PLAY ALONG: VIDEO GAME MUSIC AS METAPHOR ... - CiteSeerX

that structural or formalist approaches like Aarseth’s are insufficient if they ignore the
cognitive operations of piecing the text together—(i.e., beyond the “nontrivial”
interaction demanded by the technology (Aarseth Cybertext 1)). The video game’s
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reliance on input from the user makes it a text whose syntagma must be, in part, “outside”
the game itself.
The difference in the temporal disposition of each medium—film and games—
clarifies, in a sense, the boundary erected by interaction and provides yet another way of
analyzing the immersion vs. engagement continuum. Most importantly, the syntagmatic
function of film music is necessarily distinct from metonymic functions of video game
music, but broader metaphoric functions still apply the same way as in film to the extent
offered by the relationships between the player and the player-character. The difference
is that, the emotional relationship of player to character is not as important as the
relationship of the player to the game by way of the character. The cartoon provides a
stronger candidate as a prior media form to compare video games to because cartoons
also must generate in the audience a relationship with the environment of the cartoons.
Cartoon audiences must suspend a significant amount of disbelief about the emulated
reality of both the cartoon and the game world to perceive the character’s actions within
that world as coherent.
Early cartoon music also provides a better comparison to video games because, as
Ward’s writing suggests, there is a stronger tie between games and cartoons than has
been recognized. Cartoons rely on music to reinforce the impact of their visuals, so the
relationship of the viewer to the character operates under the redundant mode identified
in film theory (in the “death scene” example, the music restates the narrative action), but