Making A Character: A quick debate

Alrighty, I sat down this morning with the obvious intention of playing video games. “What should I play?”, I wondered. I could play L4D2, as Nick, or MW2 as Roach, or Dragon Age as an original character. The choice for me was clear: Dragon Age. Creating a character is much better than playing as someone pre-made, or is it? Allow me to present a quick argument for both sides.

Making a Character

Designing a Character is usually my favorite parts of a game. Setting all the intricate features, making them an extension of yourself, or making them what you’d hope to be. Perhaps you make them look just like you, or you prefer to have them be your antithesis. However you do it, Making a character is fun, and is a great way to make you like the character. How can you not like a character you helped create? That’d be like hating your own children. Unfortunately, not everyone enjoys creating a character as much as I do. Some like to skip this step, and dive headfirst into the action with a premade hero. Also, when you create a character, they are much less likely to talk, and you will normally only be addressed by your last name or a nickname. Customization has it’s benefits: personalization, creativity, and the like, but you pay a price; you can forget about notoriety.

Premade Characters

Starting off with a hero premade certainly gets things moving a lot faster. Even is there is customization, there are always presets available. Certainly, creating a player is cool, but could you imagine gaming without presets? What would life be like without iconic characters like Master Chief, Nathan Drake, Mario, Solid Snake, Link, Samus Aran, Kratos? There are tons of presets that evoke strong feelings in us all, and they needed little game-time before we loved them. They are recognizable, and even non-gamers seem to know some by name. I mean, think about it: as awesome as they might be, no one cares about your hero on Oblivion, but they might be willing to rant for hours about how much they love Marcus Fenix.

I can’t really decide a winner for this little debate. Some days, I crave that spark of ingenuity in creating a Character, whilst other days, I yearn to play as one of the presets I’ve com to know and love. If you have a preference, let me know. I leave it open for you to decide.