Philips Magnavox Videogames and the Entertainment Revolution Trigger Happy - Manual (Page 68)

Trigger Happy
70
table at the weekend by men pushing little figures
around with brooms—only now the computer allows
the precise calculation of thousands of variables. This
swamp of numbers, terrains and troop typologies
effectively disguises the complementary fact that, as
videogames, their formal root is Atari’s panic-inducing
arcade game Missile Command (1980), which
originally grew out of a military simulation to see how
many nuclear warheads a human radar operator could
track before overload set in. As we noted of simulation,
though, as games become ever more complex and
hybridized, the essential elements of realtime
strategy—control of multiple game pieces and tactical
calculus—may crop up in several other genres.
Real-time strategy games do not provide the instant
control and feedback of the more visceral videogame
genres, yet nor are they such leisurely affairs as God
games. Decisions about the disposition of troops and
units must be made in “real time”: if you don’t react
quickly enough, you’ll be overrun by the enemy. A
certain pleasurable level of sweating tension is thereby
induced. This median level of response requirement
makes strategy games perfect for the burgeoning field
of online play.