A scene from Watch Dogs.
There's a fine line between a dark, brooding, stoic protagonist and a character with no personality at all. Super-hacker Aidan Pearce (Watch Dogs) is the Bella Swan of video games - a character so boring that it can only be a deliberate effort to create a blank slate players can project their own emotions onto. The problem is that anyone who identifies with this guy is likely an emotionally stunted creep. (Actually Bella was kind of creepy too.)
Lots of games create these blank characters, of course. But what really made Aidan Pearce the worst was the fact that Ubisoft tried to give him some personality and motivation and it was so poorly executed that it made him even less likable and less relatable. I would have preferred the Master Chief approach - who needs backstory when you can have a guy offering to take the Covenant back their bomb?
Ghost, and the voiceunder
A scene from Destiny.
It's safe to say that Destiny did take the Master Chief approach, however. Your character in Destiny never speaks - good thing you have your good pal Ghost to entertain you, right?
Well, no. While the hovering metal ball isn't technically the main character, he is the only character in Destiny you spend any real time with. And he's not exactly a scintillating companion. He had so much promise - he was voiced by Peter Dinklage, who is better known as Tyrion from Game of Thrones. Tyrion is probably the best-loved character on the show in large part due to Dinklage's acting.
For some reason, though, Dinklage's performance in Destiny was beyond lackluster. To be fair on Dinklage, the script wasn't the most compelling piece of writing. Maybe he wasn't that into the whole video game thing, or maybe he was directed to sound more robotic - either way, he was no GladOS.
Arno, unfortunately not Ezio
A scene from Assassin's Creed: Unity.
This year Assassin's Creed continued its now proud tradition of focusing too much on complicated lore instead of characterisation with Unity. In this case, the part is well-performed - it's definitely the script that's at fault - but Arno still manages to be just like every other video game protagonist ever.
Many of the previous assassins were a bit lacking in personality - the worst being Assassin's Creed III's Connor. While Arno isn't quite that bad, I can't help but be baffled at the fact that the game's creators are so tied up in coming to the conclusion of an unbearably complex sci-fi story that they can't see that what people want is to enjoy themselves. A lot of people disliked the ladies' man Ezio, but he had personality, and I'll bet fans of the franchise are missing him now.
Then there's the other Assassin's Creed protagonist - Desmond. No one cares about Desmond. (Although I do like his sarcastic British friend.)
The good ones
A scene from The Walking Dead.
If you look outside of the big blockbuster games, you can fortunately find some characters that were worth playing this year. The Walking Dead's Clementine was as sympathetic in season two as she was when the series debuted, and Child of Light's Aurora was an interesting character too.
inFamous: Second Son's Delsin wasn't always 100 percent likeable, but at least he could crack a smile every now and then.
While fans of video games have harped on about story for a long time - and story is important - I think this year's crop of games shows that characterisation is more crucial.
Great narratives are led by characters who are relatable - funny, vulnerable, strong, flawed, three-dimensional people. And robots.
* Who were your least/most favourite video game characters from 2014?
- nzherald.co.nz
