Magnavox Videogames and the Entertainment Revolution Trigger Happy manual

Trigger Happy

processing chip in Sony’s PlayStation2 console is called an “Emotion Engine.” This is more than just a good marketing coinage; it also implies a more thoughtful approach—not toward something like an interactive novel, of course, but certainly toward videogame software that will take more chances to make the player stop and think. Videogames’ loss of innocence can only be a good thing, aesthetically, as developers increasingly try to create new ways of seeing and playing in their imaginary worlds.

Prometheus gave man the tools of creation. In an alternative version of the Prometheus myth, Zeus takes his revenge on the god by persuading Hephaestus to fashion a woman, Pandora, who lets fly the world’s evils out of a jar. From then on, men decide to turn their gifts against each other, by waging war. But one thing is left in Pandora’s receptacle: hope.

Whether our digital fire is turned to destructive or creative purposes is still up to us. Let’s say to videogame designers: don’t bore us, don’t alienate us; feed our sense of wonder. Videogames etch memorable, high-speed imagery onto millions of retinas in the industrialized nations. They are rewiring our minds. This is both an opportunity and a danger. If

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