Games and Animation Studies Essay

While photorealistic animation and gaming visuals offer a graphic realism, in what ways have contemporary titles such as Half Life 2 succeeded or failed in expressing an emotional realism?

Emotional realism is the description given to a form of realism focussing solely on the characters within a given text. Successful implementation of emotional realism has been defined as follows: “The audience ‘knows’ the character and identifies with him or her because the character behaves in a ‘realistic’ way or says the ‘right’ thing, or shows an identifiable response or emotion.”
In this essay I will answer the title question by looking at elements of character development and creation, besides photorealism, that add to conveying emotional realism with particular emphasis on the roles of father figure characters (defined as men “whom other people look up to for advice, inspiration, or protection”) and the responses they evoke, using the examples of contemporary games: Half Life 2, Half Life 2 Episode 2, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and Call of Duty: World at War.
While these games do feature somewhat photorealistic graphics, I will look at the other methods employed by their developers to build character and create an emotional dialogue with the player and the effectiveness of this in the aforementioned games.

The Half Life series has been consistently acclaimed for its immersive and innovative gameplay and, at the time of its release, Half Life 2’s character were very visually impressive and considered to be almost groundbreakingly photorealistic for a video game. However, with such a small cast of core characters, there is a responsibility to the developers to make sure every facet of the characters is as fully realised as their appearance.
Half Life 2’s father figure character, Eli Vance, is a key player in the game’s story and, although the player character Gordon Freeman’s interaction with him in the game isn’t frequent, for the most part, in each meeting Eli makes a lasting impact. Then, at the end of the main game’s Episode 2 expansion, when he is killed it stirs up a lot of sadness in the player.
Although the character animations for Eli are of a high standard they do occasionally show some flaws so it seems that the emotional realism is better constructed elsewhere, particularly in his appearance, actions and dialogue. One of the first things the player notices about Eli is his prosthetic leg, which immediately creates empathy between the two and this is later reinforced when it is revealed that he lost his limb during the events of the original Half Life. Also noticeable beneath Eli’s jacket is a Harvard University top. This seemingly simple image relays a substantial amount of information to the player about the character’s life as well as giving them reason to feel sorry for him for going from such a distinguished place to living in hiding from the earth’s invaders.
Eli’s father figure role is presented at a somewhat superficial level to begin with as he is literally the father of Gordon’s partner, Alyx. The relationship between the father and daughter is incredibly believable and is always bolstered by dialogue between the two, with Eli being paternally protective and loving of Alyx.
While this may be the base level of a father figure, it’s Eli’s relationship and interaction with other characters, particularly Gordon, that pushes it to something considerably more. Through Gordon’s eyes the player sees Eli initially as source of help and sanctuary. Increasingly throughout the game though he becomes a figure of encouragement and, as a greatly more experienced scientist, the player can make the connection that, before the events of the original Half Life, Eli is a man that Gordon would have aspired to be as a scientist himself.

With a mute player character successful voice acting is another element that firmly establishes Eli Vance as a realistic character. The same can certainly be said of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare’s Captain Price and Call of Duty: World at War’s Sergeant Reznov. A strong, distinctive voice performance from a familiar and competent actor is another element that can give a virtual character that much more credibility and allow the player to form a firm bond with them.
Currently all the games in the Call of Duty series have been set in a war environment where the strong male archetype plays a key role. All the player characters are voiceless, even when taking control of a previously or subsequently voiced character, so it is up to the supporting characters to create an emotionally realistic experience for them. As with Half Life 2 the characters of Call of Duty are all close to photorealistic, but again more is done to bring more emotional realism to the games.
Typically, as the player takes control of a number of characters per game in the Call of Duty series, there are a number of father figures intentionally placed alongside the player character, as a partner or as leader of a team, for them to look to for advice, inspiration and protection as the above definition suggests.
In the more heavily story-driven Call of Duty spin-off series Modern Warfare, Captain Price (voiced by British actor Billy Murray) is the most memorable father figure as he guides player character Soap through the majority of the game from directing him through the initial training area to apparently dying to save the day at the game’s conclusion. One particularly significant scene in the opening level sees Soap being knocked to the ground by missile fire on the boat the team is aboard only to have Price help him to his feet and give him orders about leaving. A lot of thought has clearly gone into the design of this character in terms of both his actions and his look.
Being soldiers, as most of the characters in Modern Warfare are, there is considerably less room for creativity when it comes to character design as the characters will logically have to be uniformed and of a certain shape and size. However the developers have made sure that Price is still easily distinguishable even in the most difficult situations. Wearing a boonie hat throughout the game and its sequel, as opposed to the other soldiers’ more standard headwear, the silhouette of Price’s head clearly stands out to the player as an indicator of where he is and what he’s doing. As the father figure model suggests this is often what the player should be doing as well.
Another of Price’s key features is his iconically elaborate handlebar moustache, perhaps a liberty taken by the developers in terms of accuracy to real life armed forces attire but one that works especially well in terms of character recognition and creating emotional attachment. Television writer Graham Linehan suggests: “The great thing about Modern Warfare is your relationship with this guy with the coolest moustache you’ve ever seen... you care about this moustache, all through the game. It’s just a light touch, you like this guy, this guy is always around. The voice acting is well done. His dialogue is quite believable. It’s just the tiniest of things to make you care about a character. And then when he dies at the end it’s really powerful”.
Clearly the design choices have made a successful impact on Linehan, and it is certainly the case that Price’s implied death at the end of Modern Warfare was an emotional scene for many, most likely as a result of the design choices mentioned above, as well as some very high quality animation, building up the relationship of Price as a father to the player. That isn’t to say that photorealism didn’t play a significant part in this but that the effectiveness was a combination of factors and choices.
As it turns out Captain Price isn’t dead and he returns part way through Modern Warfare 2 having been rescued by Soap and new player character Roach. Until this point in the game Soap has taken over the role of father figure to Roach and it is interesting to see that the crossover works well with Soap providing support for the player character and in one especially tense moment grabbing hold of his arm as he slips from an icy cliff saving him from death.
Again the voice acting is strong enough to keep Soap believable even when only hearing his voice via radio. Like Price, the Soap character design has been given a distinct, if slightly nonconformist, design with a short Mohican hairstyle that the player can distinguish from other soldiers. All of these elements adding to a fully believable character with whom the player already has a strong bond with having played as him in the first instalment.
Price’s return in Modern Warfare 2 is made acceptable and believable very quickly by his familiar actions and physical traits, as Athomas Goldberg writes: “we can describe a character’s personality in terms of the tendency to behave in a certain manner that is consistent from one situation to the next.” He goes on to say “to remain believable, autonomous agents must be able to appear at least as unpredictable as their human-directed counterparts.” And this is particularly true in one part of the game that sees Price launch a nuclear bomb at the International Space Station, reinforcing the character as believable and realistic as they appear to have their own agendas that the player is unaware of.
Nonetheless Captain Price’s father figure status remains strong and in one level where the player is alone in a battleground his voice is still heard over the radio guiding the player to an extraction point and simply bringing a comforting familiarity to an otherwise solely hostile situation. Even the ending sequence sees Captain Price saving the day and Soap’s life by attacking the vicious General Shepherd and appearing to die yet again, creating an incredibly tense scene where the player urges him to move and show he is alive, and when he does breathe a genuine sigh of relief.
One instance of Modern Warfare 2 where the emotional realism is heavily strained is when the initial player character, Roach, is killed off and the player is given control of a muted Soap. This seems to undo all the character development from earlier in the game as he becomes just another voiceless player character with the player themselves often not making any connection that they are playing as the character they saw as a father figure earlier on.

One final example of emotional realism in a game character is Call of Duty: World at War’s Russian Sergeant Reznov (voiced by Gary Oldman). After an opening level playing as the US Marines in World War 2 where little real emotional involvement takes place the player is transported into the body of a Russian soldier, Private Petrenko, left in a ditch full of his dead comrades. Able to move the player must crawl through the bodies until they come across Reznov who is also alive and takes Petrenko under his wing. From here on the player follows the considerably more experienced Reznov as they try to find safety with Reznov giving orders and directions that aid the player, particularly when using the sniper rifle weapon.
Like Price and Soap in Modern Warfare, Reznov has been given character-defining physical traits such as a missing index finger, a long brown, fur-lined jacket and a Russian Ushanka hat that at one point is used on its own to seemingly indicate that it had fallen into a river to safety but its owner hadn’t. Again this symbolism evokes an emotional response as the player has grown close to Reznov over only about ten minutes of gameplay. Then when Reznov returns alive his relationship with player is fully established and the player will see Reznov as an emotionally “real” person.

On a fundamental level almost every game strives for some level of realism in its characters, even if it’s simply that they conform to real world physics and logic in their animation, a character’s hand not being able to move through its head for example, or that they won’t attempt to drink from a cup and wave with the same hand at the same time. In his work on the “indigenous people of cyberspace” Goldberg goes into the specifics of this idea and how it ultimately leads to a more realistic experience.
However, as we have seen, it clearly takes a lot more than photorealistic visuals and anatomically correct animation to make a character emotionally realistic. Character design and individuality are incredibly important as are their role in the game, the actions they perform and the voice acting that forms a vital link between the character model and the player. All these elements united provide an experience on a par with other, more typically emotionally rewarding forms of media.
It seems the most successful implementations of a father figure character are those where the balance of gameplay aid and fully rounded character is struck right, and that, using the example of Modern Warfare’s Soap, making an established father figure or, perhaps, any kind of character playable demands that the developers take responsibility to maintain the sense of character once this transition has happened.