Magic Frames: The Best of All Possible Virtual Worlds

If videogame realism is dazzling and flighty, unrealism is a solid and dependable. Unrealistic elements are a feature of all genres and all stages of gaming history. Icons that signify potential actions, pop-up menus, ‘heads-up displays’ (HUDs) quantifying the avatar’s status and various methods of representing the player’s own virtual body (or apparent lack thereof) are all highly unrealistic visual elements. They are also very common across all the genres of gaming. Galloway (2006: 69) argues that the first-person perspective in games tends to marginalise montage in the sense of an editorial cut in cinema. However, a broader definition of the term – one which is not restricted to a cinematic antecedent – would recognise that multiple frames of many videogames are montage. The overwhelming majority of game screens involve overlays or partitions, and gameplay often demands the dynamic navigation of multiple frames. These elements constitute moments of counterplay with regard to the realist ambitions of many videogames.