What makes a good character
This is a tough one. The answer to this question comes down to personal preference to some extent. I personally think Jacket from Hotline Miami is one of the greatest characters in recent years, but I can't exactly talk about him. To the player, he is a small collection of pixels in a bomber jacket. Instead, I'll talk about characters that have visuals that we can actually observe, and what their looks tell the player about that character. We're going to use examples from GTAV because that had 3 main characters and 3 is a good number of examples.
Grand Theft Auto V (2013) Rockstar North
I"m not going to explain GTA V to you dear reader. If you haven't played it, you've heard of it, and you know enough about it to decide for yourself whether you like it or not, and that's fine. We're not talking about the game, we're talking about those 3 dudes up there. While this picture is promotional material, it still shows us everything we need to know about the three characters without text, and without ever playing the game...except for their names. Incidentally their names (from left to right) are Michael, Franklin and Trevor.
What can we see from this picture? Michael is holding a wad of cash, and ruffling it, with a duffle bag on his back. He's wearing a polo shirt and dress slacks. Okay, so he's a rich guy who's proud of his money and plays sports? No, this is a crime game. He's a bank robber. His background reveals more. He's standing on a balcony, overlooking picturesque hills. He's living in a nice part of what looks like the Hollywood hills. So, he's probably been a bank robber for a while to afford that kind of house. Maybe he's retired. Bank robbers don't tend to live in nice houses until they've stopped being bank robbers. So, a retired bank robber, living out his life in quiet luxury in the rich part of town. Perfect.
Next is Franklin. Now, lets all point out the elephant in the room. Franklin is black, and in a Rockstar game, that either makes him impoverished or a politician. He's wearing jeans and holding a gun in front of a rundown suburban home. He's not a politician. However, he's wearing a nice, button-up shirt with a long sleeve undershirt, meaning that he's possibly trying to make a better life for himself. However, the gun indicates that he's going about that noble goal in a criminal way. This is a game with the title of a serious crime, so, odds are he would have been a criminal even if the gun weren't in the picture.
Then we come to Trevor. Trevor looks to be the most interesting character on display (spoiler alert: he is). First things first, Trevor looks as though he showers the least. The messy hair, the stubble, the sweat-stained t-shirt. He looks the poorest, the oldest and the angriest. He has the facial expression of a bitter, old man and you just stepped on his lawn. The baseball bat completes this look, with the inherent threatening that comes from holding a weapon.
In short, you can tell a lot of story with a simple picture. These character photos tell you things about the characters, the world and even the story. It all comes down to hard you look for it.
