Trigger Happy
in the ruses and paradigms of their unreal worlds. But the videogame is not simply a cerebral or visual experience; just as importantly it is a physical involvement—the tactile success or otherwise of the human– machine interface. Some games recommend the use of a peripheral: an extra piece of interface hardware that plugs into the console or PC. For driving games this would be a steering wheel, complete with floor pedals; for Time Crisis the player buys an actual lightgun with which to shoot at the television screen. Yet most games are still controlled with curiously alienating devices: a standard joystick or “joypad,” or a computer mouse and keyboard.
We saw one way in which this can hobble gameplay in the last chapter, when it was noted that beat-’em-ups rely on memorized combinations of button-presses to perform almost arbitrary series of martial arts moves. Sports games, too, suffer from a particularly limiting cybernetic dissonance. The swing of a golf club, for instance, is accomplished in videogames simply by pressing buttons at the right time while observing “power meters.” All manner of ball tricks, spins and tackle evasions are called up in a football game by particular combinations of buttons. This is clearly not ideal for convincing involvement
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