Yourself?

Violence and 3D games

After watching the Chow Yun Fat show on TV, the headaches came back again.

I think I played too many FPS (first person shooter) games in Secondary school. So much that it has become instinct. When I enter a hallway, I immediately check the corner, and then make a mental map of potential enemy entrances and the distance I'll have to swivel my mouse to target that corner.

After all those years of gaming at high stress levels, it becomes... second nature. And everytime I watch a movie with those gunfights and action, the instinct will just kick in, and I will just zone in naturally. It's a very.. nauseating experience outside of a game because you don't have the aural and visual clues you need to respond quickly, and everything just takes you by surprise.

Sometimes I wonder if we're being trained for war in the computer games we play. The alertness, the premonition, covering your blind spots, stalking your prey. Being always cold, calm and collected. Being an object in a game of chance. Being death.

Winning in a FPS is being death. It's about not jerking the mouse when you're startled. Believing that you will dodge all the bullets fired at you. Aiming for the head. Being in the zone, where time slows, and you are watching yourself play.

It's weird, but I can never watch a war movie passively again, without feeling that I'm back on the battlefield, without feeling that it's more than just a game.

posted by Downhere. @ 12:45 am