Trigger Happy
functionally they remain the same sort of animal as the large blobs in Pac-Man: they are second-order signs effecting changes in the possible symbolic relationships of the game. The ocarina works in this way by expanding the player’s symbolic language. Another Zelda 64 gadget, for instance, the hookshot (a sort of retractable grappling hook), enables the player to reach previously inaccessible areas by swinging up.
Now in general one wants to say, “The more gadgets the better.” The more ways in which a player is required to learn how to use a new gadget and thus expand her semiotic conversation with the game, the longer the game will be refreshing and surprising, delivering a sense of childlike discovery. The brilliant yet underrated Ape Escape (see fig. 19) is furnished with many such exceptionally imaginative gadgets: a monkey radar, which when waved in the direction of a rogue simian flashes and hoots, enabling the player to examine his prey close-up; a hula hoop, which when spun round the waist enables the player’s character to run extremely fast; a rotor, which when spun enables you to float up to previously inaccessible areas. But Ape Escape’s crowning achievement is the radiocontrolled car, which—bizarrely at first—offers exactly the same experience as working a real radio-
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