Philips Magnavox Videogames and the Entertainment Revolution Trigger Happy - Manual (Page 160)

Trigger Happy
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apocalyptic music of hundreds of new games on
display. This is where videogame companies show off
their latest glories of manipulable son et lumiÈre, with
hundreds of PlayStations, Dreamcasts and Nintendo 64
consoles hooked up to television monitors running
soon-to-be-released products. Sony’s triumphal stand
features thirty-foot-high inflatable models of cutesy
game characters Spyro the Dragon and Um Jammer
Lammy (a cartoon girl who plays heavy-metal guitar,
obviously). Nintendo’s section of the hall projects the
playable images of Star Wars, Episode I: Pod Racer
onto, yes, a cinema-sized screen, while a room given
over to Perfect Dark features helpful blond women
gliding among the gamers, dressed in black PVC and
white jodhpurs and suggestively stroking their leather
whips (Perfect Dark, an espionage-themed first-person
shooter, is strictly speaking not a game about
horseriding, but I don’t see anybody complaining).
Elsewhere, a Planet of the Apes videogame is promoted
with the help of a bamboo cage imprisoning semi-
naked women in animal-skin bikinis.
Refreshed or repeled by such marketing schlock
and an endless supply of burgers, hot dogs, soft drinks
and coffee over the four days of the show, journalists,
designers, retailers and publishers scurry around the