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What's a popular verb in games? I'm guessing a lot of you thought 'shooting', even though it's not that common, in the same way that if I asked you to name an animal, a lot of people would say 'a lion'. Shooting's not universal, but it is endemic. It's what non-gamers think games are about. It's what news outlets use to illustrate headlines about how the games industry is making more than Hollywood, again. It's the mechanic at the heart of Bioshock, Half-Life, Call of Duty.It's not much like actual shooting. Have you noticed that? My experience of shooting is very limited, but I know that much. An unusual uncle of mine tried to teach me to shoot in a field in Wales. I grappled a bulky, alarming object with both arms. I tried to listen to all the general instructions, I aimed at a piece of corrugated iron on the other side of the field. I pulled the trigger; there was a horrible noise in my ear and the alarming object leapt like a cow tossing its head, and the uncle told me I'd missed. Then I did it again, until we got bored, which didn't take long.
There was no cross-hair. There was no cross-hair. I know how shooting works in games. You minutely twitch the muscles in your wrist; the cross-hair drifts until it coincides with a Nazi's head; there's a satisfying sound and a puff of blood and the Nazi goes down in a tangle. It's a perfect little loop. Make a decision, wrangle feedback across seconds, interact, experience your reward. Reload, and on you go. How many Nazis and other disposables have you killed like that? I did a back of-envelope calculation, and as a middle-aged moderate-intake consumer of manshooters, it's about twenty thousand. Don't worry, this isn't one of those editorials about how shooting is wrong, although I may yet do that. I thoroughly enjoy shooting, for instance, Combine soldiers. The headshot; the death static; the immediate reduction in the number of pulse rounds in the air. It's very satisfying. It's nothing like that field in Wales.
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