Magnavox Trigger Happy Manuel D’Utilisation

 

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. 
 

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