As much as I love it Bioshock will never really be remembered for its high concept ideas or the way it plays around with the lack of autonomy within an FPS. The legacy is Andrew Ryan, and Rapture, and in most cases it'll be remembered for that scene with the golf club, and for Sander Cohen and Fort Frolic. Bioshock 2 had Sofia Lamb and the Big Sister, and an even more dilapidated Rapture falling apart at the seams. As faulty as either game are they are strong and that’s because of their character relationships and their location more than their originality.
This is the case for a lot of games these days and you can usually pick one of the following as the key reason for people to develop the ‘fan-boy’ syndrome.
The protagonist is always a good starting point; an interesting life or personality trait can bring a player into the world as if it was their own. LA Noire for example wasn’t the most content driven game but the characters acted, looked and felt like all the different people you pass in the world around you. Even chatting to a character for a few brief moments gave them a background in your own mind and implemented certain agendas behind their actions without the need for the player ruthlessly interrogate them.
Heavy Rain was another example of this with its crystal clear facial animations and communication techniques. Both games spin off in wildly different ways but the storyline and the investment of the characters made sure people stayed around until the end.
There are also more stoic examples of characters that drive home the adventure of the game you are playing. Gears of War has Marcus Fenix; the large, fairly intelligent muscle shield. Uncharted has Nathan Drake; the witty, smart-mouthed Indiana Jones mirror. These characters might not be the Average Joe’s of the world but their sometimes ‘one-sided’ approach makes their games easy to follow and their intentions easy to understand. They don’t have the twist and turns of the interactive storylines but follow linear paths that don’t differentiate no matter how many times you play through. Sometimes it’s the over-the-top effects and easy to follow gameplay that the fans what to feast on. It isn’t always about interaction as much as fun!
Sometimes it’s the protagonist polar opposite that draws the player in. Take Borderlands 2 for example; the four playable characters don’t say a lot but the cast of quest givers and the overly confident Handsome Jack make the player want to reach the end. This isn’t due to the fantastic character driven scripts or interaction but the damn arrogance of the ‘bad guy’. Handsome Jack is the most fleshed out NPC of recent years, with his rich array of derogatory sayings, he is now one of the most loved enemies ever created and won a host of awards last year. Interestingly you only ever see him once or twice and beyond that he bombards you with witty remarks over the radio.
While some players drift into characters and interactions, others crave vast worlds and non-linear gameplay. Take the Elder Scrolls series for example; a rich open-world environment littered with interesting quests and rewarding loot. This series has never had the best storylines but give the player a chance to do what they want almost from the very start. You can spend hundreds of hours in these games without even starting the main questline. It’s an amazing achievement but one that some fans’ don’t enjoy – it’s often the case that players will like a bit of hand holding during their playtime and this massive world has little to none of the tutorials that fit in nicely with the franchises of Call of Duty or Fifa. It’s a known fact that large experiences like the heavily invested worlds of Bethesda are too daunting for some.
The environment of a game-world is often a key ingredient for most gamers. One of my friends in particular loves the recent Fallout cannot invest an interest into any of the Elder Scrolls outings (despite the barebones gameplay being remarkably similar).
Sometimes it’s the vastly different offerings that make a game so synonymous with its fan base. Take the Zelda games for example; although some have shifted from the norm lately – I’m looking at you Spirit Tracks, the games are usually set in the large, colourful and remarkably diverse world of Hyrule. This glorious and sometimes bizarre setting harbours secrets and puzzles galore. Every stone and every corner has something unique to find or do and the almost linearly specific dungeon to dungeon requirements contradicts the open world gameplay nicely. Every time you pick up a new weapon or device the game opens up a little more of the world for you to explore as these all have effects on the open world around you as much as the creatures you are trying to defeat. The Ocarina of Time, and the fan favourite Links Awakening, are often requested for HD remakes and you can easily track the increase in 3DS sales when the OOT remake was actually released.
Fanboying (or fangirling for all you politically correct readers) depends on what type of gamer you actually are. If you are a part time gamer then there is a chance are you aren’t going to enjoy the large scale environments of Skyrim, Fallout or World of Warcraft. Hardcore games however are probably going to enjoy the games they can really get their teeth into more than the slim offerings of a linear shooter. Whether it’s the simulation of sport in a game like Fifa or the personalisation of the Mass Effect series – we all have something we love and something we hate. Chances are there is someone you know with a differing opinion already and that’s why games are great. Wouldn’t life be boring if we all enjoyed the same things?
And on that note – I Seriously Didn’t Enjoy Wind Waker!
