With the critical and detached perspective we can now afford on the
video game production of the last ten or fifteen years, one of the dominant phenomena
of its evolution promptly appears to us: the resort, more and more significant,
to the cinematographic heritage.
“This is a video game” can we often read about
older games like Super Metroid or the
original X-COM, or even with more
recent examples like Deus Ex or Dark
Souls. Few (or no) cinematics!
Expressive and/or emergent gameplay! This is what video games are about! This
is their distinctive and unique quality: interactivity, choice, player agency,
or something to that effect. The story must be told through gameplay, not
through cutscenes! But since cinematic action
games are the most prominent form of video games right now on the mainstream
scene, and in the public eye, at least when it comes to home consoles, is it to
say that we have to forgo the autonomy of our art form? Are video games, or
what remains of them, still able to survive today without the crutch of cinema?
Are they about to become a subordinate art form, depending on another, more
traditional one?
