Philips Magnavox Videogames and the Entertainment Revolution Trigger Happy - Manual (Page 67)

Trigger Happy
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seems to be a pernicious subterranean motive here:
such games offer you a position of infinite power in
order to whisper the argument that, as an individual in
the world, you have none at all.
Two tribes
Armchair generals are well catered for by the God
game’s sibling genre, the real-time strategy game. Its
natural milieu is that of war. Again in a godlike
position (single-handedly overseeing all military
operations), the player is briefed by advisers (actors in
video clips), and must then carry out certain missions
by issuing commands to numerous small troop units on
the battlefield. The player clicks on a certain unit and,
for instance, tells it to move somewhere, to attack
another unit, to defend itself or to scatter. The
stupendously successful Command and Conquer series
of games offers with every sequel more lovingly
recreated “theaters of war” and conflict situations
drawn from twentieth-century history, yet at the same
time litters the battlefield with increasingly fantastic
depositories of hi-tech weaponry for your troops to pick
up and bash the Axis with.
Real-time strategy games are, at base, congruent
with the traditional class of wargame played on a large