Philips Magnavox Videogames and the Entertainment Revolution Trigger Happy - Manual (Page 197)

Trigger Happy
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SOLID GEOMETRY
Vector class
The world is made of glowing green and red lines. You
are seated in a cockpit, grasping a sculpted black lever
in each hand, thumbs hovering over the twin red fire
buttons on top. You are in a tank. Audio rumblings and
sonar-like pings go off around your ears as the other
tanks on the battlefield seek to destroy you. It’s kill or
be killed. It’s a dream of perfect destruction. You’re
playing Battlezone.
This arcade game, released by Atari in 1980, in
which the player must shoot other tanks and flying
saucers while surviving as long as possible, was a
milestone in the history of videogame imagery, and in
the construction of videogame space itself. It was the
first really successful “first-person” game, where the
screen showed the action from a perspectival point of