Story and Characters in Games (Week 10)

All Characters in games, movies and books have certain effects on people who interact with them or watch them. Characters are designed to express emotions and other behavioural properties we recognise in every day life. That is why people become attached and feel like they also experience the same emotional processes the character endures during a movie, game or book.
I personally believe the first games I grew up with I felt an emotional bond with during my childhood, some sort of respect as I believed some characters as real people and I loved to emurce myself into the game I was playing. Take for instants the first ever consol game I played. Sonic the Hedgehog on the Sega MegaDrive (what a consol). I fell in love with that game and back then I could easily understand the story line and other asspects of the game because of the character I could relate to.

However during the big gap between my early childhood and teenage.....age. There were many games I played which superiorly lacked the character, player bond. Some of these games I hated, for an example Sim City, i know its a town full of people but I couldnt give a damn, I just enjoyed abusing my population, because thats all they were, a figure, a number which represented people. During the past 10 or so years Game developers have made character interaction and development a key process in selling their games. Another example of this is Half-Life, even though poor old Gorden Freeman was born without a voice box, you still felt compled to sit for hour upon hours at your PC and play through the game!
Again with HALO, I couldnt wait for the second installment and the third even though so many people bashed the shit out of it, I didnt care because im a sad fan boy.