Character Creation

Video Games allow us to take on the persona of a hero, a villain or perhaps a normal day character whose life becomes an interesting adventure.

Character creation in games is something relatively new, as very few games in the past let you build your own character with different attributes and looks. I remember the first game I played that had this feature, it was a WWF game for the Nintendo 64 back in the late 90s, since then, character creation has become one of my favorite features in games.

I can dip myself into this for hours, building different characters that may hint at my real life persona or to other fictional characters I love. Perhaps I feel powerful as the master of my virtual body when I do this, being able to manipulate my body attributes, hairstyle, gender, clothing and even voice and movement something we obviously can't do in real life, to some extent...

Of course, character creation isn't possible in every game, since some require a pre-defined character or cast that will lead the story, but that doesn't mean we can't shape how this character might look.

Take Mass Effect for example. You take the role of a human commander known as Shephard, who has an already established set of options with which players can mold his or her personality, but on top of that you can also shape his or her facial structure, and yes, Shephard can even be male or female.

Commander Shephard from Mass Effect

Although character creation appeared in games in the past, you had a very limited role into their customization, you could give them names or edit their stats to accommodate the character more to a certain role or job like in RPGs. In the Diablo series for example, you could choose a gender specific class and give them a name, edit their stats and choose how they would look by the armor and weapons they would carry. While limited, it let you customize your hero to a certain extent.

Diablo 2: Playfield (left) and Character Inventory (right)

In the upcoming Diablo 3, Blizzard Entertainment has taken note of a growing market and audience and given their classes the ability to be played as either male or female, thus, taking away the gender specific classes of the past.

It wasn't until the introduction of 3D graphics to games, that we began to see the potential in character and world building. Now, we can basically sculpt our avatars from top to bottom, this has progressively gotten better and much more complex as technology and graphics continue to improve and reach higher levels of reality.

Although it met a quick demise, All Points Bulletin or APB had one of the best and most impressive character creation tools on the market, letting you control much more than just body features but also clothing, vehicles and body tattoos. Many other MMOs allow the player to customize their own avatar, some with more variety others with less, but the important thing is that its there.

APB's Character Customization

I wish more games allowed players to customize their in-game characters, particularly (military) shooters as well as a better implementation of your custom avatar in story driven games. Saints Row 2 is perhaps one of the best in doing so even if the story is a bit over the top, it still lets your custom gang boss to talk in cut scenes with their own voice most games do not follow this and have mute heroes. Interesting to note, BioWare's other RPG Dragon Age: Origins also includes a character customization feature but unlike Mass Effect, your character is mute and thus the voice you choose for him or her is only used for combat sequences, not story dialogue.

Saints Row 2: Not your usual video game heroine, but hey, thats the beauty of customization.

Will we one day be able to customize our real life body to how we want like in video games? perhaps not as much and without a high price, until then, we can continue to enjoy building our little puppets how we see fit.

Video Game Art: Why they should be and Why they aren't.

Art has been a relevant subject in human history since the dawn of time, its been used in a variety of ways to express human emotions, ideas, dreams and stories. Its purpose is different for each individual as is its meaning.

Video games are relatively new to human culture, but have quickly gained ground as a form of entertainment that surpasses that of movies and other media. Its a powerful medium to tell stories, meet colorful characters and journey to the most sophisticated and imaginative worlds of the human mind. But this isn't about the achievements of video games and what they mean to its followers (gamers) its more about the overall conscious of society on what they represent and what they are.

Only a few decades ago, comic books were considered nothing more than cheap child entertainment, in an era where there wasn't a TV in every home (like today) and personal computers were something from the future. Children quickly became attached to the characters and stories these books would contain and as the years passed it rose as a very profitable industry that impacted popular culture in many ways and still does today. How far have we've gone from thinking such books were cheap child entertainment when we have million dollar movies being made with those characters and whom many, young and old, flow to see.

Certainly to most people, these movies and books still are nothing more than entertainment but they have entered our culture and have become normal and something that has profound literary value. Why am I mentioning comic books when this is about video games? simple, video games have reached the current status as that of comic books and at a much faster pace (although they still have more ways to go), it is now normal to say you play games because they have entered everyday culture unlike 10 or 20 years ago.

I remember once watching a documentary about comic books and how they were targeted by society as a large contributor to many problems in youth, which led to the censoring of many comics and the downfall of the industry. It took a couple of years and a few comics to get back where they had left off.

Seduction of the Innocent: The book that blamed youth violence on comic books.

Even if video games have been around now for some time, they still suffer a certain backlash from mainstream society like comic books did and they still are not taken very seriously either as some people dismiss them as nothing more than child's play.

Why should video games be considered art? I think this question has been asked many times before and many different answers come out for it, but my question is, why they shouldn't?
Video games have profound ways of telling stories, present very sophisticated and complex graphics and sounds, rivaling and in some cases surpassing those of movies. Most but not all (just like movies) contain a lot of history and research done, to produce believable characters, settings and worlds, from the architecture of a destroyed city to the ancient inspired tribes of some fantasy land.

Fallout 3: A post apocalyptic world with the forgotten achievements of human architecture.

Aren't movies considered art as well? yes they are, and today anyone has the ability to produce movies and tell stories unlike decades before. They take many different areas of the arts and put them together, to produce a final product. This is pretty much the same process involved in game making, the only difference however, is that movies already have a story set to its audience, some games do not, and they let the player engage the story in different ways so it becomes relevant to their experience and something personal, asking more of the player than a movie through choices and decisions that affect the story or its characters.

Batman Begins: One of the few comic book based movies considered to be artistic

So why aren't video games art? they are, the thing is they haven't reached that status yet. Compared to other forms of art, video games can't be produced at the individual level, due to their complexity. There have been many self produced games in the past, made by self taught programmers and artists which have made some impressive results, but this is rare and not the norm.

Shadow of the Colossus: A powerful visual epic journey that mirrors that of ancient Greek poems.

I can easily picture a few years ahead where video games are studied for their value in different terms of what they are and tell. The question is, what will change about them for mainstream society to accept them and actually make this happen?

Lost Planet 2 Invading May 11, 2010

Lost Planet 2 (LP2) is the sequel to Capcom's third person shooter from 2007. E.D.N, a snow planet is now covered in lush jungles, windy deserts and industrialized cities 10 years after the arrival of humans, seeking T(thermal)-Energy from the indigenous life forms from the planet called Akrid. LP2 is Capcom's next big action hit this year, with an impressive list of modes and extras that is sure to please fans and action gamers alike. Including a complete 4 player coop mode for the main campaign and a 2 player local splitscreen mode. Not only that, but the game will also feature 16 player online matches.

Customization plays a big role in LP2. Unlike many other shooters players are given freedom of choice, by letting them pick how their characters will look in 4 parts of the body (head, torso, legs, backpack) as well as their load outs for weapons, grenades and support abilities. There will also be a variety taunts available to either praise your allies or piss off your enemies. Interestingly enough, LP2 is one of the few shooters out there that includes a variety of female characters to choose from, developers, take notice!


I'm particularly interested in everything the game has to offer and looking forward to play some good old fashion shooting action against humans and giant Akrid alike. LP2 is scheduled for release this May 11 for XBOX 360 and PLAYSTATION 3.