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Trigger Happy
244
character can be an idol as much as a pop star or an
actor in the West. One of the major criteria, therefore,
for a game’s success in Japan is that it contains good
characters.
Here, by the way, is another important difference
between videogames and films. The star of a movie is
chosen from a pre-existing pool of actors; you can dress
them up in black Prada, shave their hair or teach them
kung-fu (ideally all three), but at bottom you know
what you’re getting. The star of a videogame, though,
at least of that type of videogame that incorporates
characters at all, is invented: built completely from the
ground up. A false idol indeed. Yet in another way a
hyperreal one: for whereas a novelist, who also invents
characters, will normally only need (or desire) to
provide a few salient features of a person’s appearance
and let the reader’s imagination do the rest, a
videogame character must be determinedly
individuated, given a complete, solid visual form.
Virtual megalocephaly
Of course this is also what happens in comic strips. In
Japan, videogames have very strong aesthetic and
commercial links with manga (comic books) and