As the title of this website suggests, gaming is about escapism. If I punch someone randomly in real life then the chances are good that they'll hit me back hard, the authorities will get involved, and/or everyone will think I'm a lunatic to be avoided. Punch someone in a game and, depending on the game they might go flying, a body part may come off, and/or a tangible reward will appear.
The point is, games are meant to let you experience things that real life simply won't allow. Occasionally I'll be playing a game and a certain moment, move, or event will remind why I play; I'll feel for a brief second like I'm the boss and the world is my unnaturally obliging secretary.
My examples are:
a) Crackdown. I'd levelled up my melee attack to a high level and was standing on a busy street in the path of an oncoming enemy vehicle. Just, JUST as it was about to plough into me and knock me down, I sent out a godlike boot and flipped it over on to its roof. The message was clear - "Did you see that?", I wanted to say to my erstwhile digital adversaries, "I have a foot more powerful than your fancy truck and all the guns and men therein. I eat bricks and shit nails. I couldn't get more manly if I had just burst your tyres with the unstoppable erection I now have". It was good.
b) Every fight in Batman: Arkham Asylum. I'm not hyperbolising a jot when I say the combat in that game is literally beautiful. If you take the time to get even half way decent at it then a fight will never, ever feel like a chore. Nothing could be more sublime than the serene balletic grace with which you flatten faces and snap the extremities of hapless, heavily muscled career criminals.
What moments in your gaming history make you feel, in the impeccable words of Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw, like "a monster truck that walks like a man"?
The point is, games are meant to let you experience things that real life simply won't allow. Occasionally I'll be playing a game and a certain moment, move, or event will remind why I play; I'll feel for a brief second like I'm the boss and the world is my unnaturally obliging secretary.
My examples are:
a) Crackdown. I'd levelled up my melee attack to a high level and was standing on a busy street in the path of an oncoming enemy vehicle. Just, JUST as it was about to plough into me and knock me down, I sent out a godlike boot and flipped it over on to its roof. The message was clear - "Did you see that?", I wanted to say to my erstwhile digital adversaries, "I have a foot more powerful than your fancy truck and all the guns and men therein. I eat bricks and shit nails. I couldn't get more manly if I had just burst your tyres with the unstoppable erection I now have". It was good.
b) Every fight in Batman: Arkham Asylum. I'm not hyperbolising a jot when I say the combat in that game is literally beautiful. If you take the time to get even half way decent at it then a fight will never, ever feel like a chore. Nothing could be more sublime than the serene balletic grace with which you flatten faces and snap the extremities of hapless, heavily muscled career criminals.
What moments in your gaming history make you feel, in the impeccable words of Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw, like "a monster truck that walks like a man"?
