Emotional Connection in Video Games: Give me a reason to care.

After finishing L.A Noire, I found myself confused. I love serious games as much as the next person. But after some careful thinking, and a few naps, did I come to the conclusion that I can play a game intent on playing my heart strings only if I can somehow relate to the character I’m controlling. I speak for myself, because there many people who can dive deep in bloodshed and tears, knowing full well that the protagonist is a drunk and physically abusive husband who hates black people and wishes that Nazis would stand up and fight again. I can’t.

In terms of single player experiences, if a game has a theme of vengeance or retribution (which I’d say easily covers roughly 90% of games out there) I can relate to that. I can relate to hating something or someone so much that beyond a bottle of Asprin, only their painted smear on a wall can alleviate my pent up aggression towards them. Why else would we give a shit about Charles Bronson in “Death Proof” or Tom Jane in “The Punisher”? It’s because we have this natural aggression, and like a cocky police force, would wish to take the law into our own hands to rid evil people from their hideouts and defaecate on their carcasses. Okay, maybe not THAT extreme, but there are people who would stay by me to behold such a sight. The breaking down of a series of events that resulted bruised bodies and egos, and a churning stomach full of Mexican food.

that embrace puts a smile on my face.

Emotional experiences need to provide a sense of longing for an outcome. The player shouldn’t just understand the motives of the protagonist but also understand how a want can turn to a need, and the daily grind of his or her life could, understandably, bring them to their knees in pain and torment.
If they are scared of something, like a pedophile on the block that takes children, understand what the child may think. The consequences of an action, and inability to redo things, and the mind fuck of not knowing how things end. I think of James from Silent Hill 2.

Yes, you are scary.

He gets a letter from his dead wife, beckoning him to return to a place so creepy and demented, that a person named Pyramid Head lives there. Of course, he wants answers, and he knows this place doesn’t welcome it’s visitors with open arms and birthday balloons, But James is yearning for knowledge. He knows that in order to find the answers he’s searching for, to alleviate pain and torture, the overwhelming grief and tragedy, he must bear down, putting his life on the line for a woman he used to love. Those are human emotions, embedded in us.

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