Magnavox Videogames and the Entertainment Revolution Trigger Happy manual

Trigger Happy

Owing to different modem connection speeds, it is often difficult to play a satisfying game of Quake over the Internet against someone on the other side of the world, because that game is a very rapid-response shoot-’em-up. But a real-time strategy game such as the amusing alien wargame Starcraft (1998) is the perfect vehicle for such global connections, and moreover can handle far more than merely two players at a time. Starcraft’s American server, at one point on its 1998 launch weekend, had thirty thousand players connected simultaneously. Earth is truly humming, as you are reading this, with the smoke and crackle of imaginary warfare.

The cognitive demands made on the player of realtime strategy games are among the most complex any videogame offers, and the attraction of logical, combinatorial thinking allied to often beautiful graphics (such as in the extraordinary Commandos 2) makes for a powerful experience. Wargames, too, are the most complex and satisfying example of the videogame pleasure of control: you are in charge not just of one tank or airplane, but of an entire army. You are not to be messed with.

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