Viewpoint: Whats the difference between god and a gamer? God doesn’t think he’s a gamer.

I love strategy games: for a brief moment I have absolute control over an environment, where instead of a giant magnifying glass (even though I still like that – perhaps something I can’t shake from my childhood), I am offered control over a nuclear weapons and a fun assortment of arsenal. Such is the case in the Command and Conquer series, in which you build an army, build a base and attempt to attack your enemy strategically and quickly. The isometric viewpoint offers an interesting form of immersion, as you are given an almost omniscient positionality. From here, you can control people, yet you never have any idea of who you are, instead you are referred to as General, Captain as the characters. This positionality actually offers a chance for the fourth wall to be broken, as you are addressed directly by the characters in the game. This breaks the immersive ideal and makes the player aware of the medium, thus ending an immediacy felt by the game. There are huge restrictions, and the omniscient nature of the game is a false one – for example, you need to send your army outward to explore – and the omniscience that is created does not extend to others in the game. If you were truly all powerful, you would know everything – and what would be the point of the game then? The isometric viewpoint lends heavily to paradigms of religious omniscience, yet within games this position is rarely achieved, perhaps bar the great game, Black and White.