Trigger Happy
you regard them as traditional static pictures. But as we must keep reminding ourselves, videogames are a kinetic art form: many of their pleasures can only be realized through time. And on a very basic level, Pac- Man and Lara do in fact share one important attraction. If you swing the joystick to move
These are both examples (one ancient, one modern) of how characters give us videogaming pleasure: through a joyously exaggerated sense of control, or amplification of input. All you do is hold down a button, and you get to see this wonderfully complex, rich behavior as a result. This is one very basic attraction of all types of interactivity, and it also seems to be a
This kind of attractiveness is true of all good characters in modern videogaming: a few simple controls result in absorbing, complex movements.
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