Film-Philosophy
Journal | Salon | Portal (ISSN 1466-4615)
Vol. 7 No. 54, December 2003
Aaron Smuts
Film Theory Meets Video Games:
An Analysis of the Issues and Methodologies in _ScreenPlay_
_ScreenPlay:
Cinema/Videogames/Interfaces_ Edited by Geoff King and
Tanya Krzywinska London: Wallflower
Press,
2002 ISBN
1-903364-23-x i + 229 pp. _ScreenPlay_ is the first
collection of essays devoted to exploring the relationship
between cinema and video games. It attempts to introduce the
field of video game studies while also increasing our
understanding of the two artforms. Although not all of the
essays are models of clear thinking on the subject, the
volume will be a valuable resource for those working in
film, philosophy, new media, and video game studies. Geoff
King and Tanya Krzywinska have brought together a diverse
collection of essays where the productive approaches stand
out clearly. As a result, one of the most important
achievements of the volume is that it allows us to compare
methodologies in order to see the kinds of research programs
that add the most to our understanding of moving
pictures. Framing a discussion of
video games in reference to another artform is a
controversial move, but a well warranted and defensible
approach nevertheless -- especially given the current state
of the field. Video game studies is in a similar position to
that of classical film theory in the first third of the last
century. Like Arnheim, Bazin, and Eisenstein, those that
might some day be called classical video game theorists are
preoccupied with the same fundamental ontological,
psychological, and aesthetic questions. What are video games
and how are they different from other arts? How do video
games affect players? What is 'artistic excellence' in
regard to video games? We already have a V. F. Perkins in
Steven Poole, a classicist who adopts a position emphasizing
the value of immersion and internal consistency. Many of those working in
the field witnessed the birth, or at least the flourishing,
of this new artform within their own life times. Often,
having invested significant portions of their lives playing
video games, and tired of being ashamed about such guilty
pleasures, theorists are compelled to defend video games as
a worthy subject of study, rich in artistic merit. It
currently seems that there is no uncontroversial statement
about video games. Some game developers scoff at the idea
that video games could be art, while some theorists argue
that video games can and should explore novel narrative
forms. Just as the classical film theorist focused on the
relationship between cinema and photography and theatre,
perhaps the best way to approach video game art is to find
its differentiating features from a similar artform. In the
case of _ScreenPlay_ the sister art is cinema. The Introduction is
actually one of the best articles in the book, and it does
an excellent job of clearly stating some major problems in
video game studies. One of the central questions in the
field is whether video games should studied as games (the
ludological approach) or as a narrative artform (the
narratological approach). There are a variety of positions
one might take on this question, and this volume should help
to enhance the subtlety of the debate between the
ludologists and the narratologists. However, _ScreenPlay_
tries to move beyond this fundamental question, and the
essays in the volume purport to explore how the two artforms
differ, how they have influenced each other, and how
adequate our film theory tools are for understanding video
games. In this review, I will
assume that the topic of video games is new to most readers
and that they would benefit from a comprehensive overview of
the volume. For each article I will offer a synopsis of the
argument, provide some critical evaluation, and then, when
it makes sense, assess the significance of the piece in
light of other scholarship in the field. Since this is an
emerging area of study, the success of the methodological
approaches taken by the authors is as important as their
arguments. I direct my attention accordingly. In 'Technological
Pleasure: The Performance and Narrative of Technology in
Half-Life and other High-Tech Computer Games', Andrew
Mactavish discusses some loosely related pleasures that can
be had from video games, and highlights differences in
degree as regards cinematic pleasures. Building on special
effects film theory and Tom Gunning's work on the 'cinema of
attractions', Mactavish's overall thesis is that certain
kinds of high-tech video games, like 'Half-Life', are
designed for players who value displays of technological
wizardry more than they do a well-crafted
narrative. Though he does not mention
Ed Tan, Mactavish's focus can be said to be on what Tan
calls 'artifact pleasures' -- appreciation of the artistry
of creation. Though cinema special-effect aficionados
partake of similar pleasures, he argues that certain
features of video games tend to encourage artifact
appreciation. The central argument relies on an undeveloped
concept of spectator immersion in fiction -- a notoriously
difficult concept to account for with satisfying clarity.
Working from a pre-theoretical concept of immersion,
Mactavish argues that although cinematic spectacle, like
that found in _The Matrix_ (1999), may encourage the viewer
to reflect upon the excellence of the technological
achievement: 1, video games are often enjoyed predominantly
for their technological achievements; and 2, certain
features of video games force the player to emerge from the
narrative. It is not clear whether Mactavish wants to make
the empirical claim that video games are enjoyed for
technological feats more than cinema is, or just point out
that this is an important source of pleasure obtained from
game play. His discussion is motivated by the prescriptive
reflections of narratologists like Janet Murray, who
envision the future of video games as one of new narrative
pleasures. Mactavish finds that
aspects of some games encourage player behaviors (for
instance frequently saving games) that work against
immersion. Mactavish's discussion of immersion could
significantly benefit from a closer examination of the
concept of immersion itself. I suspect that if the concept
were unpacked we would find that narrative engagement is
fundamentally different from active playing. At one point
Mactavish states that 'the gamer is more involved in a
physically active performance' (45), but this is not
explored any further. This is a topic that needs further
investigation and Mactavish's discussion can serve as a
useful beginning to future scholarship. The area is usefully
explored in _Narrative as Virtual Reality_, wherein
Marie-Laure Ryan undertakes a thorough analysis of the
conflict of interactivity and immersion in narrative art.
Briefly, Ryan argues that when a narrative becomes
interactive its immersive potential is threatened, since
when the story is up for grabs the narrative threatens to
become infeasible, or poorly structured, or the experience
becomes more of creating a story than following one. Ryan
downplays the significance of the possibility of interactive
art with mostly non-interactive narratives, such as we find
in games, but Mactavish gives us good reasons (apart from
those of narrative construction) to think that immersion in
games may be threatened from other sources. Overall, Mactavish's
article is an important step in identifying the pleasures
video games offer, acknowledging that non-narrative
enjoyment can be experienced through video games as well as
cinema. Although the article attempts to highlight essential
differences between cinema and video games, all we are
offered are commonalities and differences in degree.
Resistance on the part of video game theorists to study
games in relation to film has been a product of an
overemphasis on the narrative pleasures of cinema.
Mactavish's article should help improve the quality of this
discussion since it highlights seldom-acknowledged
similarities between the two artforms and this can help put
to rest any suspicions about the book's approach. Geoff King attempts to
answer the unmanageable question: 'How exactly . . . do
qualities such as narrative and spectacle operate in video
games?' In 'Die Hard/Try Harder: Narrative, Spectacle and
Beyond, from Hollywood to Videogame' he tackles the question
by looking at how the video game remake of _Die Hard_
differs from the film. Although this forms a very small part
of the article, it seems to be an extremely productive
research strategy. I will focuses on the methodology rather
than any substantive findings in the essay. This article is a bit
diffuse, as is to be expected from the breadth of King's
question. Many important topics are mentioned but none are
explored in much depth. For instance, in his discussion of
suspense, King argues that: 'The experience of such
qualities [suspense and tension?] is very different
from that found in film, however, because of the influence
active intervention by the player usually has on crucial
factors such as the precise timing of movement' (55). King
never explains how the differences between being a player
and a viewer affects the ability of the artwork to create
suspense, he just says it does. The 'why' is most important
if we want to learn something about the artform. There are
important differences between playing and viewing that
create difficulties in the production of suspense. To pose
the question 'why', one must offer a theory of suspense, and
an analysis of the differences between playing and
viewing. King does not probe the
differences between the _Die Hard_ films and the video games
very acutely, but his methodology is sound. It can be
extremely illuminating to look at how a remake of an artwork
differs from the original and, likewise, one can learn a
great deal about an artform by asking if a certain effect
achieved in one artform can be achieved in another. For
instance, can the ferocity of Tsui Hark's _The Blade_ (1995)
be produced in a video game? A good place to start might be
to ask if a video game can achieve the visceral impact of
movie violence, or to ask how video games create similar
effects to action films, when video game designers use
different tools? How have game designers tried to overcome
the limitation on editing in video games? Trying to answer
questions like these would get us much further and could
tell us much more about both artforms. In 'Spectacle of the
Deathmatch: Character and Narrative in the First-Person
Shooters', Jo Bryce and Jason Rutter compare the design
process and the orientation of the audience in cinema and
video games. They offer a useful history of the first-person
shooter before turning their attention to the narrative
question, again focused on the similarities between
blockbuster films and video games. They argue that there are
two major differences between game players and cinema
viewers: 1, in a qualified sense, if the player stops
playing the game's narrative ends -- playing is essential to
narrative progression; and 2, games not only require the
player to make the narrative happen, they can create the
spectacle through mods -- modification that customize game
play parameters, such as what items appear in a certain spot
and the way characters look. The first point could use
some further elaboration in order to differentiate between
the role of viewers in comprehending a narrative and the
role of players in making the narrative and spectacle
happen. The second point, concerning mods, could also
benefit from more discussion. What is the difference between
modifying _Star Wars_ to take out the Jar Jar Binx scenes,
and changing the map of image overlays in 'GTA III'? There
is definitely a distinction to be made, but Bryce and Rutter
do not make it because they overlook digital video
modifications. The first step in defining 'interactive' will
be to distinguish between configurable, modifiable,
controllable, and interactive narratives. Overall, this is a very
strong article that tries to isolate fundamental differences
between cinema and video games. They sketch forms of
divergence that are ripe for further elaboration. One small
complaint with this contribution to the volume is that Bryce
and Rutter seem to suffer from theory frenzy, throwing in
fuzzy buzz words like 'gaze' and 'objectification' in
passing, with no relation to the goals of the article. Also,
they repeatedly refer to video games as 'texts', as do many
of the other articles, with no reflection on whether such a
misleading classification makes sense. Sue Morris's article on
'First-Person Shooters' includes fairly detailed discussions
of various aspects of game play and provides useful charts
comparing cinema, television, and video games; however, the
force of her argument is blunted by an uncritical acceptance
of fuzzy grand-theorizing and bad theoretical models. The
article sets out to explore the various features of video
games that comprise the 'apparatus', a concept so broad that
it confuses causal relevance and adds little to our
understanding of games or cinema. The article is further
plagued by dogmatically received, vague concepts like
'subject positioning' and 'transcendental subjects'.
Continuing the trend established in the previous articles,
Morris works with an unrefined notion of 'immersion' that
seems to amount to little more than focused attention.
Although such a deflated account may be correct, some
clarification of the concept is in order. She argues that:
'While this sense of
control can be seen to lessen the dream-like qualities of
the medium, and hence primary identification in the
cinematic sense, other mechanisms within the FPS game
increase the player's sense of immersion and identification
within the game' (89). It would be nice if we had
a clear notion of what amounts to identification and
immersion, before the two are said to increase the more
ambiguous notion of the dream-like state of playing games.
Offering another let down, this article includes a section
titled 'The Computer Game as Text', that fails to explain
why we should treat cinema or video games as texts, or even
what benefit this comparison might reap. In 'Vision and Virtuality:
The Construction of Narrative Space in Film and Computer
Games', Wee Liang Tong and Marcus Cheng Chye Tan compare the
cinematographic conventions of, primarily, first-person
shooters and classical continuity-edited cinema. The
fundamental difference they detect is that video games lack
editing in the play modes, though the article does little to
explore why this difference exists. For an exploration of
the reasons behind the relative lack of editing in video
games, the reader is advised to look at Steven Poole's book
_Trigger Happy_, where he explains how the need for
consistency in directional control rules out most kinds of
editing. For example, you do not want 'left' to suddenly
become 'up' when you are driving a car or shooting at an
enemy. Tong and Tan argue that:
'Narrative space, in FPS games, can thus be said to be
continuous and uninterrupted, when compared to films, whose
spatial sense is rendered holistic only in the active
suturing of the fragmented spaces by the viewer' (105). I
will ignore the confusing notion of 'suture', but we should
note that this claim is grossly overstated. Two well-known
examples of what Bazin called 'lateral depth of field'
should make the point. The ball sequence in Welles's
_Magnificent Ambersons_ and the party episode in Renoir's
_Rules of the Game_ are cinematographically similar to
first-person shooters. Though the viewer does not control
the camera, the sense of space is developed without much
editing. On the other side of the claim, video games can
involve some degree of editing. For example, in 'Grand Theft
Auto III' the player can switch between third-person and
aerial camera angels. In video games there is, what I am
calling, the '90 degree rule', where the camera can only
shift on the vertical axis up to 90 degrees. Other conventions that
Tong and Tan deny to video games, such as close-ups, can
also be found in popular examples. When switching to a
sniper mode in 'Halo' the camera zooms in. In 'Splinter
Cell' the sniper mode exhibits cinematic depth of field and
selective focus. Also, the pre-boss-battle cut-scenes, found
frequently in early Nintendo games such as 'Megaman', serve
as a form of non-controlled close-ups. The claims of this
article need to be more qualified. Rather than relying on a
few examples, the authors would be better off looking at the
reasons behind the differences they found, and then testing
their generalizations with more examples. In 'Watching a Game,
Playing a Movie: When Media Collide', Sacha A. Howells
explores the role of cinematic devices in video games. She
argues that cut-scenes serve to provide character motivation
and direction. Howells says that 'the action sequence allows
the player to resolve the causal line introduced in the
cut-scene' (113). Since causes are not resolved, a better
way to put this is to say that the cut-scenes establish
problems that the player must solve. Cut-scenes also reveal
the effects of play. An article exploring the various types
of cutscenes found in games like 'Max Payne', 'Grand Theft
Auto III', 'Halo', and 'Splinter Cell' would be useful.
Unfortunately, Howells forgoes such an analysis and turns to
a discussion of how the player, in Metz's terms, primarily
identifies with the camera. This notion of identification is
too ambiguous to be useful and it describes a mysterious
process that does no discernable work. Yes, in first-person
shooters, in some sense, I am the camera. What's the
significance of this? I do not see why I or any other film
spectator 'sees an idealized version of him- or herself
onscreen and becomes entangled in the 'fascination with a
recognition of his like'' (116-117). I take it that this is
only supposed to be more pronounced in video games, but if
something like this were really going on none of us would be
able to get past the first level of any game. Howells's
argument is significant in that it shows how inadequate
Metz's theory is for dealing with games, because of its
inability to account the very possibility of game
play. Heavily influenced by
Bolter and Grusin's concept of 'remediation', Paul Ward
argues that 'computer games now remediate specific animated
films' (129). In 'Videogames as Remediated Animation' the
concept of 'remediation' describes where media forms adopt,
primarily, representational techniques from other media
forms as a way to achieve two contradictory goals: to
increase 'immediacy' as well as 'hypermediacy' (or reflexive
awareness of the mode of representation). Though Bolter and
Grusin's writings on video games add very little to the
field, the idea of 'remediation' could potentially spur some
more fine-grained historical investigation that could result
in some substantive claims. Ward does not achieve such a
happy outcome. His article is filled with
scare-quoted words -- at least one per sentence, sometimes
more. Words that garner scare-quotes include: 'localized',
'traditional', 'captured', 'realism', 'correspondence',
'old', 'new', 'real world', 'allure', 'ambiguity',
'commonsense', 'cartoonish', 'naturalistic', 'invention',
'appropriation', 'reality', and a few other variations on
the above. If you are working specifically on the concept of
realism as applied to animation and video games, then it is
your scholarly duty to develop a definition of 'realism',
rather than taking the effortless and ultimately
analytically ineffectual route of throwing the concept in
quotes and avoiding commitment to a position. Introducing a fresh topic
to the volume, David Bessell's article, 'What's that Funny
Noise?', explores the similarities and differences between
the use of music in video games as compared to cinema. Video
game music shows a distinct influence from film music, using
traditional underscores to emphasize changes and leitmotifs
to identify characters. However, working in an interactive
medium, video game designers face problems unknown to film
composers. Bessell asks some excellent questions: 'How can
the music be structured if the order of events are
uncertain? How can music be constructed to occupy a time of
uncertain duration without tedious repetition?' (141). He
looks at how a few games have struggled to deal with these
problems and then he proposes some alternative techniques
that might provide more satisfying solutions. Bessell argues
that game designers should look into the non-linear
compositions of Lutoslawski and Boulez for ideas. This is a
fresh article that takes up basic problems arising from
fundamental differences between film and video games. In one
of the best articles in the volume, Bessel goes beyond
discussing merely what he finds in a few games, to talk
about why the games are constructed as they are and how they
might be made even better. Next up is 'From Hardware
to Fleshware: Plugging into David Cronenberg's _eXistenZ_'
by Steve Keane, but since the methodology of Keane's article
is somewhat experimental, my review format is unsuited to
doing it justice. Though some important topics are covered,
I am not entirely sure what point Keane is trying to make in
his semi-associational discussion of _eXistenZ_. He expands
on Steven Poole's excellent discussion of the virtues of
non-VR control mechanisms and then briefly introduces the
interesting problems facing virtual reality technology,
specifically: how can VR be fully immersive when there is no
physical risk? For a more detailed discussion of this issue
see Marie-Laure Ryan's 'Interactive Drama: Narrativity in a
Highly Interactive Environment', where she discusses VR in
relation to Merleau-Ponty and Hubert Dreyfus. In 'Run Lara Run', Margit
Grieb argues that _Run Lola Run_ is best approached as a
film structured upon aspects typically found in video games,
rather than as a film based on standard cinematic techniques
of narration. This essay does get beyond remediation to
discuss how the video game 'template' makes _Run Lola Run_
different from other movies, but unfortunately parts of the
essay read as footnotes supporting the uninteresting parts
of Bolter and Grusin's notion of remediation. One problem is that the
essay looks at _Run Lola Run_ in relation to 'Tomb Raider'
for little reason other than that a pun can be derived from
the two lead character's names. But when Grieb goes beyond
this one game, her points carry more force. For example, she
makes an insightful comparison between the effects of
breaking the law in _ Run Lola Run_ and violating rules in
video games -- both require a replay of the
level. Grieb argues that
navigating through space in a video game can be usefully
thought of as a situationalist 'derive', where one wanders
through a landscape guided solely by what catches one's
attention. The 'derive' may be something to explore in
relation to games like 'Grand Theft Auto III', but it does
not describe the more goal-oriented special exploration of
most games. Grieb uses this as a
starting point to discuss the prominence of spatial
navigation in video games. She argues that spatial
navigation is more important than narrative devices, such as
character motivation, for driving the action of some video
games, but she does not adequately support this idea. Grieb
claims that: '_Run Lola Run_ does not use common narrative
strategies, such as character-development devices, to guide
and engage its audience; rather the story develops and is
driven by the navigation of space, a common diegetic tool in
videogames' (163). To compare _ Run Lola Run_ with video
games in this sense is a forced point of comparison, since
the film uses typical plot devices such as ticking clocks,
love interests, villains, and unlikely desirable outcomes to
build a suspenseful narrative. In 'Playing with Lara'
Diane Carr attempts to provide a rich theoretical melange,
ripe with interesting connections and multiple possible
meanings. If one is looking for an analytic treatment of the
subject, her article may seem like a prolix slur of
theoretical buzzwords; however, if one enjoys theoretical
mashups, the article might seem like a clever synthesis, but
this requires accepting the basic theories to begin with. As
such, my methodology and temperament might be unsuitable for
evaluating this article on its own terms. That said, here is
one of the simpler, but nonetheless incomprehensible
sentences: 'Her embodiment as endangered being in a
compellingly imagined universe has generated multiple
readings' (172). From an analytic perspective, this essay,
like all the others in the volume, suffers from a
superficial treatment of the concept of immersion. With
characteristic opacity, Carr argues that: 'Whereas cinematic
immersion involves denying our containment by a frame, the
options offered by Tomb Raider centralize the issue of
choice. Interactivity makes a point of access, and thus the
terms of access are never neutralized. We aim Lara, but her
mechanized progression has the effect of emphasizing the
insistent limits of our options' (173). I do not know what it
means to 'neutralize' 'the terms of access', nor do I see
any reason to think that 'cinematic immersion involves
denying our containment by a frame' or even what it would
'mean to be contained by a frame'. If all Carr is saying is
that we can re-frame the image in some video games, but we
do not have full control of what is in front of the camera,
then how exactly is this meant to contrast with some notion
of immersion in film? The thick prose of Carr's essay makes
this passage so ambiguous that it cannot be examined without
tremendous charitable effort on the part of the
reader. In his discussion of James
Bond films and games Derek A. Burill attempts to provide a
'critical account of the cultural construction of a
particular strain of masculinity, the theorization of
'boyhood' in relation to the Bond films and games, under the
assumption that the players I am speaking about are mostly
young boys' (183). Unfortunately, the article is too vague
to tell us much about Bond games, movies, or masculinity.
Burill moves from the uncritical acceptance of one
theoretical concept to another without adequate explanations
of how the concepts are relevant, what they are, or how they
relate to each other. He mentions hyperreality, performance
theory, ergodic narratives, ideology, the gaze, leakage,
slippage, postmodern culture, social construction of
masculinity, liminal space, and reflexive sadomasochism.
Some of these terms are vague, others are uncommon, and
others in hot dispute. For example, 'postmodern' can be
defined at least 10 ways, and 'ideology' has even more
possible meanings. A quote may help indicate the kind of
ambiguity I'm objecting to: Burill argues that Schroeder
'designates the leakage from the game into reality as
representative of postmodern culture in general . . .
[and while] this may be true, it seems that with the
Bond games, the slippage and leakage appears to occur in
multiple directions, along multiple pathways' (189).
'Leakage' and 'slippage' are used as technical terms but
they are never defined. Since the article intends to show
how the leakage goes both ways, it would be nice to know
what counts as leakage. What kinds of influence are leakage
and what kinds are not? Is the metaphor of a leak supposed
to do all the work? The fundamental concept behind the
article is to too ambiguous to lead to a very successful
result. Perhaps Burill wants it this way, since he intends
for us readers 'to be teased into an ergodic -- or
nontrivial, 'readerly' and interactive -- relationship with
the concepts presented here' (183). Perhaps this would have
justified the lack of rigor if Burill had given us a decent
idea of just what makes something 'ergodic' or even
'interactive'. Leon Hunt's article, on
'Marital Arts in the Age of Digital Reproduction', compares
the presentation of martial arts in movies and in video
games. He highlights the limitations of artifice in cinema
and the limitations of verisimilitude in video games.
Unfortunately, Hunt's exploration of this interesting idea
is too hung up on Bolter and Grusin to tell us much about
martial arts films or video games. In passing, Hunt argues
that the kinesthetic reaction to Hong Kong action cinema
that David Bordwell describes is something like the motions
a player makes when playing a fighting game. It would be
extremely productive to expand on which techniques in video
games create such responses, and which hinder them. For
instance, what Bordwell describes as the pause-burst-pause
structure of Hong Kong action cinema is heavily dependent on
cinematic techniques, such as rhythmic editing. We might ask
how important rhythm is to this response and how can video
games create it? This would certainly be more productive
than asking how video games remediate film. In 'Hands-On Horror' Tanya
Krzywinska explores the differences between the ways horror
movies and horror video games create tension and suspense.
She argues that: 'important to my main
argument, the cut-scenes wrests control away from the player
and reinforces the sense that a metaphysical 'authorial'
force is at work, shaping the logic of the game. This
evocation of helplessness in the face of an inexorable
predetermined force is crucial to maintaining horror-based
suspense, in that the game world often operates outside the
player's control . . . Pre-arranged camera angles . . . and
other aspects of inevitability built into the programming
infrastructure operate, like occulted fate, to ordain the
path that must be taken' (211 and 209-210). This is a clever analogy
between helplessness and occulted fate, but it does not tell
us anything about suspense in horror video games. Ignoring
Noel Carroll's foundational work on suspense, Kryzwinska
never says anything about what suspense is or how it is
typically created in film, nor does she say just how 'horror
suspense' is different from regular suspense. Since the
devices she describes -- embedded cut-scenes, limited camera
control, dangerous landscapes -- are not unique to horror
video games, are we to think that occulted fate has
something to do with video games in general? The link she
draws between player helplessness and occulted fate is not
supported in this article. Although we learn little about
horror video games in particular, there are the seeds of an
important idea about the creation of suspense in video
games. Kryzwinska is on to
something in pointing out how player helplessness is crucial
to the creation of suspense in video games; however, she
overlooks the unique ways in which games create
helplessness. Frantic activity seems to be anathema to
emotional responses such as suspense, which involves an
assessment of something at stake and an uncertain outcome.
The cinematic cut-scenes help to reduce the player to a
helpless spectator, allowing the necessary interplay of fear
and hope. Video game designers have also created other
devices unique to the artform that effectively remove
control from the player for a temporary amount of time.
Non-horror games such as 'Splinter Cell' excel at the
creation of suspense. In 'Splinter Cell' the player must
regularly wait to see if they will be discovered by enemies.
During these periods, the player's previous movements will
determine the outcome, and there is nothing that a player
can currently do to improve her chances of
success. Another such device is
found in the control of the character in 'Splinter Cell'.
The player must execute a series of elaborate jumping moves
in many of the later levels. At one point, you must jump
from ledge to ledge hundreds of feet above the ground.
Though you have partial control over the characters
movements during a jump, you cannot fully control the
movements of his arms. You can instruct the character to
grab, but the movement is executed automatically with an
unnatural speed. It usually looks as if the character will
fail to grab on to the edge of a ledge, and there is nothing
you, as a player, can do at that point to increase your
chances. These are only two such techniques of reducing the
player to helpless spectator that video games employ for the
production of suspense. Similar techniques can be found in
horror games, and we need not posit a special link between
these strategies and 'occulted fate' to explain their
effectiveness. For a more detailed discussion of the role of
player helplessness in the production of video game
suspense, see the article by myself and Jonathan Frome in
the upcoming volume of _Text Technology_ devoted to video
games and cinema. Overall, this collection
could benefit from a further clarification of how video
games might necessarily diverge from cinema. Tendencies in
film and video games are often highlighted with little
discussion of whether the differences were, a, necessary
given some essential aspects of the medium, or b, just
necessitated by different goals. Unfortunately, the clear
style and quality of the Introduction is not representative
of the rest of the volume. Remediation plays far too
prominent a role in this volume and is perhaps an editorial
failure -- failure to see the redundancy in topic or bias
towards a particular critical approach. Also, some prominent
players are missing. Henry Jenkins, for example, only
appears on the back cover, though his work would add a
refreshing dose of clarity to the collection. Perhaps the
biggest problem with the essayists is that very few show any
awareness of the contributions and criticisms of analytic
film theorists. I commend all the
contributors for venturing into unexplored territory.
Several of the essays contain valuable, original ideas that
will improve our understanding of new media. As can be
expected when starting out into terra incognito, some will
successfully forge ahead and others will inevitably become
lost. There were many failures; nevertheless, the
disappointments may be more important than the successes for
guiding future research. The problems of _ScreenPlay_ show
that the next stage of productive research on video games
will require more detailed analyses of the concept of
'interactivity' and especially 'immersion'. The volume shows
that further work should be devoted to figuring out the
virtues and limitations of video games in creating emotional
responses and telling stories. The comparative approach
promises to be the most productive research method developed
in this book. King and Krzywinska rightly picked an
important emerging field and their collection should help
jump start the discussion of the relationship between cinema
and video games. New York, USA References Bordwell, David, _Planet
Hong Kong: Popular Cinema and the Art of Entertainment_
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2000). --- 'Aesthetics in Action:
Kungfu, Gunplay, and Cinematic Expressivity', in Esther C.
M. Yau, ed., _At Full Speed: Hong Kong Cinema in a
Borderless World_ (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota
Press, 2001). Bolter, Jay David and
Richard Grusin, _Remediation: Understanding New Media_
(Cambridge: MIT Press, 2000). Carroll, Noel, _The
Philosophical Problems of Classical Film Theory_ (Princeton,
New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1988). --- 'Towards a Theory of
Film Suspense', in _Theorizing the Moving Image_ (New York:
Cambridge University Press, 1996). --- 'The Paradox of
Suspense', in _Beyond Aesthetics: Philosophical Essays_ (New
York: Cambridge University Press, 2001). Crawford, Chris, _The Art
of Computer Game Design_ (Osbourne McGraw-Hill, 1984). Also
available online: <http://www.vancouver.wsu.edu/fac/peabody/game-book/Coverpage.html>. Darley, Andrew, _Visual
Digital Culture: Surface Play and Spectacle in New Media
Genre_ (London: Routledge, 2000). Frasca, Gonzalo, 'Ludology
Meets Narratology: Similitude and Differences Between
(Video) Games and Narrative' <http://jacaranda.org/frasca/ludology.htm>. Jenkins, Henry, 'Game
Design as Narrative Architecture', in Pat Harrington and
Noah Frup-Waldrop, eds, _First Person_ (Cambridge: MIT
Press, 2002). Juul, Jesper, 'Games
Telling Stories?: A Brief Note on Games and Narratives',
_Game Studies_, vol. 1 no. 1, July 2001. Kent, Steven L., _The
Ultimate History of Videogames: From Pong to Pokemon and
Beyond -- The Story Behind the Craze That Touched Our Lives
and Changed the World_ (New York: Prima Publishing,
2001). Murray, Janet H., _Hamlet
on the Holodeck: The Future of Narrative in Cyberspace_
(Cambridge: MIT Press, 1997). Newman, John, 'The Myth of
the Ergodic Videogame: Some Thoughts on Player-Character
Relationships in Videogames', _Game Studies_, vol. 2 no. 1,
July 2002. Poole, Steven, _Trigger
Happy: Videogames and the Entertainment Revolution_ (New
York: Arcade Publishing, 2000). Ryan, Marie-Laure,
'Interactive Drama: Narrativity in a Highly Interactive
Environment', _Modern Fiction Studies_, vol. 43 no. 3, Fall
1997. --- _Narrative as Virtual
Reality: Immersion and Interactivity in Literature and
Electronic Media_ (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University
Press, 2001). Smuts, Aaron, and Jonathan
Frome, 'Helpless Spectators: Generating Suspense in
Videogames and Film', _Text Technology_,
forthcoming. Tan, Ed S., _Emotion and
the Structure of Narrative Film: Film as Emotion Machine_,
trans. Barbara Fasting (New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum,
1996). Wolf, Mark J. P., ed.,
_The Medium of the Videogame_ (Austin: University of Texas
Press, 2001). Copyright ©
Film-Philosophy 2003 Aaron Smuts, 'Film Theory
Meets Video Games: An Analysis of the Issues and
Methodologies in _ScreenPlay_', _Film-Philosophy_, vol. 7
no. 54, December 2003
<http://www.film-philosophy.com/vol7-2003/n54smuts>. Join the _Film-Philosophy_
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