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Too Much Gaming, Anyone?
Nrik noted a wired story about too much gaming and how sometimes a few too many hours of gaming can cause your mind to blur some lines. For me it was Tony Hawk- I played so much that I started sizing up curbs for grinding while driving home from work. Katamari Damacy has been a problem too. I'm fairly certain my car is large enough to pick up the railings on the overpass near my house. I'm even more certain that these thoughts are bad.
Is it just me, or has GTA clouded the minds of others as well?
Then I decided it was probably time to pay attention to the road and take a break from black and white.
Religion is a gateway psychosis. -- Dave Foley
Seems like a large portion of people commenting so far have (fond?) memories of Tetris completely taking over. I haven't played Tetris in years and I can still conjure up games in my head.
I know also that I became really suspicious about social interactions while I was playing the Sims. I'd talk to people and know they were just doing it so their social meter would rise, and would leave feeling used and resentful. It was really terrible, because while it's generally not so hard to curb violent impulses, I started feeling like none of the people who talked to me throughout the course of the day actually had any regard for me and get really discontented.
I found Half-Life 1 to be infinitely creepy. After a long gaming session, I got up to get something from the fridge. Along the way, I happened to run into a single strand of spider-web hanging down from the ceiling. My barnacle-avoidance instincts kicked in and I twisted my body out of the way - it took me a second to figure out what the hell I was doing.
Of course, I have all of the usual stories of seeing stuff when trying to fall asleep after late-night gaming - falling Tetris pieces, Super Puzzle Fighter blocks, Puzzle Bobble bubbles, even minesweeper scenarios. I think it's especially prevalent with games featuring lots of visual elements that your brain can abstract into functional pieces...?
- David Stein
Computer over. Virus = very yes.
I can't believe nobody's mentioned Crimsonland yet. A terrific game, the entire purpose is to kill bugs creeping in from the edges of the screen with various weapons. Since they come from all around you, you need to watch out for the bugs with your peripherial vision. For *weeks* after going through a couple Crimsonland marathons, I couldn't even use a computer because it looked like various bugs were "creeping" in on me, even when I was browsing the net or whatnot. I sat there once, watching a "bug" crawl around in my peripherial vision, and *knew* that I needed to stop playing it. Most disturbing game ever made (psychologically, not in terms of actual game mechanics).
Condemnant quod non intellegunt.
My first year of college, when i lived in the dorms, one of the guys there created a Quake III level of a portion of the campus, complete with all the buildings and everything.
:P
Talk about mixing games with reality. It's odd enough to feel the urge in real life to "act" like you would in the games, but when you've already spent hours in the game map which is a replica of your real environment, and you know around the next corner there's a rocket launcher, it's hard to stay focused that you're in the real world.
Gaming addictions are one thing... but I knew this kid would would never stop playing starcraft.
When I met him, he was a black belt in tae kwon do (he was korean), was in the CS program, and prettty bright.
Last I heard of him, he had dropped out, his roommates (and brother) kicked him out of the house because he never showered, cleaned, or got a job.
no comment
When I was in high school, I would work sadly long hours at Taco Hell. 16 hour long days during summer break at times. I'd work night shift, get off at say, 4 am, and go to bed.
Then dream about making Tacos.
No!!!!!!
It gets worse. Later on, right after the dot-com bust, I was working a call center at Compaq. During certain times of the day, when things were slow with nothing to do, I'd decided I wanted to get better at Perl coding. I'd sit there for hours making strides in a program I was writing, learning new modules, working on problems, etc.
Then I'd go home, and not only dream of coding in Perl, but occassionally fix my code IN MY SLEEP.
God help me. I recently figured out what was wrong with our DNS server while under the effects of anesthesia for an upper endoscopy. Yikes.
Karma: Chameleon (mostly due to the fact that you come and go).
Y'all are sick. Not because you dream video games, but because all of the stories here are about dreaming about video games. Have none of you ever played a game without a pc/console?
I can remember chess club back in high school. After the tournaments, we would be driving home on the van, and I would still be seeing how I could attack the person two benches ahead and one person over from me. I was not the only teammate who had this happen either.
Go play a "real" game.