Trigger Happy
112
a steering wheel. The cybernetic possibilities are rich
and largely unexplored.
A tennis game, for instance, could use one stick for
your character’s movement over the court, and the
other to control directly the movement of the racquet
arm when playing a shot. Move the stick faster, and you
play a more powerful stroke; move it in a curve, and
you impart spin. Similarly, in a boxing game, each stick
could be programmed to control directly the movement
of an arm. This seems such an obvious idea that it is
astonishing that software companies do not so far
implement it generally. The first, and so far only, use of
the idea occurs in the splendid gadget-festooned
exploration game Ape Escape (1999), in which the
player must row an inflatable dinghy downstream by
rotating both sticks, each controlling a separate oar;
sub-games offer direct control of skis or, indeed, arms
in “Monkey Boxing.” Analogue control is becoming a
new standard. The standard controller for Sega’s
Dreamcast console only provides one analogue stick
instead of Sony’s two, which is a bad oversight,
although its dual triggers are both analogue. Sony’s
PlayStation2 controller, meanwhile, boasts analogue
response on all its buttons, opening up intriguing new
gameplay possibilities.
