It's the pictures that got small

... so onto Stephen Poole's Trigger Happy show, which was basically a presentation of the "Computer games are serious valid culture, y'know!" argument, with the usual suspects such luminaries as Peter Molyneux, Jez San and Prof. Susan "Over here, Melvyn!" Greenfield. To be fair, I thought that including Julian Opie was a great idea, but this was countered by some of the cinema-centric nonsense being spouted by Charles Cecil (who really should know better) and Sir David Puttnam (representing BAFTA, hosting their first Interactive Festival this month).

In the midst of the usual discussion about games and narrative, Puttnam managed to inadvertently trash the history of computer games so far when he said that the equivalent of DW Griffith's "Birth Of A Nation" probably wouldn't appear for another ten years. I don't know which games he's been playing (though I'd guess at Solitaire and the occasional bit of Minesweeper) but I think that games got to that point twenty years ago with - forgive me - Elite. If Griffith took the giant step forward to show the massive narrative scope that the screen could offer the viewer, then Elite was, if not the first, then amongst the first to show the fictional universes that computer games could contain and the freedom they could offer the player in creating their own compelling narrative experiences - a freedom that gamers had only recently begun to experiment with in Dungeons & Dragons.

The problems of sticking to a strict narrative path while still producing an enjoyable creation are among games' strengths, not their weaknesses. More than ever, I'm realising that the best games are the ones that combine a compelling challenge/reward structure with as much freedom as the designers can possibly provide. We want as much control of our virtual lives and life-stories as we can get - the huge popularity of MMORPGS is testament to that. Probably the most satisfying aspect of Vice City was the ability to completely ignore the storyline and go off to take part in street races, commit random armed robbery or deliver pizzas for a couple of hours, all the while enjoying the radio stations and being happy in the knowledge that all of this was still contributing to my score. (I could go on about The Sims and Deus Ex, but I think you get my drift. Besides, I've done most of this before.)