As a young kid, I played Star Fox 64 – or Lylat Wars, as the 1997 3D space shooter game is known in Europe – and never gave much thought to the battle chatter of my wing men. I did not speak English, so I had to read the German translations in the box at the bottom of the screen. In the heat of the battle, I often missed important cues or crashed distracted while reading. (It was my first lesson of never texting while driving, even before the spread of mobile phones.)