Philips Magnavox Videogames and the Entertainment Revolution Trigger Happy - Manual (Page 177)

Trigger Happy
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control—and it is precisely because of these
irreversible factors that a videogame story can become
involving. The death of a certain character in Final
Fantasy VII is often cited as an example of
videogames’ power to induce emotional reactions—
and if a player does so react, this is clearly because the
death occurs in an FMV scene, and is irreversible: the
player does not get a chance to resuscitate him.
Similarly, the player’s discovery in Zelda 64 that Link
is not, as he thought, a real Kokiri elf is potentially
poignant only insofar as the player can do nothing
about it.
Such storytelling as so far exists in videogames,
then, is not really very interactive. The player may
interact with the environment in which the story takes
place but may not change the story at will. A good
theoretical reason for this is pointed out by Olivier
Masclef, the cheerfully erudite project director for
Outcast (1999). “You need to have talent to write a
story,” he says with a grin. “I’m not saying
[videogame] players don’t have any talent—but it’s not
their job.” Over Diet Sprite and watery coffee in the
Los Angeles Convention Center, he tells me about the
way in which his own game approaches these
problems.