Text within Text

"I define 'texts' to include verbal, visual, oral, and numeric data, in the form of maps, prints, and music, of archives of recorded sound, of films, videos, and any computer-stored information, everything in fact from epigraphy to the latest forms of discography. . . . Until our own time, the only textual records created in any quantity were manuscripts and books. . . . A slight extension of the principle--it is I believe the same principle--to cope with the new kinds of material constructions we have in the form of non-book texts which now surround, inform, and pleasure us does not seem to me a radical departure from precedent." (McKenzie 13-14)

Voice acting is growing into a more popular medium for dipicting a video game's narrative than the traditional text boxes. Most of the exposition in Final Fantasy XII is shown in brief cinemas, using the Playstation 2's hardware to its fullest to generate crisp, life-like scenes among the characters. A question arises: does this transition to voice acting begin to nail the lid shut on the coffin of text within the game, especially those with deep narratives? More importantly, does it even matter? Is dramatization better than text boxes?

McKenzie uses the word "text" as a blanket term, covering more than the written word and encompassing the various forms of media still developing around the world (ala YouTube). By this notion, voice acting is a part of the larger text of the game that has a valid existence. Just as certain novels, one form of text, have been made into motional pictures, certain character interactions in games, especially RPGs (Role Playing Games), normally fleshed out with miniature boxes with words, now have full motion videos with actors (giving Mark Hamil [a.k.a. Luke Skywalker] a boost to his already iconical status). McKenzie, from the quote above, would seem to agree that voice-acted only adds to a video game's allure.

However, coming from the tradtion of the word boxes, I appreciate what they accomplish. Having little to work with (8 or 16-bit graphics), game designers and writers used these boxes, primarily for dialogue, to leave more for the gamer to interpret. In a novel the exact tone of a speak is unknown; the narrator's perspective usually inhibits a precise interpretation. The variance in interpretations for an acted piece, however, has little ambiguity, since the gamer hears the speech from the proverbial "horse's mouth." The allure of the simple text boxes endures even as technology grows more expansive.