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I'll admit it: I'm a heterosexual male, and I love the movie Brokeback Mountain.
When I tell people that it's one of my favorite movies, I get flak and curious stares — especially from my girfriend. But the film portrays longing, heartache, and love so well that I get misty eyed whenever I hear its theme song.
And plenty of other romance movies have made me cry — even a sap-fest like Titanic makes my throat a little lumpy. So if I'm I sucker for romantic relationships in movies, why hasn't a video-game relationship ever made me teary eyed?
Let me be clear about one thing: I don't think we should hold video-game stories to the same standards as movie stories. The main focus of a movie is to provide a compelling narrative. Video games, on the other hand, try to provide a fun experience. Everything else — story, graphics, and sound effects — is secondary.
It's obvious, however, that game developers take a lot of narrative cues from the movie industry. And since a compelling story can push a video game from good to great, it's only right to expect a game's story to move us on some level.
While writing this article, I searched the Internet to see if I was wrong about the lack of good love tales in games. I came across multiple "Top Video-Game Romances" lists, and what I saw was discouraging. Mario and Peach topped many of the lists — a familiar video-game relationship, but not one that's exactly passionate. And many of the other relationships on these lists were laughable or intentionally ironic: Claire Redfield and Steve Burnside from Resident Evil Code: Veronica, Dom and Maria from Gears of War 2, Chell and the Companion Cube from Portal.
Never stand between a woman and her cube.
Though some games — the Final Fantasy series comes to mind — have solid romance stories, most still only pack a tenth of the emotional punch that a good romantic movie does. Why is this?
Part of the problem is technical. Stilted character animations, "mannequin eyes," and bad lip-syncing are always ready to destroy your emotional connection to a game's story. For example, "the whistle" scene in Final Fantasy 10 should be a cute bonding moment between Tidus and Yuna. Instead, it's an example of awkward animation and poor audio-syncing.
To be fair, Final Fantasy 10 is a last-generation game. But current-generation games like Dragon Age: Origins show that, while developers have improved on these issues, they still persist. (Notice how Alistair goes all Kim Cattrall in Mannequin when he stops talking.)
We can't, however, blame the problem solely on the technical limits of current video games. Many times it's the developers' faults for hiring lousy voice actors and approving sloppy scripts. How many cutscenes has corny voice acting ruined? How much "master of unlocking"-quality dialog have you sat through since you began gaming?
It takes only one technical burp, one hammy actor, or a single string of hackneyed dialogue to severe a player's connection to a video-game love story. Unfortunately, I've never played a game with a romantic relationship that didn't have at least one of those things.
I'm hopeful that romances will get better as technology, production values, and writing mature. The technical problems I mentioned are already becoming rarer. And while video-game writing won't win a Pulitzer any time soon, it's getting better. BioShock showed us that in-game stories can be deep and compelling. And while I haven't played Heavy Rain, I've heard good things about its narrative. (It's a shame, though, that developer Quantic Dream couldn't fix all of the technical glitches.)
A great romantic story is delicate: If one element is missing or out of place, then its emotional resonance wilts. Game developers need to realize this before they try to make "the great video-game romance." Everything — graphics, writing, audio, and so on — needs an equal amount of attention. That way, the player will have nothing obstructing his or her connection to the lovebirds on the screen.
So to all game developers, I say this: Go ahead, and make me cry. I want you to.
Has a video-game romance ever made you cry? Have you felt any emotion when playing a game with a love story? Let me know if I'm right about the lack of love in games, or if I'm just cold-hearted.