Philips Magnavox Videogames and the Entertainment Revolution Trigger Happy - Manual (Page 230)

Trigger Happy
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looking directly at it for a fraction of a second, we
would confirm that its outline really is round and not
elliptical.
Videogames presented in a first-person viewpoint
thus far have failed to overcome these problems, and
their hyperbolic claims to a sort of “realism” must
therefore be qualified. Perspectival limitations are far
more salient and noticeable in first-person shooters,
which unlike most paintings are predicated on fast,
aggressive responses. To avoid marginal distortions, for
instance, videogames, like paintings, keep the angle of
vision artificially narrow. But this has the side effect of
removing from the player’s arsenal one of his most
valuable real-life abilities in a hunting or evasion
situation: that is, to apprehend things, especially sudden
movement, with peripheral vision. Furthermore, the
clumsy apparatus with which the gameplayer has to
wrestle in order merely to look in different directions—
moving a mouse or joystick—can never compete in
terms of speed or intuitiveness with our natural, almost
unwilled eye movements. As the field of view in a
Quake-style videogame is artificially restricted
vertically as well as horizontally, it takes a conscious
decision and a mechanical fiddle just to glance down at
the floor directly in front of you, to