Transcript
WOLF, Mark J.P. and Bernard PERRON (dir.). THE VIDEO GAME THEORY READER, New York and London, Routeldge, 2003. CHAPTER 11 From Gamers to Playersand Gameplayers The Example of Interactive Movies BERNARD PERRON For anyfilm scholar who hasbegun to takean interest in video games,whatis commonly referred to as the interactive movie seems a natural place tostart. No other multimedia product came closer to crossing the thresholdthat separates the worlds of film and video games. However, a film scholarwho commences research on this premise will be both disconcerted anddisappointed, for manyreasons.In the early 1990s, following on the heels of laserdiscs, CD-ROMs wereable to store digitized video, and thence became the standard, most widelydistributed support for computer data. Theinteractivemovie, which flour-ished in this technological environment, is not easyto categorize. The firstpopular game named as such, The 7th Guest (1992), is more a puzzle gamewith fewlive-action 1 cut-scenes. In that sense, to begin with the bestselling Myst (1993), a lot of games have embeded video clips that serve as infor-mative sequences or simple transitions but they are not called interactivemoviesfor allthat. 2 What ismore,in his1995lecture“TheChallengeoftheInteractive Movie,” Ernest W. Adamsnoted that the term refersto a varietyofgames,from “akind ofspaceflight shoot-’em-up,with littlebitsofvideoin between”( WingCommanderIII:HeartoftheTiger, 1994) to agraphicad-venture ( Under a Killing Moon, 1994), or from “a one-pass-through sort of 237 WOLF, Mark J.P. and Bernard PERRON (dir.). THE VIDEO GAME THEORY READER, New York and London, Routeldge, 2003. 238 . Bernard Perron game ” ( CriticalPath, 1993) toamoviein movietheaterswheretheaudiencevoteson howtheywant theplot to go ( Mr. Payback, 1995). 3 Also, curiouslyenough,thevideogamessectionof AllMediaGuide ( AMG )considersdigitalvideo not as a technology but as a mode of presentation, confusedly list-ing “ Adventure ” as the game ’ s genre and “ Interactive Movie ” as the game ’ s “ style ” for The Dame Was Loaded (1995), Star Trek: Borg (1996) or The X-Files Game (1998), and so on. Bycontrast, the style ofthe live-action videogame Phantasmagoria (1995) is characterized as a “ Third-Person GraphicAdventure. ” 4 The expression is no longer used by AMG, but a few yearsago, the style of The Beast Within: A Gabriel Knight Mystery (1995), an-other live-action gamebySierrasimilar to Phanstamagoria, wascalled “fi rstperson/cinematic adventure. ” AsAdamssaid, all kindsofweird stuffhere.Obviously,gamesusinglive-action video relyon narrativeand fi lm con-ventions that could be analyzed. But for someone studying fi lm, those as-pectsoftheinteractivemoviearenot ofgreat interest.Even ifagamesuch as UrbanRunner (1996) claimed tohaveascript asgood asaHitchcockmovie,interactive movies look much like B-grade fi lms. The general plotline re-volvesaround fi ghtingsomesortofevilspiritin order tosavetheworld,savepeople your avatar knows, or save the avatar himself. All the genre clich ´ esare used in order to facilitate the gamer ’ s participation. 5 Except in longer,elaborate cut-scenes that still show nothing aesthetically new, the mise ensc`ene and the montage are prettybasic. The rhythm and pace ofthe actionis continually interrupted in order to make more of the gamer ’ s decisions.As far as photography is concerned, live actors are usually shot in front of a blue or a green screen. Because 3-D computer graphics of those games(and of this period) are not photorealistic and lighting on actors does notalwaysmatch thebackgrounds,thevirtualenvironmentsreallylooklikelay-ersadded afterward. 6 From ChrisJoneshimselfplayingthedetectivehehascreated in the Tex Murphy series , to numerous unknown B-grades actors,theactingin interactivemoviesisverynoticeable,but not for good reasons.Even when bignamestars are involved, theresult isoften dubious. 7 On thewhole, as Celia Pearce straightforwardly stated, “ It is almost impossible tomatch the production, acting, and writing quality of fi lm in a CD-ROM.Misguided attempts to do so have yielded such eminently unmemorableexperiences as the Johnny Mnemonic game, whose mediocrity was rivaledonlybythe fi lm on which it wasbased. ” 8 Indeed, the fi lm scholar willrapidly fi nd that themedia convergencebe-tween fi lmandgamewasnotwellreceivedinvideogamecircles.Forinstance,even if Phantasmagoria wasoneofthetop sellersof1995, Computer Games Magazine called “ this hotly-anticipated game ‘ overblown, unintentionallyhilarious and incredibly dull, ’ labeling it a ‘ disaster. ’” 9 The interactivity of interactivemoviesisdescribed asselective,branching-type,or menu-based. WOLF, Mark J.P. and Bernard PERRON (dir.). THE VIDEO GAME THEORY READER, New York and London, Routeldge, 2003. From Gamersto Playersand Gameplayers . 239 Most importantly, it is a closed interactivity in which “ the user plays anactive role in determining the order in which already-generated elementsare accessed. ” 10 The interactivityin question isin fact an illusion. Whiletheideologyofaself-selectednarrativeandopen-endedstorylinesuggestsfreedom and choice, thisispreciselywhat interactive cinema strivesto conceal.The user colludes with being a “ player ” , whose freedom can be summed upas: “ you can go wherever you like, so long as I was there before you ”— whichis of course precisely also the strategy of the “ conventional ” story-teller (ornarrational agency) whose skill lies in the ability to suggest an open future ateverypoint ofthenarrative,whilehaving,ofcourse,planned or “ programmed ” the progressand the resolution in advance. 11 Like the interactive narrative in general, the interactive movie is seen as anoxymoron. It is not possible to tell a story by putting the storytelling inthe hands of the spectator. And the linearity of a story is going against thenonlinear nature of a game. Daniel Ichbiah has perfectly summarized thisduality: ...the genre “ interactive movie ” haslost itslettersofnobilityand itsevocationarousesasmuch enthusiasm asan eruption ofacne. It would seem that neithergenre, cinema or game, really win with this mixture. When the gamer sees theaction interrupted in order for him to choosethesequenceofthemovie,ashareof what made thrillers interesting — the continuity — fails. And those who liketheelation obtained bygood gameplaylosepatiencewhen fi lmed sequenceslastforever. 12 In thecyclicalorganization ofthegame,viewingisprivileged over actingintheinteractivemovie.But playingagameisnot about viewingamoviewitha joystick in hand.After allissaid and done, thefailureoftheinteractivemovieseemsto betotal.But it need not besoifwelooktheother sideofthepicture.Interactivemoviesdemonstratethat it isnot alwayspertinent to tryto “ repurpose ” theanalyticaland theoreticaltoolsofother fi elds,in thiscase fi lm studies,whenstudyingvideo games.It iscertainlynot the fi lm or thenarrativepart that isworth examining.Anyresearcher interested in video gamesshould concen-trateon thegameaspect.Onecan never emphasizeenough theimportanceandpertinenceofGonzaloFrasca ’ scallforaludology,a “ disciplinethatstud-iesgamesand playactivities, ” 13 and videogamesin particular.I ’ m followingsuch a course here. From this perspective, the gameplay of the interactivemoviemakesitselfconspicuous.Asrudimentaryand ultimatelydullfor thevideo gameconnoisseur asit might be,it stillnecessitatesaparticular activ-ityin order to transcend themovie.Thisessaywillanalyzeand characterizethis activity, and more speci fi clythe kind of player it necessitates. The rea-son is simple: “ not only play taken as such refers to the player, but there is WOLF, Mark J.P. and Bernard PERRON (dir.). THE VIDEO GAME THEORY READER, New York and London, Routeldge, 2003. 240 . Bernard Perron no play without a player. Play implies the playing. ” 14 Since my thinking isverymuch motivated byoneofthelast interactivemoviesproduced, Tender Loving Care (1999),myanalysisofthisgamewillbemuch longer.However,as with anyinductive reasoning process, myspeci fi c observations lead to abroader theory. 15 A Question of Attitude If, as Huizinga wrote at the beginning of Homo Ludens: A Study of Play-Element in Culture, “ any thinking person can see at glance that play is athingon itsown, ” 16 it isnot so easyto de fi nethescopeofthis “ own. ”“ Play ” and “ game ” are used in various contexts, looked at from a wide range of points of view and studied by many disciplines. But when we talk aboutplayin general, and Huizinga pointed it out right after thecomment I have just quoted, it should never be forgotten that , “ in acknowledging playyouacknowledge mind, for whatever else play is, it is not matter. ” 17 It is theplayer ’ s state and presence of mind that determine this free activity andmake acceptable the given though arbitrary rules. The fun of play is thefun of the player. This is one of the fundamental characteristic of play andgames. Furthermore, in hisfamousbook Les jeux et les hommes (translated Man, Play, and Games ), it is the player ’ s attitude that Roger Caillois uses asaprincipleofclassi fi cation capableofsubsumingthemultitudeand in fi nitevarietyofgames. He then proposes adivision into four main rubrics,dependingupon whether,in thegamesunderconsideration, the role of competition, chance, simulation, or vertigo is dom-inant. I call these agˆon, alea, mimicry, and ilinx, respectively. All four indeedbelong to the domain of play. One plays football, billiards, or chess ( agˆon );roulette or a lottery( alea );pirate, Nero, or Hamlet ( mimicry );or one producesin oneself, by a rapid whirling or falling movement, a state of dizziness anddisorder ( ilinx ). 18 Still,for Caillois,thisclassi fi cation doesnot cover theentireuniverseofplay.That ’ swhyhe will place those four typesofgame on a continuum betweentwo opposite poles. At one extreme an almost indivisible principle, common to diversion, turbu-lence,freeimprovisation,and carefreegaietyisdominant.It manifestsakind of uncontrolled fantasythat can bedesignated bytheterm paidia. At theoppositeextreme, this frolicsome and impulsive exuberance is almost entirelyabsorbedor disciplined byacomplementary,and in somerespectsinverse,tendencyto itsanarchicand capriciousnature:thereisagrowingtendencyto bind it with arbi-trary, imperative, and purposelytedious conventions, to oppose it sill more byceaselesslypracticingthemostembarrassingchicaneryupon it,in ordertomakeitmoreuncertainofattainingitsdesiredeffect.Thislatterprincipleiscompletely
