Hello everyone and welcome back to my Geek Wish-List! I’m sure all of you have played a game before where you get the option of creating your own character before you start off on your heroic adventure. For the most part the first thing we think of when we hear character customization is changing the facial structure or clothing of our character before or during game play. However, what if there was more?……
It’s always been a topic of discussion for me when it comes to games such as FallOut, XCom, and Skyrim of what more could they have added to the customization tools. Some ideas that I have had over the years have included, but are not limited to vocal and behavioral reactions, props and or gadgets , and of course more facial structures and clothes because why not.
My favorite thing about games that have these type of characters is that you can make them anything that you want. You are , in a way, the master of creation while using the customization tools. Even the most basic character customization engines are known for giving the options to change body types, hair color, and facial structures. However, even some of the best character customization engines don’t give players the option to change how characters react to stimuli during game play. What I want to see one of these days is a game that allows me to change how my character will react to the world around him or her in different and possibly hilarious ways.To simplify, the next time that I play a game like XCom where I get a small horde of NPC’s to play with, I want to make a character that has a really funny personality or attitude that dictates how that NPC behaves. For example every time the character gets a head shot I want him to start jumping around and taunting the enemies around him like he just won the jackpot.
The second thing that I noticed is for games such as Skyrim, Dragon Age, and Mass Effect the only types of customization available is focused on the characters physical appearance. I think that It would be very interesting to allow characters in these kind of games to have some kind of accessory or prop around or on them that adds to their individuality like shoulder Angels/Devils on my characters.
Finally I come to the most basic wish for character customization engines. MORE STUFF! Every gamer who has played with character customization tools always comes back to the same old wish. That is for the next game with character customization to have more of what we already love about making our own characters look like people we know, characters that we think look funny, and or characters from others games like Geralt from The Witcher trilogy.
Next week I’d like to take a moment and talk about mobile games. Particularity the stuff that makes me look like our FallOut 4 Geralt up there. such as how some games are impossible to enjoy unless you fork over absurd amounts of money for in game items and power-ups.