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Trigger Happy
166
argued optimistically, is the entertainment medium of
the future.
Well, the proselytizers are right in at least one weak
sense, because it’s certainly not the entertainment
medium of the present. Not only has no convincing
example of this new creature called “interactive
storytelling” yet been spotted in the wild, no one is
even sure what it might look like. Like Albrecht DÜrer
and his confident rhinoceros, perhaps they’ve stuck the
horn in the wrong place. Still, “interactive storytelling”
sounds like a fascinating idea. That disyllable “active,”
in particular, makes us feel very modern. Intrapassive
storylistening doesn’t sound like half so much fun.
So how do videogames use stories? What kind of
stories are they? And most importantly, is interactive
storytelling the glorious future of videogames, or is it
an imaginatively seductive entry in some fabulous
illustrated bestiary?
Back to the future
The word “story” itself covers a multitude of sins.
Think of the cinema concept of the “back story.” A
back story happened in the “past,” and it determines the
conditions and sets up the concerns of the present