Trigger Happy
slavering slow-motion reiterates the final, lethal combinations of kicks and punches when a fighter in Tekken 3 is brutally floored. Television sports directors have understood for a long while that, when it comes to the electronic mise-en-scÈne of fast movement in three dimensions, several heads are better than one; the cutting together of different viewpoints gives a better and more visceral understanding of the action.
Here, however, the term “replay” is particularly misleading. Play is still primary; what comes next is not a “replay,” a playing again, but a watching. The carnival of camera angles in a videogame replay does not impinge at all on the basic functional requirements of in-game viewpoints. The two are properly separate “modes” of the game. But this is exactly what I meant earlier when suggesting that videogames are potentially a more flexible form than film. Such borrowings from cinematic techniques can indeed enhance the visual experience of a game without compromising its unique intensity.
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