|
|
Trigger Happy: Videogames and the Entertainment Revolution (Paperback)
by Steven Poole
| Category:
morden videogames, videogame designers |
| Market price: ¥ 150.00
MSL price:
¥ 128.00
[ Shop incentives ]
|
| Stock:
Pre-order item, lead time 3-7 weeks upon payment [ COD term does not apply to pre-order items ] |
MSL rating:
 Good for Gifts |
| If you want us to help you with the right titles you're looking for, or to make reading recommendations based on your needs, please contact our consultants. |
Detail |
Author |
Description |
Excerpt |
Reviews |
|
|
|
Author: Steven Poole
Publisher: Arcade Publishing
Pub. in: September, 2004
ISBN: 1559705981
Pages: 304
Measurements: 9.1 x 6.1 x 0.8 inches
Origin of product: USA
Order code: BA01489
Other information: 978-1559705981
|
|
Rate this product:
|
|
- MSL Picks -
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. (From quoting a guest reviewer, USA)
|
|
Steven Poole is a journalist and writer who has contributed articles to the Guardian, the Independent, and the Times Literary Supplement. He has also worked as a composer for television and short films.
|
|
From publisher
The Edge calls Trigger Happy a "seminal piece of work." For the first time ever, an aficionado with a knowledge of art, culture, and a real love of gaming takes a critical look at the future of our videogames, and compares their aesthetic and economic impact on society to that of film. Thirty years after the invention of the simplest of games, more videogames are played by adults than children. This revolutionary book is the first-ever academically worthy and deeply engaging critique of one of today's most popular forms of play: videogames are on track to supersede movies as the most innovative form of entertainment in the new century.
|
From a guest reviewer(MSL quote), USA
<2008-09-18 00:00>
A fantastic story of the "aesthetics" of video games - what makes them an artform that draws influences from cinema, art history (yes!), older games and traditional narrative, while becoming something new and "revolutionary" at the same time. This guy Poole is obviously a gamer, but he is also a brilliant cultural critic & I was constantly surprised and amazed at the references and parallels he draws, from Sophocles and Plato to Albrecht Durer and Walter Benjamin. At times it's a little dense, but its worth perservering to follow his trains of thought. Should be fascinating to anyone who cares about where modern culture is going, let alone games themselves. This is one of the best books I've ever read. I'd give it six stars if I could. |
Liz Bailey(MSL quote), USA
<2008-09-18 00:00>
Steven Poole's substantial examination of the world inside your console combines an exhaustive history of the games industry with a subtle look at what makes certain kinds of games more engaging than others. For example, what works in which genres--the RPG (role-playing game) versus the god game--and the relationship of video games to other forms of media.
A writer and composer, Poole makes the case that video games-like films and popular music--deserve serious critical treatment: "The inner life of video games-how they work--is bound up with the inner life of the player. And the player's response to a well-designed video game is in part the same sort of response he or she has to a film, or to a painting: it is an aesthetic one." Trigger Happy is packed with references not just to games and game history but also to writers and theorists who may never have played a video game in their lives, from Adorno and Benjamin to Plato. At times this approach verges on the pedantic, dwelling at length on points that will seem obvious to serious gamers ("We don't want absolutely real situations in video games. We can get that at home"; "The fighting game, like fighting itself, will always be popular"). Nonetheless, Poole's book may be favored bedside reading for both the keen gamer and the armchair philosopher looking to understand this cultural phenomenon.
|
|
|
|
|
