Games and Movies

Tina is not a gamer, but Thor keeps tabs on them all.
...
Tina: The graphics are spiffy and all, but all that bang, bang and noise?

Thor: Some are non-violent. SimCity…

Tina: They’re only a minority. And what’s this about violent games causing antisocial behavior? The boy who went beserk after two days playing… what was it?

Thor: Grand Theft Auto?

Tina: And he went mad in a supermarket and jumped on a turtle. A defenceless turtle. What did the turtle ever do to him?

Thor: Media frenzy making simplistic links. Sloppy research. Ask more questions. What kind of parents would let a ten year old play a computer game for two straight days? Look elsewhere for the causal factors.

Tina: Anyway, Games demand too much in the way of decisions and clicking. I like to sit and watch and have a narrator tell me the story.

Thor: There is such a game, Metal Gear Solid 4. Part game but slows down and becomes a movie in places. Nice graphics. Japanese designer Hideo Kojima. Cinematic.

Tina: Will it make me want to go and jump on turtles?


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Voiceover
Not all gamers communicate in monosyllables and have no eye contact. Reviewers of gamers often write eloquently. And doing justice to a visual experience can be a pretty daunting challenge using only text.


MGS4 raises an interesting question. Are games and movies mutually unintelligible narrative dialects?