"Can a game elevate the characters to a point where you feel, even for a moment, real loss? I don't think it's very easy, if even possible." I've read reports

"Can a game elevate the characters to a point where you feel, even for a moment, real loss? I don't think it's very easy, if even possible." I've read reports of gamers crying when they had to kill the companion cube in Portal. Gamers can and do form quite intense attachments to game characters, and I think they can and do feel genuine loss upon some of these characters' deaths. However, the problem with many video games (and movies, and much other media) is that "the enemy" is usually just a faceless, almost less than human cardboard cutout that you're often either manipulated to feel glad to get rid of or indifferent over having killed. It need not be that way, but it often if not almost always is.