Trigger Happy
classic television angle, has an averagely good view of all the lines and can appreciate
Given that viewing angles have such an effect on the experience of spectatorship, how much more important must they be when you are actively involved in the game? Imagine if you were asked by an eccentric scientist to play a game of snooker wearing a VDU headset wired so that your point of view was situated on the ceiling, looking straight down onto the table. It would be a completely different experience, because you wouldn’t be able to sight down the line of the balls while cueing. In fact, before the advent of efficient 3D realization, several videogame versions of snooker and pool were produced that replicated exactly this thought experiment, with a
Such games were pointless, but what is more interesting is that owing to this viewpoint differential they didn’t merely fail to replicate accurately the experience of snooker or pool, they actually became entirely different sorts of game. Martin Amis expertly
145
