#102: Character Analysis #4: Neku Sakuraba (The World Ends With You)

(Spoilers for The World Ends With You)

In the New Year, people are wondering what kinds of fresh, interesting games will be released. Therefore, the absolute best way for me to start 2016 is to completely disregard the desire to do new things. Instead, I went back to 2007 to play a game that I missed out on: The World Ends With You (TWEWY). Back when this game first came out, I made the decision to get a PSP instead of a Nintendo DS. That meant that up until I purchased a 3DS, I wasn't able to give it a chance.

Aside from the fact that it was a highly acclaimed RPG on the DS, I honestly didn't know too much about TWEWY going in. I'm glad that I didn't, because it gave me a chance to get to know the cast of characters on my own terms. Of particular note is the protagonist of TWEWY: Neku Sakuraba. Though not a particularly unique character on his own right, Neku serves as a great example of someone with a fully fleshed out character arc.

Character Analysis #3: Aiden Pearce (Watch_Dogs)

As many of you are no doubt aware, Watch_Dogs has finally been released by Ubisoft. I purchased my copy on release day, spending most of my free time since its release playing the game. Having finished it, my thoughts and opinions are still fresh in my mind. After investing so much of my energy into the game, one thing keeps entering my mind: Protagonist Aiden Pearce is an asshole. I am not the first person to say that. Several well-known gaming critics have also made that charge. However, I wish to articulate to you, the audience, exactly why I think that Aiden Pearce is a complete, unrepentant asshole. Because this article is coming out so quickly after the release of the game, all spoilers will be marked for the benefit of the reader.

One of the biggest reasons I think Mr. Pearce is an asshole comes from the way he handles the randomly generated “Potential Crime” missions in Watch_Dogs. To the unaware, a major conceit in Watch_Dogs is that the whole city of Chicago is connected through a system called ctOS, which Aiden can hack into using his phone. With this technology, the player, as Aiden Pearce, can monitor the system and use its algorithms to track potential crimes that might occur in the area. When one such tip is received and the player arrives at that location, the phone's Profiler can be used to identify either the likely criminal or victim.

This is where the asshole part comes in. In order for a potential crime event to count as a success, the player mist wait for the criminal to commit the crime. Then, they must either knock him out or kill him. Should the criminal see Aiden coming, he will be scared off, and the event will count as a failure. Let me repeat that for emphasis: Preventing the crime from happening at all results in a complete failure. Apparently, it is not enough for Aiden Pearce to stop criminals in their tracks. No, he will not be satisfied until his lust for violence is satiated. Even if the victim dies, the mission still counts as a success. Clearly, Mr. Pearce must not care too much about the people, so long as the criminal gets a whack in the face.

Another thing that causes me to think Aiden is an asshole comes from the game's hacking mechanic. As the player crosses the paths of passers-by in the world, they can use their phone to hack in and steal bank account data. Using that information, our protagonist can then hack into ATMs to steal all the money from those accounts and add it to his own cash total. There is no criteria with regards to who the game allows the player to steal from (and make no mistake, it is stealing). A random woman is suffering from terminal cancer? Who cares? Let us take all $1200 from her account. No punishment or consequence will be delivered to the player no matter what kind of person is stolen from. Further, Aiden will never take anything less than the full value of these accounts. Not a single penny is left untaken. In order to continue living the way he does, our protagonist is happy to plunder the life savings of all civilians unlucky enough to be anywhere near him on the streets. This kind of behavior is present in only one kind of individual: an asshole.

The brazen amount of damage Aiden Pearce inflicts on the world is also immense evidence of his being an asshole. During the course of the game, there will be numerous occasions where our “hero” will be chased down by another group, usually the police. In order to shake his pursuers, Mr. Pearce will often hack the city infrastructure, taking down the opposition. Blockers and road spikes can be triggered, bridges can be raised, traffic lights can be manipulated to cause pileups, and steam pipes can be exploded. Pay close attention to those last two options. Aiden can hack a 4-way intersection to make all lights on it turn green at the same time. Though the ensuing accident can incapacitate his foes, our protagonist is endangering the lives of all the people at that intersection with his action. And once again, there are no consequences for it. Blowing up steam pipes can also endanger lives and damage property in much the same way.

Continuing this line of thought, these types of chases frequently spill off road. As a result, it is entirely possible, even likely, to run over civilians in the middle of a chase. City infrastructure like power lines, fences, signs, etc. can also be rammed over. One anecdote of this I can recall comes from an optional mission. At the start of the mission, Mr. Pearce states that he detects that a group of mobsters is about to perform a drive-by shooting. In response, he traces their path and decides to take them out before they arrive at their destination. I had failed to completely head them off, and there were stragglers left. As a result, they needed to be chased down. During this chase, I must have run into and destroyed several thousands of dollars worth of property, along with several people. Sarcastically, I remember saying to myself “It's okay because I am a 'HERO'.” At the same time, I noted that it might have actually been more worthwhile to let the drive-by happen, because the net damage from the drive-by would have been less than the damage I inflicted trying to stop it. Combining all the damages from these actions, Aiden Pearce is exhibiting signs of reckless abandonment in his pursuit of “justice”.

With regards the story, I will attempt to speak in broad strokes to avoid spoiling any one specific event. What I can say is that Aiden rarely acts with kindness, even towards those he considers an ally. Some of it can be explained by the (admittedly justified) paranoia that comes from being a vigilante. However, most of the time he comes off as unnecessarily cold and calculating: The markings of a textbook sociopath. He is unpleasant and almost disdainful of most of the characters in the game, even when an non-asshole approach is would clearly be more efficient in achieving his objectives. Also, whenever our protagonist has an enemy at his mercy during a story cutscene, he has a frankly disturbing tendency to gloat. One scene in particular is absolutely chilling. In this scene (SPOILERS), Mr. Pearce is walking circles around a mob boss that he just shot in the leg. To get the boss to talk, he opens up his phone and starts to ask about the man's family and how he balances his double life as a mob boss and family man. This is to subtly imply that if the man does not talk, his family could be put in danger. Considering that the guy cannot run and is at Mr. Pearce's mercy, this seems completely unnecessary and almost evil (/SPOILERS). Quite frankly, only an asshole could engage in this kind of behavior.

All the evidence is in. Given Aiden Pearce's lust for violence when fighting crime, theft from innocent people, reckless abandonment, knack for property damage, and unlikable demeanor, the conclusion is inescapable. The protagonist of Watch_Dogs must be a complete, unrepentant asshole. This is all despite the game's attempt to portray him as a sympathetic, yet flawed character. If anything, this shows how silly it can be to write such a serious, grim story over such an open playground for users to do as they please. It always results in this kind of dissonance that simply cannot be explain away. I think the game might have been better had they opted for a more lighter fare in terms of storytelling. As it stands, the character we see is a jerkass, borderline sociopath.

#33: Character Analysis #2: Legion (Mass Effect 2, Mass Effect 3)

(Spoiler Alert for the Mass Effect franchise. If you are touchy about spoilers, avert your eyes and go back to watching porn.)

Lately I have getting on my soapbox and writing about a fairly diverse set of topics and the list of said topics is far from empty. However, this week I feel like doing something a bit more recreational. Since my first attempt at something like this was so popular (and is still getting hits to this day), and it has been a long time, another character analysis is in order. This time I will be discussing every Mass Effect fan's favorite AI companion, Legion. Legion is one of the series most interesting characters in the franchise, in my honest opinion, and there are a couple of reasons I have for this.

But before I get into that, we need to learn about the story of Legion. Any character, even a synthetic one, is a product of their story. Due to the nature of the Geth in the Mass Effect franchise, Legion's tale is the tale of Geth, and goes back to when the Geth gained sentience. Originally, the Geth were nothing more than a collection of AI constructs developed by the Quarian race to serve them. They were programmed to always find the most efficient ways to complete tasks assigned to them. It was eventually realized that when Geth programs come together, they can “think” and perform tasks better than they could individually. Reaching its logical conclusion, these programs kept networking until they reached a point where they gained sentience and could communicate with their Quarian creators. This unsettled the Quarians to the point where they started attacking the Geth out of fear. (I suppose that Quarians are equally as aware of standard AI horror tropes as we are.) While some Quarians showed sympathy to the Geth, most of them displayed only fear. This fear only grew once a Geth platform asked its creator, “Does this unit have a soul?” Out of sheer terror was born a war between the two. Though the conflict was started by the Quarians, the Geth held their own and forced them off their own home world, leading the Quarians toward the path of a migrant species.

Shortly after this victory, the Geth embraced a policy of isolationism towards organic life. They had no desire to fight or even deal with other people and just wanted to be left alone, safeguarding the planet their creators called home. This does not mean that they were doing nothing. In fact, they were working towards their ultimate goal. They wished to build a system large enough to house every single Geth intelligence on one platform, becoming as smart and capable as they can possibly become. Striving towards their desire for a very long time, the Geth remained little more than bogeymen to the galactic races until the Reapers arrived on scene. When the Reapers approached the Geth, they made them a huge offer. In exchange for giving the Reapers aid in furthering their goals (which makes little sense when taken into context with Mass Effect 3), the Geth were promised to be elevated by the Reapers and have their goals fulfillled. When trying to reach consensus on this issue, a small collective of the Geth broke away to join the Reapers and were dubbed Heretics by the many who rejected the Reapers. Then the events of the orignal Mass Effect game occurred, with Commander Shepard going against Saren, the Reaper Sovereign, and the Geth who defected. (You know the plot, if not from my prior articles, then from your own experiences.) This colored the preception of organic races towards the Geth and brought credence to the Quarian race's belief that they were wronged by their synthetic creations.

The isotionist policy changed once the Normandy came under attack by a mysterious third party and Commander Shepard was lost, presumed dead. Since the commander had experience with the Heretics and was instrumental in the defeat of Sovereign, the Geth decided that it would be prudent to make sure the Shepard was alive. To successfully traverse the systems that organic life inhabit, the Geth realized it would be best to send as few units as possible and lessen their mark on the world. They built a single platform capable of housing over one thousand individual Geth AI constructs all networked together. This platform traced Shepard's footsteps, looking for clues as to where he/she went and what happened, eventually finding the Normandy's crash site and salvaging a piece of Shepard's N7 armor, using it to repair itself after a firefight. After concluding that Shepard died, it stayed around to investigate another problem it discovered.

The platform learned of a plan by the Heretics to use a virus, granted to them by the Reapers, to rewrite the true Geth, making them accept the Reapers as their leaders. This led the platform to a derilect Reaper in order to acquire knowledge on how to counteract this virus. It encounters Shepard and is surprised to find him/her alive and well. Seeing the commander in a tight situation, the platform takes aim at the hoards attacking Shepard, then retreats further in to hack a terminal and learn about the Reapers and their technology. Once Shepard and company arrive on scene, they see the platform attacked by a Reaper husk and disabled. They acquire a Reaper IFF for their own purposes, collect the platform and leave.

Once the crew make it back to the new Normandy, there is a debate as to whether the Commander should activate and interrogate the platform, sell it to Cerberus, or just leave it be. Since nobody in their right mind would sell it to Cerberus, the four Shepards I played all decided to activate and interrogate the platform. The platformed explained its purpose and why it was sent outside the Perseus Veil, where the Geth live. For the purpose of communicating with organic life, the platform accepted the name Legion to distinguish it from other Geth platforms and agreed to help Shepard fight against the Collectors. (This is part of Mass Effect 2's main plot, which I do not want to get into for various reasons.) Through several optional conversations, Legion tells Shepard, and the player by proxy, all about how the Geth work, their “society,” political beliefs, and the like. Eventually, it gives the player the optional objective to head to the base of the Herectic Geth and stop them from using the virus, with the choice to either destroy it, blowing up the Heretic Base and all the Heretics in it, or repurpose it to turn the Heretics back into true Geth and force them to retreat, then destroy it. Since the individual programs inside Legion were unable to form concensus, they trusted Sheppard to make the final decision.

If Legion both survives the events of Mass Effect 2 and was not sold to Cerberus, he will become a central figure in the events regarding the Geth/Quarian conflict in the third game. Since the Quarians attempted to erradicate them, the Geth decided to forge an alliance with the Reapers out of fear. The deal was that they would gain intelligence and fighting prowess in exchange for allowing the Reapers to completely control them. When Shepard arrives on scene to convince the Quarians to join the war efforts, he/she is briefed on the situation. The commander, his/her Quarian friend Tali, and one other person infiltrate a Geth ship sending a broadcast to all the others in order to figure out exactly why it seems like the Geth and the Reapers are working together. They encounter Legion, who tells them that the Reapers are using him to project a signal to all Geth, ordering them to attack. It asks the team to free it so that it is no longer a Reaper conduit and can begin aiding in a counterattack on the Reapers, which Shepard does. As a show of good faith towards Shepard and as a token of their friendship, Legion orders the ship's engines and weaponry to be diabled, which the Quarians took as a queue to attack with full force (despite the fact they know Shepard is on board). Once everyone is safely back on the Normandy, gives Shepard an optional side-mission to enter the Geth Consensus and weaken the Reaper's influence, allowing some of the Geth to join him/her. Afterwards, the Quarians, Shepard's team, and Legion work together to destroy the Reaper signal to the Geth by destroying the source, later revealed to be an actual Reaper. Once Shepard defeats the Reaper, Legion tells him/her that it can use the Reaper's code to make the Geth's thought processes more organic in nature, giving them true individuality and conciousness, whether or not it succeeds is up to Shepard. It will die regardless and it's story comes to an end either way (using the code, for some reason, kills Legion and if Shepard tries to stop it, Legion will fight back and Shepard will kill him). Should Sheppard allow it, Legion will call itself “I” instead of “We” in its final moments, showing that the process is working and demostrating true individuality before passing away.

One of the things that makes Legion so interesting is that it is the player's window into Geth culture. While characters like Garrus and Tali partially serve to further the player's knowledge regarding how their races work, there are many other people from those races to interact with to forge a deeper understanding than with those characters alone. Legion is unique in that it is the one and only way in which Shepard learns about the Geth because they are isolationists and they are so closely networked together that talking to one Geth platform is essentially talking to the Geth as a whole. This makes conversations with Legion facsinating because prior to Legion's inclusion, the Geth were always at least somewhat enigmatic. The player fought against their forces (later revealed to be Heretics) in the first game, but never understood exactly what caused them to side with Sovereign. Legion gives the player an opportunity to learn about the Geth in an interesting and creative way. On the part of the writers, this was very cleaver.

The other intelligent decision the writing team made, which further raises the interest I have towards Legion, is to defy traditional genre conventions regarding Artificial Intelligence. As I aluded to earlier, most media that involves an AI growing sentience have it quickly decide that its creators are too inefficient and immediately start trying to murder everyone. As other people on the internet have already said, this makes very little sense. Why would the default stance for an AI be “murder the shit out of everyone” the moment it learns how to think for itself? Bioware knew about this genre convention and thoughfully decided to avert it. The choice to do that gave Legion (an other AI characters) the ability to be much more fleshed out and interesting than similar characters in other genres, leading into my final point.

Legion is one of the most interesting characters in the Mass Effect series because of what it represents: The moral quandary of whether or not sentient machines count as life in the same way that organics do. They explore every aspect of this question from their ability to feel emotions to whether or not they have civil rights. The ability of the Geth to feel emotions is intentionally left up for debate. When talking with Legion, it will insist that it does not have emotions and is unable to feel anything. According to it, logic and rational thinking allow the invividual Geth programs to come together and build a consensus as to what the next course of action should be. However, there are times where that can be called into question. For example, when Shepard sees the N7 armor on Legion and questions it about it, Legion explains that he used it because there was a hole and it needed to be prepared. When further pressed to answer why it used that in particular piece of armor over other parts more redily available, Legion finally admits that it has no data on that subject and cannot answer that question. In other words, it does not know for sure. This indicates that it was a decision influenced by something more than logic, possibly emotion. There are also other more subtle cues from Legion in other dialogue scenes in Mass Effect 2 and 3 that indicate possible sorrow, anger, and other emotions.

The other half of this huge moral dillema is the question of the civils rights of synthetic beings and their ability to integrate into society. It is a tough question that does not have a clear answer. Characters debate this throughout the entire series. Most organic races, particularly the Quarians, tend to fall on the side of no rights to synthetic beings. This makes sense since they believe that the Geth forced them off their world. They believe that it is either impossible or too impractical to arrange for peace, despite dissenting opinions. Legion on the other hand, tries its best to be as considerate as it can be. However, it does not always succeed. There are time where it says or does otherwise rational things that can be seen as strange or ruthless to organic beings. During its optional mission in Mass Effect 2, Legion talks about the possibility of destroying the Geth Heretics with cold callous, which the player's other companion comments on with shock. It also states that Shepard and company should not feel bad about killing the Heretics because they “do not share your pity, remorse, or fear.” Legion also expresses a childlike inability to understand human customs, which Shepard can chose to explain to it, such as the concepts of cemetaries, religion, and drug use. Since it is an AI, it has trouble understanding how these things factor into our lives and the emotional (and physiological in the case of the last one) impact of these things, calling into question the ability of Legion and the geth to truly integrate with organics. Through Legion, the game presents all the relevant information and ultimately allows the player to decide for themselves the answer these question, adding depth to its character and making it much more impactful.

Overall the character of Legion is a great example of Bioware's strength. They can write interesting and relatable characters and use them to raise interesting moral questions. Though they have many weaknesses in terms of how they tell stories, especially in recent games, characterization has always been a strength of their brand. This is why they were such a strong brand before the issues with Mass Effect 3. If you write good characters, then players will grow attachments to them and want to play through your game to deepen those bonds. Take this lesson to heart, game developers. 

#18: Character Analysis #1: Ulysses (Fallout: New Vegas: Lonesome Road)

Warning: Fallout: New Vegas and DLC spoilers

A few weeks back, I discussed characterization in Fallout: New Vegas. I said that the “villain” faction (because the player will almost always be directly opposed to it), Caesar's Legion, was one of the most poorly written groups out of the games factions. Though I did not explicitly say it then, I lamented the fact that the villain was so poorly written. In my opinion, the villain has to be one of the most well-written characters in a game. Fortunately, it seemed Obsidian preempted me and learned from its mistake. While I was busy complaining about the Legion, they released the Lonesome Road DLC and introducing one of, in my opinion, the most interesting and well-written characters in New Vegas. The villain of Lonesome Road, Ulysses, will be the subject of my first (and hopefully not the last) character analysis.

Before I get into his character, I need to explain his history, and it is a long and interesting one. Ulysses was originally a member of a tribe called the Twisted Hairs. The Twisted Hairs were a tribe known for their dreadlocks that symbolized every significant event in the lives of those who wore them. This tribe was eventually conquered by Caesar's Legion and conscripted into the Legion's military. In time, Ulysses began to stand out amongst his peers and became one of Caesar's elite, while the rest of his tribe slowly died out. He became a courier working for Caesar and made a promise to him that he would not kill anyone of the same profession. (I can only assume this is because either there are a lot of Legion couriers or that Caesar thinks he can use the couriers of an area after he takes over.) It was Ulysses who discovered Hoover Dam and the New California Republic, symbols of Old World values from before the Great War, for the Legion, sparking Caesar's obsession with the Dam and the war between the two factions over it.

Soon afterward, Ulysses was sent to explore NCR territory on the Legion's behalf and report back to them. It was while exploring that he discovered “The Divide,” a community shaped by Old World symbols and technology, which inspired him to wear the Old World Flag and carry an eagle staff as symbols. Ulysses saw the Divide as a place he could settle down, a place he could rebuild and begin again. Then, the Courier (the player character) came to the divide with a package to deliver. (Remember, this was before the events of the game.) The package contained Old World technology that, once activated, detonated many of the nuclear warheads and turned the Divide into yet another nuclear wasteland. Ulysses would have died if it had not been for more Old World technology springing to life to heal him. This event had two drastic effects on him. First, he developed a hatred for the Courier because it was his delivery that caused the destruction of his home for the second time. On the flip side, this event inspired him. It showed that one small, seemingly insignificant action from a single person could have a dramatic effect on the world at large.

After returning to the Legion, he learned that Caesar lost in the First Battle of Hoover Dam to the NCR. He was sent to Utah to arrange for tribals to attack the settlement of New Canaan. (Caesar had personal reasons to ask for this.) He felt sorrow for manipulating the tribals in a similar way to how his own tribe was manipulated way back when. This was exacerbated by the fact that the tribals began to wear their hair as he does. While they believed they were honoring him, Ulysses saw that as nothing more than an empty mockery of his tribe's tradition because they did not know the “history” behind it. This inspired him to leave his duties as a Legionnaire and try to change the course of history, believing that both the NCR and the Legion are both to flawed and do not know the best way to positively impact humanity's future.

He traveled to an Old World installation, Big Mountain, by tracking the weather patterns, noting that storms like the ones he was tracking are similar to the storms caused by the events of the Divide. There, he made contact with two members of the Brotherhood of Steel, an organization devoted to preserving Old World technology, directing one to the Sierra Madre Casino and having an intense philosophical debate with the other. Ulysses was hoping that the Brotherhood would know how to best lead humanity into the future, but eventually decided that they did not after having this debate. He continued to explore Big MT and met with the Think Tank, a group of scientists (well, tat least the brains of a group of scientists) who experiment and innovate in the safety of the area. Ulysses began to grow frustrated with the erratic nature of the Think Tank and finally yelled at them, “Who are you, who do not know your own history!?” At that moment, the Think Tank's collective memory came back and they recalled the America of before the Great War: Not just the nation, but the ideal. They told him about the last bastion of the Old World. Deep down in the Divide, there was an old missile silo still waiting for the launch command. Ulysses left Big MT determined to change history as the Courier had in the Divide.

As a last gesture to the Mojave before heading once more into the Divide, Ulysses was about to accept a commission to deliver a Platinum Chip to New Vegas. He was suspicious of the job, but felt that he could handle it. Then, at the last minute, he saw the name of the first person on the waiting list for the job. It was the Courier, who Ulysses assumed dead after the events of the Divide. Out of respect of his old promise to Caesar, and out of a desire for revenge, Ulysses dropped the job, knowing that the Courier would be the one to take it up, thus initiating the events of Fallout: New Vegas.

All of this history is central to understanding Ulysses as a character. He has several interesting and realistic motives for what he does during the events of the Lonesome Road. Firstly, he wants to do his best to improve humanity's future by destroying the NCR, who he sees as unable to help humanity in the long run. He does not bother with the Legion partly because he believes that Caesar will eventually tire himself out and wear down to the point where he might as be dead and partly because (and this is speculation on my part) that he still sees the Legion forces as family. With these two factions out of the way, the people of the wasteland will be able to advance on the correct path, guided by the values of the Old World.

This leads to another one of his internal conflicts. On one level, he despises Caesar for betraying his tribe, the Twisted Hairs, and killing them off. On the other hand, he does partially sympathize with Caesar and the Legion and thinks that while they cannot sustain themselves and that they do not know how to last in the wasteland, they still have noble goals. This is an interesting internal conflict. He has seen the good that Caesar's Legion is capable of, but has also experienced the worst of what the Legion can do. He has also witnessed how the Legion operates and knows that the current model is only sustainable so long as the Legion has an enemy to fight. This provides a level of depth and intrigue to his character that is quite refreshing to see.

The fate of the Twisted Hairs and of the Divide are what inspired another key aspect to Ulysses's character: His obsession and attention to detail with regards to history. After witnessing the destruction of two settlements, the people, and the knowledge of them, Ulysses understands the tragedy of lost history. This is what inspired him to learn more about the Old World, the symbols and the events of the past. He eventually took the name of a key general who defended his home in war time, Ulysses S. Grant. His reverence for the Old World is a key-aspect of the character. It is the reason he tried to settle at the Divide, the reason he traveled to Big MT, and the reason he found his motivations and the method to achieve his goals.

The last conflict with his character is the one that is the most obvious, his relationship with the player character. Because of his promise with Caesar and his desire to honor it, Ulysses is forbidden from attacking the Courier directly. This means that he needs to find indirect ways to get revenge for what happened in the Divide. He tried once by giving the player the Platinum Chip job that led to him/her being shot twice in the head and left in a shallow grave at the beginning of the game. By the time the player begins the Lonesome Road, he/she has most likely begun asserting his influence on New Vegas and shaping it the way he/she desires. This provides further motivation for Ulysses. He wants to not only shape the world his way, but to prevent the Courier from leaving his/her mark on history. This provides an interesting dynamic between the player and the primary antagonist that is furthered by the conversations the player can have with him throughout the Lonesome Road. However, just because Ulysses hates the Courier does not mean that he will not lend his ear to him/her. This is perhaps the best part of his character. Despite what has happened to him, despite his personal feelings, despite the player acting contrary to his goals, Ulysses is willing to listen and try to understand the player. The player, with either a high enough Speech skill or knowledge divined through Ulysses's personal recordings scattered throughout the Divide, can even talk him down and convince Ulysses to join his side. This speak volumes about Ulysses, more than his backstory or actions do, and makes him more than just another enemy. It makes him a good antagonist and character.

Ulysses is an example of what writing in video games should be like. He has a deep and involving backstory that ties into many of the events of both New Vegas and its DLC. His backstory gives him a unique personality that is both believable and relate-able. This is what happens when a talented writing staff makes takes it upon themselves to write detailed lore, fascinating characters, and believable interactions for the player to have with both of them. Game developers and writers should look to Obsidian and take this lesson to heart when developing the world of their games. This is arguable even more important for games because players are active participants in the world and the story.