|
Trigger Happy: Videogames and the Entertainment Revolution
|
List Price:
$13.95
Homebizpc.com Price: $75.78
Subject To Change Without Notice
Availability: N/A
Manufacturer: Arcade Publishing
|
Average Customer Rating:   
|
|
Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 794
EAN: 9781559705981
ISBN: 1559705981
Label: Arcade Publishing
Manufacturer: Arcade Publishing
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 304
Publication Date: 2004-09-15
Publisher: Arcade Publishing
Studio: Arcade Publishing
|
|
|
|
|
|
Editorial Reviews:
|
The Edge calls Trigger Happy a "seminal piece of work." For the first time ever, an aficionado with a knowledge of art, culture, and a real love of gaming takes a critical look at the future of our videogames, and compares their aesthetic and economic impact on society to that of film. Thirty years after the invention of the simplest of games, more videogames are played by adults than children. This revolutionary book is the first-ever academically worthy and deeply engaging critique of one of today's most popular forms of play: videogames are on track to supersede movies as the most innovative form of entertainment in the new century.
|
|
|
Spotlight customer reviews:
|
Customer Rating:
Summary: A Great Piece of Literature
Comment: This book is not a list of dates and events, it is an insightful look into what videogames really are, and their paradoxes and parallels to the real world. I normally dislike reading books without a story, but I literally had trouble putting this down. "I should go to sleep... one more page... okay, lemme just finish this chapter." Buy it now.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Nice... but where's the rest?
Comment: Poole has a good point to make, and he makes it in the first chapter (that gamers are not social outcasts and games are a form of storytelling every bit as viable as film or literature). Unfortunately, he has about fifty other half-points to make and never finishes a single one of them. He makes a huge deal out of gender (hello... women have made up a nice percentage of gamers since the Pac-Man days!), which seems really counterproductive. His memoir-like descriptions of E3 and its Tokyo equivalent are entertaining, and he is a gifted writer, but 'Trigger Happy' reads like a conversation with a friend who missed an entire generation of gaming.
Customer Rating:
Summary: A bit more please.
Comment: February 11, 2003I'm a game player, but nowhere near the enthusiast that
many young men (and women, says author Poole) have
become today. I don't own an expensive home system,
unless you count my computer, but I am old enough to
remember most of the video game revolution of the 70's.
I found `Trigger Happy' a little too dedicated to the
examination of form (and only a few sorts of forms at
that). Some of Poole's conclusions about the psychology behind
game-playing and game-evolution are interesting, but others
are downright tedious. (The evolution and complex
significance of the power up?) More interesting areas are
available that he jumps over, unless a companion effort is
in the making. There should be more testimony here. From
gamers, addicts, designers, doctors, marketers, Hollywood,
you name it. Video games are huge, will become more huge, and might
some day begin playing us, who knows? As a person with a
possible future endlessly jumping over flaming barrels, I'd
like something a little more substantial.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Bland at best.
Comment: This book refers to the psychological impact of games, or rather, it tries to. Author Steven Poole even admits to not enjoying playing games, so what business does he have writing a book about them? Somewhat informative, but very dry. Print quality is also average--The pictures look as if they were photocopied in a convenience store.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Doesn't go far enough
Comment: An intelligent, broad ranging discussion of videogames. Poole is right to regard videogames as a medium, and one that needs to be evaluated on its own terms instead of compared with books or movies. He brings in an intriguing array of references on art, semiotics, literary theory and other topics to the discussion, and his writing is accessible and smooth.
The flaw in this book is focussing too narrowly on twitch games, mostly the combat/exploration games like Tomb Raider or Metal Gear Solid. Poole can't be bothered with god-games like Populous or Sim-City or pure exploration-puzzle games like Myst, and says as much. He misses out on a huge realm of other styles of game and playing experience. This is a shame, because Poole looks like he has the intellectual chops to write a comprehensive book on this subject.
Pool is on to something in the last chapter, when he theorizes that the next frontier is making the player feel responsible for his decisions in the game world. You might feel bad when Aeris buys it in Final Fantasy VII, but it was in a cut scene so you don't feel responsible because it was beyond your control.
For the reasons Poole discusses earlier, this is hard to do in an adventure-style game. If a character dies in a cut scene, it isn't your fault. If she dies in gameplay, you just keep playing it through until she lives. (Kirk didn't accept the no-win situation; why should you?)
However, this is where his distaste for god-games trips him up. Players of Civilization or other management games don't have easy replay buttons. Anybody whose sim-city burns because they under-funded the fire department knows all about actions and consequences. We care about a place if we build it. We don't care about a place if we just wander around shooting things in it.
Also, instilling responsibility in games may be a dead end. Arguably, the whole point of play is to avoid responsibility. Play is a separate realm in which success or failure don't matter in the rest of world. Creating consequences for our actions in a game world would make it too much like work.
This may be why some people find on-line games so addictive. They become like work, instead of play, because there are consequences if you don't play hard enough. You can let down the other players, and your enemies can attack what you have created.
Poole doesn't write about on-line multi-player games, because they barely existed when he wrote this, only a couple of years ago. I think he could write another intriguing book on the subject, if he would just take his eyes off Lara Croft and take a walk through Riven.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
