User:Bearsona/Uncharted character notes

Creation and conception

Illustrator and designer Kory Heinzen worked on pre-visualization and concept design for many of the characters in the Uncharted series. Early on, the Naughty Dog development team drew a number of concept sketches depicting cliff-hanging and awkward weapon handling; much of these concepts directly translated into the final character products. Other more fluid motions were not scripted or drawn, but were improvised at the motion capture stage. Amy Hennig, the series writer, designed the character's personalities and mannerisms. In designing the characters, the production team sought to capture a certain tone, and closely studied source material from the pulp adventure genre. This included studying the characteristics of Tintin, Doc Savage, and a number of movies. They tried to contrast with other western games, which lead game designer Richard Lemarchand described as "overwrought and all a bit emo."

The game developers and animators worked closely together to ensure that the expressions and movements of the characters matched with the desired tone of the games. The character designs were kept intentional simple, as the designers wanted the characters' personalities defined by actor performances, rather than "trinkets attached to the character model." Focus was instead placed on a realism in the animation to highlight the characters' humanity. A blended animation system developed especially for the game allowed one character animation to begin before the previous one had ended, aiding this realism. The ultimate goal was to make the characters react as if they were real people in a realistic world. To accomplish this, much of the character reactions were accomplished through expressions and body language rather than explicit dialog.

The actors had a large role in developing the characters. They were allowed to ad-lib dialog and participate in revising the script. The actors also performed lines together on a sound stage, allowing them to play off of each other and organically grow character relationships. Both games used the same actors for both motion capture and voice acting. The actors did a number of read-throughs and practiced to get the motions correct before capturing.

Naughty Dog conciously worked to avoid action game stereotypes, both with the super-powered heroes, and with the overly sexualized female characters. They included a large cast of characters to ensure that the story was character driven rather than story driven. Evan Wells, Naughty Dog co-president stated, "I honestly think that the key element, if you really want to boil it down, is characters. People will tell a story, but if it's not a character-driven plot then you are missing something." Many of these characters were specifically designed to highlight different facets of Nathan Drake's, the main protagonist of the series, personality.

Reception

Matt Casamassina of IGN praised the characters of the Uncharted series for their growth and development, calling them strong characters. He also noted what he found as superior voice work and chemistry between the actors. He commended series writer Hennig for never having the characters say anything unnecessary that did not add to the relationships in the game. GameZone called the characters "endearing", "charming", and "unforgettable", and claimed that they had more personality than characters in most other video games. Ryan Clements of IGN praised the acting, claiming it brought a lifelike quality to the characters. He went on, "the sexual tension, detailed character expression, natural voice acting and charming dialogue make... cutscenes a supreme treat to watch." Jeff Haynes said that the game was anchored by the strong characters.

Ellie Gibson of Eurogamer said that the characters were easy to sympathize with because they were so realistic. Edge claimed the characters "sizzle with zip and pith", and praised the believable interactions between them. Ars Technica called the characters "oddly human" when discussing their realism. Ars Technica's Ben Kuchera also gave the voice acting high marks, claiming it set a new bar for video game voice acting. Johnny Minkley of Eurogamer claimed simply that players will care about the fate of all the characters in the series.

Tom Cross of Gamasutra commented that the characters in the Uncharted series were some of the few in video games to portray human sexuality realistically. However, he complained that the roles were predictable when compared to other fictional movie and television roles. He criticized, "while Among Thieves creates interesting, fun characters, it still pigeon holes them into stock character story arcs: the good girl, the guy who will become good, and the bad girl, who is allowed to be sexually suggestive because the plot will ultimately remove her as a viable partner for the ultimately good guy." Peadar Grogan of Edge commended the series for including strong female characters. Chris Roper of IGN stated that the characters of Uncharted are all unpredictable, and have a high level of character development. Andrew Reiner of Game Informer found this exploration of character emotion integral to the series story development. The character acting in Uncharted 2: Among Thieves received two nominations at the 13th Interactive Achievement Awards, for the acting of North as Drake and Black as Frazer.