Trigger Happy: Videogames and the Entertainment Revolution [Englisch] [Gebundene Ausgabe]

Thankfully, Trigger Happy is more than an update of Joystick Nation; in fact, Trigger Happy is the most thorough deconstruction of the games themselves written to date while retaining the same witty, irreverent style that made Joystick Nation so engaging. Poole offers a fresh, entertaining, and insightful look at games that is accessible to novices and seasoned gamers alike. At its heartTrigger Happy is an aesthetic history of games, tracing their development from primitive black and white 2 player games into complex popular-art accomplishments. Poole, a journalist, writer, and composer brings a keen eye (and ear), to his subject matter, interweaving semiotics, personal history, critical analysis, and a love for games into a creative, cleverly written aesthetic discussion of games. In doing so, he raises the ante for game designers, critics and aficionados looking to examine games as an art-form.

Trigger Happy succeeds because Poole examines games in much greater depth than any of his contemporaries. He looks at how games are made. He examines game players -- from a cross cultural perspective, and then he looks at the games themselves, applying literary, philosophical, and semiotic analysis to games. The book is thorough and well thought out -- enough that it could be used in an academic context. Fortunately, Poole doesn't lose the reader in technical jargon or philosophical babble; he keeps the focus squarely on the games, and what makes games fun.

More than any other published book to date, Trigger Happy lays the foundation for a field of electronic gaming criticism. Steven Poole gives great insight into what makes a great game, and offers the reader a useful set of conceptual tools to understand games. Although, Poole's goal is not really to provide an academic treatise, Trigger Happy is so articulate, so original, that it succeeds as an academic work as well as entertainment. Of course, there are minor details that the reader may quibble with - but engaging in a dialogue with Poole about games is half the fun of reading this book. If you're looking for thoughtful look at the games that entertain us...that make us Trigger Happy, you can't miss this book.

Poole gives us a series of essays that take a serious look at videogames. What kind of artform are they? How have they drawn influence from, and influenced, more traditional artforms like movies and novels? Not all of Poole's insights are revolutionary, but he's obviously a bright guy who's not afraid to drag out the heavy hitters (Adorno, Wittgenstein) when he needs to. Nevertheless "Trigger Happy" has a light touch; it's easy to read and quite entertaining. Poole isn't just an armchair theorist; the games that he holds in high regard (e.g. Metal Gear Solid, Wipeout XL, Space Invaders) are all standouts, and he writes about them with obvious affection.

I particularly enjoyed the section where Poole contemplates future possibilities for gaming. He points out that, just as advancements in art through the ages were initially characterized by increasingly 'realistic' representation techniques (e.g. vanishing horizon, perspective), so are videogame graphics advancements characterized by increased realism. But while art branched off into abstraction, impressionism, etc., videogames have so far avoided similar exploration. To put it in a nutshell-- why aren't there more games that let you move around in an MC Escher type space?

The hilarious analysis of laser weapon verisimilitude in videogames is priceless.