Sunday, November 02, 2008

Please Check Your Suspension of Disbelief At The Door

I very much enjoy playing video games, but as I was waiting at the bus stop the other day and mentally noting strategically important sniper positions. I couldn't help but wonder if the number of first person shooter games I play has any sort impact on me and my everyday life.
There must be others out there like me who recognise the following behaviours and don't think them unusual?
  • In movies when the character attempts to fire their gun but has an empty clip, you can't help but mutter 'dumbarse' under your breath at them, for not counting rounds.

  • Despite having never seen or even touched a real gun you can't help but correct friends and family on any inaccurate miming of weapon use.

  • In spy type movies it takes all your will power to not criticise characters if they do something you consider amateurish.

  • You no longer walk sideways - you strafe.

  • You no longer head someone off - you flank them.

  • You look left, right and up when entering a room.
  • You think in an emergency you could probably navigate your way in or out of the building you work in, via the air conditioning vents.

  • You can't help but see the resemblance between a whole uncooked chicken and a headcrab.
  • Little girls singing nursery rhymes is closer to bone chilling than cute on the nice/horror continuum.

  • When you sit at your keyboard your fingers naturally sit on WSAD and the Shift key, not JKL and FDS.

  • Entering a toilet where there is a flickering fluorescent light gives you the uber wiggins and you'll need to push the door of any empty stalls completely open before you can do anything.

  • Head shot or head home - you know it's the only way to be sure.

  • You can't shake the feeling that turning the likes of these will result in great and favourable things for you:

5 comments:

mike said...

ehehehe
mentally noting strategic sniper positions..

:D
CHECK.

Guns don't kill people, Video games kill people.

Anonymous said...

I'm certainly going to be checking left, right, up as soon as I walk into rooms from now on...

...it makes perfect sense!

Meredith said...

"Guns don't kill people, Video games kill people."

and zombies and aliens and evil scientists and deer and ghosts and robots and wolfmen and barrels filled with explosive material and evil henchmen and genetically modified humans and stuff.

Meredith said...

Andy - yeah, always look up. Of course, looking down is also good too (refer to earlier blog post about my mangled ankle/Meredith fall down go boom story).

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