an article written by a guy that works for gamespot that describes me perfectly.
Time has a funny way of flying by, doesn't it? Now, this isn't going to turn into some long-winded diatribe about how far games have come, how long I've been playing them, and blah blah blah. I promise. No, this is actually about how I lose track of time when I play games. Truth be told, I get sucked away from reality into any fantastical form of entertainment, not just games. Games just have a stronger hold on me.
If somebody comes up to me and tries to start a conversation while I'm reading a book, that's fine. For the most part, I can drop a mark in there somewhere and pick up where I left off later on. But for some reason, when I start venturing into more visual realms like video games, movies, comic books, and what have you, things get harder for me to put down. If I'm reading a good issue of 100 Bullets or Legends of the Dark Knight, you'd best stay back. I might get testy if you start chatting at me. If you see me on BART, hunched over my GBA as I whip my way through the Battle Arena yet again in Castlevania: Circle of the Moon, don't even try to talk to me--not even to tell me that it's my stop. And if that's The Empire Strikes Back on the TV, you might as well go home.
Do you lose track of time when you play games?
Yes
No
It all boils down to this: There just isn't enough time in the day to play games. I need more. I need a lot more. Give me a 48-hour day, somebody, please. Change the calendar, grant me time travel, or do something, because this "There are only 24 hours in a day" crap is really starting to get to me. I've actually become hesitant about playing certain games, because I know what'll happen. I usually don't get home before 8:00pm on weeknights, and my wife and child don't take it very well when I walk in the door and grab a Dual Shock 2. This usually results in an ugly situation where I start playing a game and cease to function in the real world. If it's an action game like Twisted Metal: Black, Devil May Cry, or Grand Theft Auto III, you could be telling me that David Fincher just dropped by to ask for my help on his next film, and I wouldn't hear you. Well, maybe I'd hear you say that, but you get my meaning.
So many monsters, so little time.
Castlevania: Circle of the Moon and Grand Theft Auto III are the last couple of games that have taken their toll on me. Both of them have a terrible way of getting under my skin in such a way that they demand the attention of all of my senses. Castlevania: COTM has been my best friend on the way to and from work for the last couple of weeks. I have no desire to play through the game yet again, but I do like jumping back into my saved game, in which Nathan Graves has ascended beyond the 70th level, and just killing monsters. I'm not going to romanticize it. In Castlevania: COTM, I have a cool whip and a really powerful character. I can kill a lot of ugly monsters with this whip and this character. And I like doing it. A lot. Sometimes it's about the simple pleasures, you know?
Grand Theft Auto III is far, far worse. If I can enjoy myself just fine by whipping monsters in a castle, how much fun do you think I have in GTAIII? Let's just put political correctness aside for a moment and discuss this.
I've spent far too much time on this game.
I don't play Grand Theft Auto III for the missions or the story. I play it because I want to see how far I can go, how long I can last after my wanted level has brought in the feds and the military. I played through the story modes only long enough to unlock the second island and get the weapons I needed to wreak complete and total havoc. I needed the flamethrower, the rocket launcher, and the M16. The Molotov cocktails and hand grenades were a nice touch too. After acquiring all of these weapons, I've basically just stopped progressing the story and have headed off down a long string of rampages. Most of them end up with me getting run down by FBI cars, getting gunned down by the military, or making a last stand on top of the parking structure or on the island in Central Park. It's great, great fun.
And it's also time consuming. At first it wasn't so bad. I'd fire a rocket into traffic and try to run. Mostly, I'd get smacked all over the road by police officers, but then my driving started getting better. Next I was punching through roadblocks, stopping the car, jumping out and mowing everybody down, then racing off again. Before too long, I was making fantastic last stands that could literally last for an hour or more. I'd start playing at 11:00pm, just to get that really good round in, and next thing I knew, I'd be rubbing my eyes and trying to explain to myself that it wasn't really 3:00am, that my eyes were just playing tricks on me.
Gilder remembers that day I spent on Skies of Arcadia.
When I really get into a game, time can just fly right by without my even noticing. I sat down one Sunday several months back to play Skies of Arcadia. I started playing around noon. I was alone without any distractions, so there wasn't any outside stimuli to snap me out of my gaming thrall. When I finally quit playing, it was close to 10:00pm. I had been playing for the entire day, close to 10 hours in a row. I hadn't eaten. I'd visited the bathroom once. I was really quite amazed at how much time had passed and how I hadn't even noticed. It really felt like I'd been playing for only a few hours, not all day.
It seems dangerous, doesn't it? I mean, completely losing track of time to the point where food and bodily functions cease to be important? That's the magic of it. Anything that can draw my mind completely away from what's going on around me is the perfect form of entertainment. Entertainment is only a diversion, anyway. It's just too bad that I don't have a surplus of time that I can devote to gaming without time constraints. Somebody really needs to come up with that 48-hour day I was talking about.
If somebody comes up to me and tries to start a conversation while I'm reading a book, that's fine. For the most part, I can drop a mark in there somewhere and pick up where I left off later on. But for some reason, when I start venturing into more visual realms like video games, movies, comic books, and what have you, things get harder for me to put down. If I'm reading a good issue of 100 Bullets or Legends of the Dark Knight, you'd best stay back. I might get testy if you start chatting at me. If you see me on BART, hunched over my GBA as I whip my way through the Battle Arena yet again in Castlevania: Circle of the Moon, don't even try to talk to me--not even to tell me that it's my stop. And if that's The Empire Strikes Back on the TV, you might as well go home.
Do you lose track of time when you play games?
Yes
No
It all boils down to this: There just isn't enough time in the day to play games. I need more. I need a lot more. Give me a 48-hour day, somebody, please. Change the calendar, grant me time travel, or do something, because this "There are only 24 hours in a day" crap is really starting to get to me. I've actually become hesitant about playing certain games, because I know what'll happen. I usually don't get home before 8:00pm on weeknights, and my wife and child don't take it very well when I walk in the door and grab a Dual Shock 2. This usually results in an ugly situation where I start playing a game and cease to function in the real world. If it's an action game like Twisted Metal: Black, Devil May Cry, or Grand Theft Auto III, you could be telling me that David Fincher just dropped by to ask for my help on his next film, and I wouldn't hear you. Well, maybe I'd hear you say that, but you get my meaning.
So many monsters, so little time.
Castlevania: Circle of the Moon and Grand Theft Auto III are the last couple of games that have taken their toll on me. Both of them have a terrible way of getting under my skin in such a way that they demand the attention of all of my senses. Castlevania: COTM has been my best friend on the way to and from work for the last couple of weeks. I have no desire to play through the game yet again, but I do like jumping back into my saved game, in which Nathan Graves has ascended beyond the 70th level, and just killing monsters. I'm not going to romanticize it. In Castlevania: COTM, I have a cool whip and a really powerful character. I can kill a lot of ugly monsters with this whip and this character. And I like doing it. A lot. Sometimes it's about the simple pleasures, you know?
Grand Theft Auto III is far, far worse. If I can enjoy myself just fine by whipping monsters in a castle, how much fun do you think I have in GTAIII? Let's just put political correctness aside for a moment and discuss this.
I've spent far too much time on this game.
I don't play Grand Theft Auto III for the missions or the story. I play it because I want to see how far I can go, how long I can last after my wanted level has brought in the feds and the military. I played through the story modes only long enough to unlock the second island and get the weapons I needed to wreak complete and total havoc. I needed the flamethrower, the rocket launcher, and the M16. The Molotov cocktails and hand grenades were a nice touch too. After acquiring all of these weapons, I've basically just stopped progressing the story and have headed off down a long string of rampages. Most of them end up with me getting run down by FBI cars, getting gunned down by the military, or making a last stand on top of the parking structure or on the island in Central Park. It's great, great fun.
And it's also time consuming. At first it wasn't so bad. I'd fire a rocket into traffic and try to run. Mostly, I'd get smacked all over the road by police officers, but then my driving started getting better. Next I was punching through roadblocks, stopping the car, jumping out and mowing everybody down, then racing off again. Before too long, I was making fantastic last stands that could literally last for an hour or more. I'd start playing at 11:00pm, just to get that really good round in, and next thing I knew, I'd be rubbing my eyes and trying to explain to myself that it wasn't really 3:00am, that my eyes were just playing tricks on me.
Gilder remembers that day I spent on Skies of Arcadia.
When I really get into a game, time can just fly right by without my even noticing. I sat down one Sunday several months back to play Skies of Arcadia. I started playing around noon. I was alone without any distractions, so there wasn't any outside stimuli to snap me out of my gaming thrall. When I finally quit playing, it was close to 10:00pm. I had been playing for the entire day, close to 10 hours in a row. I hadn't eaten. I'd visited the bathroom once. I was really quite amazed at how much time had passed and how I hadn't even noticed. It really felt like I'd been playing for only a few hours, not all day.
It seems dangerous, doesn't it? I mean, completely losing track of time to the point where food and bodily functions cease to be important? That's the magic of it. Anything that can draw my mind completely away from what's going on around me is the perfect form of entertainment. Entertainment is only a diversion, anyway. It's just too bad that I don't have a surplus of time that I can devote to gaming without time constraints. Somebody really needs to come up with that 48-hour day I was talking about.