Customer Reviews

Trigger Happy : Videogames and the Entertainment Revolution

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

An intelligent, broad ranging discussion of videogames. Poole is right to regard videogames as a medium, and one that needs to be evaluated on its own terms instead of compared with books or movies. He brings in an intriguing array of references on art, semiotics, literary theory and other topics to the discussion, and his writing is accessible and smooth.

The flaw in this book is focussing too narrowly on twitch games, mostly the combat/exploration games like Tomb Raider or Metal Gear Solid. Poole can't be bothered with god-games like Populous or Sim-City or pure exploration-puzzle games like Myst, and says as much. He misses out on a huge realm of other styles of game and playing experience. This is a shame, because Poole looks like he has the intellectual chops to write a comprehensive book on this subject.

Pool is on to something in the last chapter, when he theorizes that the next frontier is making the player feel responsible for his decisions in the game world. You might feel bad when Aeris buys it in Final Fantasy VII, but it was in a cut scene so you don't feel responsible because it was beyond your control.

For the reasons Poole discusses earlier, this is hard to do in an adventure-style game. If a character dies in a cut scene, it isn't your fault. If she dies in gameplay, you just keep playing it through until she lives. (Kirk didn't accept the no-win situation; why should you?)

However, this is where his distaste for god-games trips him up. Players of Civilization or other management games don't have easy replay buttons. Anybody whose sim-city burns because they under-funded the fire department knows all about actions and consequences. We care about a place if we build it. We don't care about a place if we just wander around shooting things in it.

Also, instilling responsibility in games may be a dead end. Arguably, the whole point of play is to avoid responsibility. Play is a separate realm in which success or failure don't matter in the rest of world. Creating consequences for our actions in a game world would make it too much like work.

This may be why some people find on-line games so addictive. They become like work, instead of play, because there are consequences if you don't play hard enough. You can let down the other players, and your enemies can attack what you have created.

Poole doesn't write about on-line multi-player games, because they barely existed when he wrote this, only a couple of years ago. I think he could write another intriguing book on the subject, if he would just take his eyes off Lara Croft and take a walk through Riven.

With Trigger Happy, Steven Poole offers a critical look at the aesthetic history of games. To the informed reader of gaming literature, this subject matter may sound vaguely familiar: Another journalist - game aficionado writes a personal history of games based on personal reflections, email interviews with industry insiders, and the obligatory field trip to E3. Great. , I already read JC Herz's Joystick Nation four years ago; why should I read this? I'll have to admit that after reading Jon Katz' latest "up up down down", piece which discusses Trigger Happy, I was prepared to be disappointed. If all that Katz took away from the book was that games are an important part of contemporary culture, the electronic entertainment industry is as big as the movie industry, and Lara Croft has a hot body, then reading Trigger Happy would be a waste of time.

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.

"If architecture is frozen music, then videogames are liquid architecture."

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.

If you love games like I do - I've been playing 'em all my life, and developing 'em for 6 years - you *need* to read this book. I've never read such a fascinating angle on gameplaying, situating video games in an illuminating context among art, cinema and books, and doing some really excellent thinking about how they work on your mind. This book was like a breath of fresh air to me.

I gotta defend the author too against the factually incorrect attacks by a reviewer below. The reviewer says: "this man touches very lightly the fact that videogames came into fruition and refinement in Japan". Hey, Poole rightly points out that Taito saved the gaming industry with Space Invaders, he calls Miyamoto "the god of videogames", and most of the games he says are great - Metal Gear Solid, Zelda 64, etc - are Japanese. What more do you want? Jeez, of course this reviewer says he didn't even finish reading the book! Don't listen to him. Buy Trigger Happy: you won't regret it.

Poole knows games and writes a compelling academic look at where they came from, where they're going, and what makes a game, good. I picked the book up and read almost all weekend until I was finished. This isn't a dry history of video games, or a heavy-handed defense of games as art. This book is about looking at why we like video games, what makes some better than others, and where the industry might be heading. Poole has read almost everyone else's `history of video games' book, and cites things he has found as worthwhile. He also has read and researched the heck out of this subject leading to an amazing set of references not to mention 200+ pages of thoughtful dialogue. This book will lead you to other worthwhile subjects and solidify your current understanding of the `aesthetics' of games.

Bottom Line: If you like video games at all, or are in any way involved with the industry...read it, read it, read it.

Simply one of the best books I've ever read. As a longtime gamer it's wonderful for a really good writer to come along and analyse the boots off my electronic passions. Every page has a revealing insight - whether it's into the theoretical limitations of "interactive storytelling", the important differences in "cameras" between films and games, or the parallels between the evolution of perspective in art history and in videogames. Later on the book gets pretty hardcore, but the results - including the amazing chapter on semiotics - sure are worth it. And the guy's funny, too. Basically, anyone interested in videogames really needs to read this brilliant book.

Poole has a good point to make, and he makes it in the first chapter (that gamers are not social outcasts and games are a form of storytelling every bit as viable as film or literature). Unfortunately, he has about fifty other half-points to make and never finishes a single one of them. He makes a huge deal out of gender (hello... women have made up a nice percentage of gamers since the Pac-Man days!), which seems really counterproductive. His memoir-like descriptions of E3 and its Tokyo equivalent are entertaining, and he is a gifted writer, but 'Trigger Happy' reads like a conversation with a friend who missed an entire generation of gaming.

When I read "Game Over" by David Sheff a few years ago, I really enjoyed it but it was a bit too focussed on the one company. (Nintendo by the way). With "Trigger Happy", you get far more varied views on the subject and a far more approachable writing style. The ideas which Mr Poole explores are well thought out. Among these are trips down nostalgia lane, thoughts about why we accept the ludicrously unrealistic(The 'laser' passage just has to be read - it's fantastic!), and the future of videogames as an art form. The book is worth every penny of it's lofty price tag - buy it!(Oh, by the way, read "Game Over" by David Sheff too because, until this came out, that book held the position of 'Best book written about videogames. Ever.')

This groundbreaking study of the culture of video games has got to be essential reading for anyone alive in the twenty-first century. Poole argues convincingly that video games are a putative art form, and supports this fascinating thesis through reference to literature, drama, art and film. This is the treatment gaming culture has been crying out for: intelligent, insightful and profoundly thought-provoking, with relevance not just within the game industry but throughout culture as a whole.

February 11, 2003

I'm a game player, but nowhere near the enthusiast that
many young men (and women, says author Poole) have
become today. I don't own an expensive home system,
unless you count my computer, but I am old enough to
remember most of the video game revolution of the 70's.
I found `Trigger Happy' a little too dedicated to the
examination of form (and only a few sorts of forms at
that).

Some of Poole's conclusions about the psychology behind
game-playing and game-evolution are interesting, but others
are downright tedious. (The evolution and complex
significance of the power up?) More interesting areas are
available that he jumps over, unless a companion effort is
in the making. There should be more testimony here. From
gamers, addicts, designers, doctors, marketers, Hollywood,
you name it.

Video games are huge, will become more huge, and might
some day begin playing us, who knows? As a person with a
possible future endlessly jumping over flaming barrels, I'd
like something a little more substantial.