Trigger Happy
was developed in order to enable the player to see the action from the most useful angle. In Mario 64, for instance, the player must often rotate the camera to a different compass point, or select a view from slightly farther away, in order to guide the rotund plumber across a particularly narrow bridge or up a series of tough platforms.
Cinematic camerawork of the kind that is immediately noticeable or stylish, however, often depends for its effect on hiding something from the viewer, not letting you see everything. When the detective mounts the staircase of the Bates Motel in Psycho, Hitchcock deliberately chooses a very tight shot on his hand moving up the banister, inducing tension through dramatic irony, as we know what awaits him at the top of the stairs, although he does not. But there can be no dramatic irony in videogames, because dramatic irony depends on a knowledge differential between spectator and
True, some videogames attempt to replicate this kind of stylized shot choice, most notably Resident Evil 2 (see fig. 6). But in a videogame, as opposed to a movie, this becomes a fraudulent and frustrating
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