Magnavox Videogames and the Entertainment Revolution Trigger Happy manual

Trigger Happy

In videogames, regret is an easily vanquishable phantom; it operates merely as a fleeting wound that may be quickly salved. If I had timed that jump correctly, Lara wouldn’t have been impaled on the spikes. So I will do it again, properly this time. In 1983, in Mind at Play, Geoffrey and Elizabeth Loftus wrote the following about classic arcade games: “Computer games provide the ultimate chance to eliminate regret; all alternative worlds are available.” This is still true for the I-died-so-I’ll-try-again paradigm, while the new story-based games don’t even evoke true regret in the first place.

More emotionally involving is the brilliantly manipulative Metal Gear Solid, which slyly made me feel guilty for killing a woman sniper by playing a rather well-written dying scene for her and her opponent. But notice that it makes no sense to wish that you hadn’t killed Sniper Wolf—that is, properly to regret your actions—because it is a task that the game demands be fulfilled before you can progress. This videogame balances adroitly on the twin horns of the emotional dilemma by having the main character, Solid Snake, bitterly decry the violent means he is forced to deploy—which, however, are exactly the symbolic gadgets (plastic explosive, grenades,

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