Philips Magnavox Videogames and the Entertainment Revolution Trigger Happy - Manual (Page 139)

Trigger Happy
141
was based on it. You couldn’t play the movie, so it was
far inferior in terms of high-speed thrills.
Of course, films become works of art in their own
right by involving the spectator emotionally. But there
is precious little emotional material in an actionoriented
videogame for the filmmaker to latch on to. A film
based on a game, therefore, is likely to be utterly
impoverished in two ways: not only by failing to
provide the fundamental attraction of the videogame
experience, but by failing to exploit what the medium
of film itself is best at doing.
Videogames, in fact, have the better of this strange
relationship, in that they are able to suck into
themselves more aspects of the filmic art without
compromising their raison d’Être. For one thing, more
and more videogames now contain mini-“films” in their
own right. Known as FMV (“full-motion video”)
sequences, these are almost always computergenerated
scenes that advance the plot around which the game is
based, such as in Final Fantasy VIII or Tomb Raider:
The Last Revelation. The visuals might be digital, but
they are voiced by real actors and graced with filmic
scores. They function like the proverbial carrot and
stick: the player must successfully complete a portion
of the game before the next “film” sequence