Posted by Will Ooi | Posted in Gaming | Tags: Psychology | Posted on 09-11-2011-05-2008
2
Standing about halfway in the queue at a quarter to midnight, the sense of expectation and anticipation was overwhelming. Having waited over a year since the first trailer had been released, it was as if we were all lining up for one of the great film premieres; an unveiling that could be announced with pride to our future descendants, akin to that of attending, say, the world’s first screening of Return of the Jedi/King: “I was there”. In such a scenario, our unnamed grandchildren-to-be would probably look up at us with awe, envisioning themselves the coming of the next great trilogy that would eventually serve to define their own generations.
But in this scenario? No, not quite…
~
*Warning: Spoilers ahead*
Jensen looked for the staircase amongst the near-deafening, conflicting distractions of bass-heavy dance music and the raised voices of tangibly multilingual but otherwise unidentifiable background chatter in the immensely crowded Hive nightclub. Were it not for his augmentations, he thought to himself, the noise of this busy Hengsha social scene may have caused some discomfort; although that had now been replaced by those sudden interruptions from colleagues coming in through the InfoLink embedded in his skull.
But that wasn’t the hardest thing to get used to. It was the knowledge that everything he could see would be instantly relayed back onto a voyeuristic screen in some cold, sanitised facility hidden away in shame and secrecy. By comparison, that constant threat of intrusion by – quite literally – a voice in his head, cutting short his own thoughts when he dared even to daydream for a mere moment, was somehow less invasive.
*Incoming transmission*.
Posted by Will Ooi | Posted in Gaming | Tags: Just Cause 2, Psychology | Posted on 24-03-2011-05-2008
2
My eyes darting around in panic as I frantically scan for a a climbable ledge or a solid, safe surface – anything at all would do – the palms of my hands react in the worst possible way by turning cold and numb with moisture; perhaps the very combination of inappropriate bodily responses that would make this awful fear of heights – and in particular, falling – a grim reality. I could understand if, say, my sympathetic nervous system had reacted in a fight or flight response by making me tense up and redirecting blood flow to my limbs should I need to use either my fists to attack or my legs to run, but this? This! What could possibly possess my brain to decide to ironically make my hands slippery when I need them, most of all, to hold on tight?!
It’s at this point that I use my damp thumb to press on the Start button of my controller to pause these thankfully fictional near-death experiences, and sit back to take into account the bodily response that had just occurred. The game I’m playing is Just Cause 2, and the situation is controlling the larger-than-life alliterative secret agent character Rico Rodriguez, hanging onto the sides of the large blimp in the game with his trusty grappling hook and looking for the remaining hidden package on the craft which has proven tricky to locate. I’m somewhat sad to report that my real life is utterly devoid of such risks and I obviously do not possess the death-defying capabilities nor tools that Rico may call upon, and yet in this virtual world where base-jumping and parachuting and grappling onto planes and helicopters in mid-air is commonplace I had not experienced any such fear or adrenaline-stimulating response until I was in that one particular moment, clinging onto that blimp, my own tormenting phobia creeping up slowly behind me to shout “Boo!”
Fear stimulus up there, past those trees…
~
