a lot of my time raising her levels, just for her to die half-way.
In any case that was ten years ago, I was more emotionally susceptible back then and no game has ever had the same effect. Not even close.
I think at this point I'm just dead inside, although I would be pleased if a game could get an emotional response from me. Wait, I would be happy when I'm sad? I really am messed up!
Without wanting to sound too pathetic, Halo 3's ending where the Chief almost gets knocked out the ship had me jumping and the first ending was pretty sad, although no tears.
yup, i have to admit when Aeris died that had me in tears. but i was ALOT younger then, plus i think it was the first really emotionaly challenging game i had ever played. i mean how many hours were we controling those characters for? its got to get to you eventualy.
i've played a few games which have nearly made me weep just for the sheer brilliance of them - Resident Evil 4, Okami, FFXII, Ocarina of Time, Shadow of the Colossus. as for a game making me cry because what's directly going on in the story or on screen is a tough one. Shadow of the Colossus came close, thanks to it's beautiful setting and charming story.
i'll have to think about it. i have been known to shed a tear at certain films too!
yup, i have to admit when Aeris died that had me in tears. but i was ALOT younger then, plus i think it was the first really emotionaly challenging game i had ever played. i mean how many hours were we controling those characters for? its got to get to you eventualy.
I cried when Aerith died too...not because I had spent so long levelling her up but because it was just such a shock...you didn't see that in video games in 1997!
I have to admit no games have actually made me cry but you can invest emotionally in certain games. In Shenmue 1 & 2 I cared about the characters. As well as ICO. *SPOILER AHEAD FOR THE DARKNESS* Most recently I was suprised by how gutted I was when Jackie's girlfriend from the Darkness game was killed. I think it can be done with todays technology, just look at HL2 to see how convincing 'digital actors' can be.
My girlfriend cried recently when I smacked her in the face with my Wiimote...does that count?
I know, Bad joke.
But on a serious note, it has been a while since a game has got me hooked emotionally and I've never cried...but then the only time I cried at a film was when I had jet lag, and i'm not even gonna tell you what film it was.
Games that did get me hooked like that were, surprise surprise, point and clicks, Grim Fandango, Broken Sword and the like... the LucasArts ones had me crying with laughter too. People just don't like thinking any more!
Mmmmm tough one this. A game has never made me cry and honestly i don't see how it can with the current level of tech, a lot more is needed to show emotion in NPC's. The ending to Halo 3 did make me feel sad, esp when they thought the Master cheif was dead and the camera zoomed in to his number ethced on the that craft thing. Still no crying tho.
I cried when I played Blood Wake on the Xbox. I cried because I had just paid Ł30 for a game that sucked
Damn ... you beat me to it lol ... i was gonna say that I cried over Unreal2 ... what a let-down THAT was ... though to be fair it was really sad at the end with what happens to the crew of The Atlantis. They must have made me care about those guys.
Anyway, I think it would definitely be possible to get me all wet (stop s******ing at the back). I can't think of any examples now but I have certainly been emo while playing a game, but not to the point of actual tears ... yet.
Films ... I cried at the end of Schindler's List when they showed the actual survivors of the holocaust coming and laying down those stones, in fact I'm getting juicy just thinking about it
Oh and I cried in Dogma when God gave Bethany a baby ... WAH!
the reason a movie can make you cry easier than a game is because when you watch a movie you get emotionally charged while watching it through use of cinematography, music, plot etc so when you get to a sad part your emotions are sufficiently built up to emote a specific response, but only through one entire sitting. With games, because you dont do the whole thing in one sitting its a lot harder. A certain part of a game can build up a specific emotional response only for you to save your game and come back in a day or a week when said emotional response has dissipated. This means that whatever the next emotional response is it won't have as much impact as it would have if you played without taking a break.
Nah, I just don't get that emotionally involved with a game. Perhaps its cos I play them in starts and stops, or perhaps devs just haven't hit the right buttons with me yet.
*wonders if he's even got cry buttons, or if he's just an emotionless husk*
If you had to make the decision to put you Nintendog puppy to sleep after it was in an accident or randomly caught illness then I think some people would get upset.
I think it comes down to how much emotional investment you can give a game, and how much is on offer. Nintendo engage with the emotional side more than most.
Bioshock wasn't that great at affecting my emotions.
I was more emotionally affected by Elite Beat Agents than I was by Bioshock. Seriously. the song where the little girl is waiting for her dad to come home but he's actually dead. Much more affecting than the little sisters in Bioshock.
So I don't think immersiveness is the issue. I don't think it's even possible for a DS rhythm action game to be realistic but it still got closer to making me feel sad than the incredible visuals and "moral dilemmas" in Bioshock did.
Oh and the loss of the Weighted Companion Cube made me sad too.
It's definitely a thing that can be acheived easily in some genres and not so much in others.
Broken Sword for example had all of the above, a great and involving plot, cinematography, huge intstrumental score throughout, great voice acting...everything required to get emotionally attached to the story.
Compare that to most FPS's at the moment and it simply isn't about the story, most people don't want to think, they want out and out action, they want a small cut scene that tells them how they get from one level to the next.
Either that, or they simply don't have the time to be immersed in an epic story.
I think most gamers won't even own a game that has the power to involve them emotionally, and as such, most people will think that games are not capable of doing so.
The ending to Unreal 2 is actually very sad, I really enjoyed the levels based on the Atlantis where I could chat to the characters etc. The game had a good story and the characters also had decent backgrounds so the ending did make me feel a bit down. But no tears still.
I got so swept up in the narrative that when the twist came in Bioshock my jaw hit the floor, as it almost did in KOTOR. But emotional? Nah, not really.
Some of the endings of Streetfighter II were pretty great. I recall Blanca's reunion with his family choked me up. As did Zangief Russian dancing with Gorbachov: I didn't dream that, did I?
And the Portal song was so sweet, even though it was fuelled by pure homicidal fury.
The cop-out end of Halo 2 punched my rage-gauge up to 11, if that counts...
Mr Nutz made me cry. It lulled me into a false sense of security with its pleasantly happy music and then proceeded to shove acorns down my japs eye with its evil difficulty...
Mr Nutz made me cry. It lulled me into a false sense of security with its pleasantly happy music and then proceeded to shove acorns down my japs eye with its evil difficulty...
Acorns and jap's eye ... I NEVER want to see those words used in the same sentence ever again.
Mr Nutz made me cry. It lulled me into a false sense of security with its pleasantly happy music and then proceeded to shove acorns down my japs eye with its evil difficulty...
Acorns and jap's eye ... I NEVER want to see those words used in the same sentence ever again.
Sorry... It was probably more like dipping my nuts in honey and dangling them over a bee hive.
if you didnt cry when Aerith died in ff7 theres something wrong with you !!! saddest thing that ever happened in a game ever, if sony are making a new ff7 like in that ps3 demo from a couple of years back, well i'll buy a ps3 and probably cry at it again haha
I don't remember ever crying at a game (seems most people here say the same) but the end of Mafia left a mark on me... Felt sad but also it gave absolute closure (hate that word!) which made it even more poignant. Ep2's ending pulled at the heart strings too and Prey was a bit of a nasty kick in the nuts...
I'm sure there are a few more that left me felling, well, odd I guess - games like Planescape with a sad happy ending.
I think the reason we don't cry is because we (generally) battled to the ending and, no matter how sad it is at that point, you've fought to get there and you feel you've earned the ending... with a film, the ending comes free so theres less 'F**k you - this is my ending and I earned it' and more 'ah, poor diddums - how wronged he was'. I'm probably not making much sense though so I'll shut up now - I know what I mean though
1 last thought - maybe losing a close character in the middle of a game before you 'need' to - maybe that would work... you know a real build up like the game is just getting into it's stride, then a complete crash down killing your bestest pal in a nasty and needless way and a total break in the action at that point - you could even have to carry the body out to waiting medics or something and have your character real screwed up for a level or 2 perhaps scrambling for his/her life too without any actual objectives until a fight back can start all over again... just a thought... and reading it back probably a crap one... just pretend i didn't even say it...
I'd have to say that the saddest game moments for me are when Agro falls in Shadow of Colossus and when the kid's father is slain at the beginning of Fable.
I think it's impressive if a game can have an emotional impact on the player at the very beginning. Surely it takes decent character development before we feel something for them. Kudos to Fable for that moment.
Playing Metroid Prime and the Resident Evil remake on the Cube were profound moments for me in recent years. These games told a story (through logs on Metroid Prime) but, just as importantly, they made me think in terms of their puzzles. This is one of the reasons why Resident Evil 4 didn't emotionally engage me as much- it didn't make me think that much.
If a game has great cut scenes but no great, engaging gameplay to back it up then it is unlikely that the cut scene will move you I think as it is difficult to care for characters who inhabit a world that you don't care for.
I cannot stand the likes of Roger Ebert, the film critic, who says that videogames cannot be 'art'. Sadly, some videogames developers agree with him. But Ebert is wrong on 2 levels- firstly some game cut scenes have been as emotionally involving as some films or more. Secondly, 'art' is not necessarily about emotional engagement with characters anyway. If you like the art/level design or the music for example, you have got something artistic out of the game.
I remember Shenmue rousing different emotions quite well. My wife got upset, when that guy in Code Veronica turned into a monster (was it Steve?), but that was because she thought him and Claire would get together, you know what girls are like... But nothing compares to how gutted I felt, when Aggro fell in Shadow of the Colossus; that game was well made.
Did anybody feel any guilt towards bringing down the Colossi in Shadow of the Colossus like I did? The designers were clever in that the Colossi (some at least) never initiated combat with the player. It was as if the player was doing wrong to attack and bring them down. The beautifully choreographed slo-mo death sequences are just devastating to watch. Notably, there is no fanfare applauding your victory, only the lifeblood of the beast being extracted (or stolen?). The player also becomes darker and more corrupted with each kill making one question whether what they are doing is morally right.
Did anybody feel any guilt towards bringing down the Colossi in Shadow of the Colossus like I did? The designers were clever in that the Colossi (some at least) never initiated combat with the player. It was as if the player was doing wrong to attack and bring them down. The beautifully choreographed slo-mo death sequences are just devastating to watch. Notably, there is no fanfare applauding your victory, only the lifeblood of the beast being extracted (or stolen?). The player also becomes darker and more corrupted with each kill making one question whether what they are doing is morally right.
That's the point - it's not morally right, you're clearly doing the wrong thing. I've always believed that this was one of the central themes of the game. Wander's goal is to revive a girl - we don't know who she is, or even what his connection to her is, we can only speculate - and he is willing to sacrifice everything in order to achieve that. It makes his hunting down and destroying the Colossi extremely complicated, emotionally. We can see that it's not a good thing. He attacks them and destroys them, and in the process slowly destroys himself as well. However we also know that he is doing it all so he can revive the girl. It's also worth noting that despite our goals and intentions, and despite the fact that we know that killing the colossi is not right, there is still a visceral rush of satisfaction that you feel when you bring one down.
And through the whole thing, Agro is his only companion. One of the things I always noticed was that the horse seemed to know what was happening. There was a very visible bond between the two of them, and Agro becomes such a compelling character that we are absolutely gutted when he falls. And this is a character who is a) not human, and b) never has any lines. In fact, there is hardly any dialogue throughout the game - only at the beginning and at the end, aside from when you get directions to the next colossus - and the only real cinematics are in the opening and ending.
I personally think that Shadow of the Colossus' greatest strength was how much depth and characterisation it manages to convey via gameplay. When you boil it all down, a lot of the stuff that happens is really just gameplay concessions, but the way that everything is presented encourages us to read more into things than is actually there. I think that in the future it's going to be considered a landmark game, not because of its gameplay (which is actually pretty derivative, flawed and often quite frustrating), but because it's one of the first games to truly show what the medium is capable of imparting on its players.
I just wish we could convince tools like Ebert to play it.
The most involved I think I've ever been in a moral choice was in Oblivion, when I was told to wipe out the Assasins in Cheydinhal. It would have been intersting if there had been a choice (as there was occasionally in the unsurpassed masterpiece that was Deus Ex). If developers really want us to get our emotions going, they are going to have to do more of this and let us live with our decisions. Tricky, but possible. So far it's really only been Deus Ex and Far Cry that have cracked it.
I gotta say that Bioshock got me going when *spoiler*
... Atlas' family gets killed in the bathysphere. Listening to him struggling with it while also yelling for me to get out. I felt terrible... until later, when I felt like a fool obviously. Fantastic voice acting as well.
Only game that have ever get me drop few tears, was Maregs death in Grandia 2. (in DC) I played that game many hours per day (summer vacation). I thought that those characters would last til end of the game, so it was a little bit shock. Some landscapes have mede me swallow few times. ...but I have learned now, that games can be harsh....buhuuu.....
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but then i really like cake 
It was probably more like dipping my nuts in honey and dangling them over a bee hive. 
