I am in a murderous mood. Every time I see movement, my
right index finger twitches. My head keeps jerking left,
right, up, down. My ankle hurts because I almost twisted it,
turning suddenly around when I heard a noise from
outside.
Today, instead of doing a bit of work that I left undone
on Friday, and going to the gym, and making a nice meal, I
ate leftovers and played Quake 2. Finished it, in fact. I
probably died a hundred times, but eventually I got the
bastard. Now I'm frustrated.
I don't actually feel anything from the first paragraph.
My ankle got hurt because I was trying to catch a bottle
that fell off the table. However, I do feel frustrated.
As I
told
before, some time ago I started looking at modern
computer games, or rather, modern first person shooters, in
single-player mode. I had a friend demo me a representative
selection, and then got myself an authentic copy of Quake 2.
I've now finished it, and I'm not entirely happy about the
experience.
The actual playing was OK while it lasted. The game is
highly playable, the controls are easy, they quickly feel
natural, and the game reacts to them very well. The only
thing I never really got the hang of was jumping, but that
was rarely necessary. The place with the three stones
sliding around in water was quite annoying.
Playing Quake 2 consists mainly of two things: shooting
everything that moves, and solving small puzzles. The
puzzles are mostly of the kind where you need to run around
in buildings and twisty little corridors, all alike, and
find a button to press. Not highly challenging, but if you
miss one, you may have to run around the place an extra time
or two, and that takes time, and gets quite boring.
The shooting was also a bit of a puzzle, at times, since
in order to not get shot yourself, you can't just stand in
one place. In the ideal case, you can figure out a way to
deal with the opponents from a safe place, throwing grenades
around a corner or something like that.
Mostly, though, you just shoot.
Aim and click. Aim and click. Move about a bit. Aim and
click. Aim and click. Move about. Aim and click. Continue
until the thing blows up.
The computerized opponents do get smarter, and a bit
harder to kill, as the game progresses. The final big bad guy
is really hard to kill, took me a dozen attempts. That turned
out to be surprisingly unsatisfying.
There is a storyline in the game, but it was pretty much
irrelevant. There are several stages, and at each stage you
need to do certain tasks, and as a result, you can go to the
next task, or the next stage. All the tasks are "shoot
everything" and "press a few buttons in the right order".
Oh, sometimes you have to collect some items, too, and take
them to places.
Now that I've finished the game, I wonder if it was all
worth it. I spent quite a number of hours on the game, and
what I mainly got out of it was some adrenaline boosts, and
those weren't enjoyable. They're addictive, even highly so,
and every time I had to stop playing (to do work, or sleep),
it required a lot of willpower. I wanted to continue, even
if it wasn't fun. I hate being addicted.
I can't deny having had a bit of fun. The feeling of
being able to do things, to run tirelessly for hours, to
overcome obstacles, to vanquish my foe, all that is fun,
and gives a certain satisfaction.
That satisfaction is feeble and fleeting. As soon as I
re-focus my eyes, get up from the couch, and look outside, I
realize that it was all for nothing. I haven't really
accomplished anything.
I'm a hacker. My life revolves around doing things with
my brain, and having them affect the real world. I make
software that other people use, and their lives get better,
even if only a little. Every time I fix a bug in Debian, I
improve the world. Heck, even just finding a new bug from
piuparts log files
gives me a nice, warm feeling in my stomach.
I realize people don't play games to improve the world,
and that's all right. I don't watch movies or read fiction
to improve the world, myself. Computer games are a form of
entertainment, and as long as they're fun, and you're enjoying
yourself, they're fine. If playing makes you happy, be happy,
and I'll be happy for you. I am not judging you in any way,
I'm expressing my own feelings.
I can't seem to get enjoyment from computer games, or at
least I didn't get it from Quake 2. I got an adrenaline
addiction, and a high frustration level. I do get
distraction, something to take my mind off things, but I can
get that from, say, romantic comedies, without any side
effects.
Thus I conclude that I am better off not playing first
person shooter games. I suspect that no computer game is going
to be particularly good for me.
For many years now, I've played a bit of tetris, or
Mahjongg, or a solitaire card game, when I wanted a bit of
distraction. Those never were satisfying, either. While I
did get distracted, somewhat, for a while, they didn't really
work for that, either. Watching Lord Arthur and Miss Mabel
get each other works much better. If I solve solitaire,
nothing has changed; if I watch
An Ideal Husband
the nth time, at least I've felt something beautiful.
A surrogate emotion is better than an adrenaline
addiction.
