By John Walker on September 21st, 2011 at 2:08 pm.
Something brought up by the article below – in which the way gaming causes us to change our behaviour in the real world is discussed – is quite how brilliant that stuff actually is. It’s the same thrill you can get from watching a superhero film, or being inspired by a character in a book. Those bizarre, often hilarious moments in life, when you’re taken back to a gaming experience. I think they deserve celebrating, so let’s all do that below.
I think the most distinctive example for me would be after playing Thief 2 at university. Spending long evenings in the pitch black, skulking around the medieval city streets, I became well-attuned to avoiding the light, and spotting potential routes across building tops. Such that as I walked through the equally life-threatening streets of Stoke On Trent I would do the same, automatically evading street lights, and scanning my eyes across the university buildings to work out the best imaginary route.
It’s essentially playing. As in, how kids play. Your imagination laid on top of the reality around you. It’s not an inability to distinguish between reality and fantasy. Were that the case we’d all be dead by now. It’s something fun.
My about-to-be-wife gets very annoyed with me each time I see a giant red container or radio tower with red and white stripes across it, and I loudly declare (usually while she’s talking about something sensible) that I have to destroy them. I don’t really plan to destroy them. But a part of my brain trained by Just Cause 2 starts looking for the rocket launchers. I don’t really start looking for the rocket launchers.
So what about you? Which games have augmented your real life in such ways?
21/09/2011 at 14:10 bglamb says:
Once I was playing System Shock 2 for so long that I became very thirsty.
I bought some orange juice from one of the in-game vending machines.
21/09/2011 at 14:25 enobayram says:
Technically, that’s the opposite of what John’s describing, but I know the feeling. I often find myself looking for an in-game bed, when it’s late at night and I need to sleep to keep my real life job :)
21/09/2011 at 14:51 bglamb says:
I did wonder once what the results would be if I could quicksave my life, then upload it to the internet as a save-file, and let everyone else play my life from here. To see where other people would get.
I reckon you could take any life and, with enough effort, do something like get to space, or get elected prime-minister.
Quite inspiring, in a way.
21/09/2011 at 15:40 Askeladd says:
Yes, this would be the greatest game ever, but humanity needs to become immortal in order to play all those different lifes, which would make any of us into a semi-god that is so full of wisdom and life expierience that this game would become boring, to a point where we will create Hero mode to spice things up!
Sounds familiar.
21/09/2011 at 16:34 Askeladd says:
I like it how that guy said I was right.
21/09/2011 at 18:19 Synesthesia says:
press ctrl-z to fix the glass of water you just dropped to the floor
21/09/2011 at 23:07 Trillby says:
Along the same lines, the two or three times I have lost something very valuable to me (wallet, mobile, little baggy of fashionable narcotics) when out drinking of a weekend, I wake up not really rememering what the circumstances were when I lost it. The hangover, combined with the abject misery of having lost whatever it is, make me burn with this incredible desire to “Return to Previous Checkpoint”, where I again have whatever it is I lost, so I can replay the subsequent scenes without losing it.
22/09/2011 at 01:18 Lugg says:
“I did wonder once what the results would be if I could quicksave my life, then upload it to the internet as a save-file, and let everyone else play my life from here. To see where other people would get.”
Did you see that Nicholas Cage movie “Next”? ;)
But yeah, that would be nice. I bet most of those people who would download your life would sit in front of their browser to see where the other other people would get.
22/09/2011 at 04:03 wu wei says:
The in-progress comic Infinite Vacation is all about bidding for the parallel lives of your alternative selves. Great stuff.
22/09/2011 at 12:02 simonh says:
A couple of times when playing late at night, I’ve tried to reach the cup of tea on my desk with my mouse pointer. :S
23/09/2011 at 03:24 TurquoiseTail says:
Would it not be possible to have a huge simulator? where by you enter it and have the save data inserted and there you are, in his shoes. time goes on and so does everyone else but you are simulated real time in the same world and of course when you get out, you simply step out of the simulator and you are back to reality
21/09/2011 at 14:11 h4plo says:
I found watching anyone make a mistake in real life, television, or movies hugely painful after playing Frozen Synapse for a week. “You should have tested that and scrapped it!” my mind would shout.
21/09/2011 at 14:33 Fragman says:
This made me want to play FS…..and there’s only 23 people online! Come on, people!
21/09/2011 at 15:40 kanzy says:
After playing FS for a few hours, I didn’t think carefully about my choices in real life, making the assumption that I could go back and change the choice if it doesn’t turn out well. Then something bad happened and I remembered that real life has no such feature. D:
21/09/2011 at 14:12 Theoban says:
Bloody Minecraft. The atrium of our work building is made up of square blocks, I can’t help but have the urge to ‘tap tap tap, pop’ them out
21/09/2011 at 14:13 Zanchito says:
Thief 1, still does, and proud of it. I’m a ninja!
21/09/2011 at 16:44 Daiv says:
Yes, Thief makes you skulk.
I found myself noticing the sound I make walking across a floor and seeking quieter routes. Plus shying away from lights.
Thankfully I never gave in to the urge to blackjack.
21/09/2011 at 14:13 zipdrive says:
Playing lots of guitar hero made me:
1) see ever-forward-sliding afterimages
2) think I could understand what guitarists actually did. I was wrong
21/09/2011 at 15:43 Askeladd says:
Then tell me how did it change your daily expierience on the aspect of thinking of yourself as an elf?
21/09/2011 at 14:14 jon_hill987 says:
I once tried to open a wooden shipping crate with a crowbar.
By hitting it.
21/09/2011 at 14:19 bear912 says:
I approve.
Also, what do you suppose the start-to-crate time for real life is?
21/09/2011 at 15:36 Groove says:
I actually run a warehouse as half of my job and recently I had to dismantle a damaged crate (of roughly ammo box size) so that it could be disposed of more efficiently.
As this was a properly made crate the actual wood would give way before the joins, meaning that ultraviolence with a crowbar was my only solution. It took me about 15 minutes to fully deconstruct it, and I needed a sit down afterwards.
Gordon Freeman must be Superman in disguise.
21/09/2011 at 15:44 Askeladd says:
Use Thunderhammer for ultra-violence. There is no power-crowbar.
21/09/2011 at 17:36 Caleb367 says:
Never did that but now I have a raging urge to.
21/09/2011 at 21:29 hexapodium says:
The power-crowbar: coming as Space Marine DLC, “Fall 2011″.
21/09/2011 at 14:15 BrendanJB says:
The one that springs to mind is assassins creed. After playing that game for a week I started to see buildings and houses as climbing walls. I saw air-conditioners, awnings and missing bricks as foot and hand-holds. Had I been a strong man I would have probably tried to scale them.
Recently? Hmmm, I think it would be seeing any kind of “blocky” architecture and thinking about how I could reconstruct it in Minecraft.
21/09/2011 at 14:23 Symitri says:
Oh lord yes, Assassin’s Creed has changed how I see architecture. Anything fairly tall is seen as a vantage point, the only thing missing are the bundles of hay at the base.
21/09/2011 at 14:37 Richard Beer says:
Ditto. I went for a nice romantic weekend in Bruges last year having played Assassin’s Creed 2 for a couple of weeks and spent most of the time thinking “I could totally get up there and run across the city”.
21/09/2011 at 14:37 iGark says:
I had a friend who played Assassin’s Creed quite a bit. He started learning parkour recently too, and attempting to climb buildings.
21/09/2011 at 14:43 Tatourmi says:
This is the only game to ever give me that feeling. I too am part of the “Might be climbable” crowd.
21/09/2011 at 15:32 Jarenth says:
I have the same thing. Glad to see I’m not alone in my insanity.
21/09/2011 at 15:55 Zanchito says:
Actually, “runner vision” from Mirror’s Edge or Assassin’s Creed is an actual skill developed by Parkour precticioners (before these games were published, obviously): the ability to look for “ways through/up/down/in/out” in any environment. You develop it after a while, and are always looking at possible routes when walking through the city. So don’t feel bad about it, it’s actually used by non-gamers and it IS useful. :)
21/09/2011 at 21:50 outoffeelinsobad says:
Same. Climbed some mausoleums. No churches or anything though. Started hanging out with rock climbers, and that stuff is Boring.
21/09/2011 at 21:52 Armante says:
Assassins’s Creed absolutely. Played the second one long enough, zipping over Italian cities, that when I went to Las Vegas and saw the Venetian hotel I kept looking at the facades thinking how well they’d replicated the place (I’ve been to Italy for 6 weeks IRL as well) and totally picturing running up walls and across rooftops
21/09/2011 at 14:15 Rinox says:
When I was younger I’d sometimes think that I need to quicksave before doing something or making a decision. :-/
21/09/2011 at 14:33 juandemarco says:
Yes, this!
21/09/2011 at 14:37 The Sombrero Kid says:
Yeah I get this, the only reason you can’t is the universe doesn’t have as much ram as the pc.
21/09/2011 at 14:58 Bishop says:
Ah! This was what I was just about to post. When faced with a decision it feels a little alien to not be able to see both through and then choose by popping back to an earlier save. If there is a heaven, it’ll be a scene select feature for my life.
EDIT: Oh yea, thinking I can jump more than foot off the ground. Only once have I seen gravity in a game stronger than earths. (that wasn’t my in the command console or a game about gravity).
21/09/2011 at 15:47 jonfitt says:
This one.
21/09/2011 at 18:55 ZeroMatter says:
I only have that in my dreams, but in pretty much every single one. (But even then I kinda “know” that it’s not possible, so I have to convince myself and all people/monsters in the vicinity that I have just reloaded. It’s really very awkward.)
In real life however I seem to be immune against this. Maybe because I’m in my fantasy half the time anyway.
21/09/2011 at 23:23 Navagon says:
Yeah, I got that a few times in the past actually. Either that or the need for a quick load.
22/09/2011 at 09:09 Lord Byte says:
I actually made a HUGE mistake, and I was like, for just a split-second, okay no worries, let me just quick-load… sigh…
21/09/2011 at 14:15 ScarthCaroth says:
Feeling like a big jump wouldn’t kill me because of the Icarus system kicking in at the last time. Also feeling everything is a big conspiracy! *shakes fist at DXHR* Damn yooouuu
22/09/2011 at 03:27 medwards says:
The conspiracies are real.
21/09/2011 at 14:16 Flibberdy says:
After playing Portal 2 I started to see some great opportunities for getting around Leeds using portals. Good times. I also wished that all games included a Portal Gun, and would play these games always thinking “this would be so much simpler if I could just portal there and throw that there…”
21/09/2011 at 14:16 westyfield says:
Yes to the Just Cause 2 one.
Mirror’s Edge has me looking for the optimum path across obscured terrain.
Years of playing Project Reality and ArmA have trained me to keep line-of-sight with friends, avoid open spaces with little cover, and make sure I always know an exit route.
21/09/2011 at 14:30 pauleyc says:
The image reminded me instantly of Just Cause 2, even before I read the title or article itself.
About a month ago while driving back from vacation I mentioned to my better half that looking at the cell towers/wind turbines/petrol stations along the roads makes me want to reach for my grenades. Her look was priceless (and only a little bit concerned).
21/09/2011 at 14:38 Richard Beer says:
I couldn’t name the specific game (Op Flash, maybe), but to this day I can’t walk along the top of a hill or ridge without assessing how much I’m skylining myself to the enemy. Could be any number of movies that are as much to blame, tbh.
21/09/2011 at 14:46 LozTaylor says:
Just Cause 2 had the same effect on myself and my brother. Whilst in Morocco, we saw plenty of red and white pylons and just looked at each other, knowing. If only we had brought our fully upgraded Rowlinson…
21/09/2011 at 14:49 Cpt Pillowcase says:
I still open swinging door mirrors edge style with the full forearm smash, no point in wasting momentum.
21/09/2011 at 15:51 Magnetude says:
@PauleyC: I know that awkwardness. I spent countless, countless hours on GTA4 when sharing a very dingy flat with a mate at university, always trying to set up the best last stand possible (the top of the big skyscraper was good) and holding the police off for as long as we could until our eventual epic death by chopper.
So then I go visit some friends in New York, and have to shake the urge to elbow smash the window of a parked Range Rover Sport, and then it’s gone and I’m back to reality (although my knowledge of the game was surprisingly helpful when navigating my way around). So we do the tourist stuff and go up the Empire State, and while we’re up there there’s a medal-giving ceremony for the police going on up top. A police helicopter comes over really close and we all take pictures.
Then, after my New York friend (who is very patriotic, and makes much of how she was in New York on 9/11, though not actually anywhere near the towers) puts the pictures up on Facebook, and my GTA buddy sees the picture of the helicopter and comments “Get the grenades!”. That was a difficult one to explain…
22/09/2011 at 01:23 Lugg says:
That Just Cause 2 urge is probably why they keep blowing up the Tokyo Tower in every other anime!
21/09/2011 at 14:18 Leonard Hatred says:
Fucking tony hawk tricked me into thinking i could skateboard.
21/09/2011 at 14:32 doubledope says:
haha, I laughed uncontrollably at that!
21/09/2011 at 14:34 mpk says:
+1 to this.
Also, you can’t grind down railings in cat boots.
21/09/2011 at 17:06 Jake says:
Tony Hawk made it so that I couldn’t walk to college without thinking about how I could totally grind along that low wall, kickflip over that hedge and then manual across the road to get to the next grind on the other pavement. It drove me mad.
21/09/2011 at 18:23 Joc says:
You see, this is exactly what I thought of when I first saw the article, except it wasn’t Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater that made me analyse the world around me as though it were one big skate park. It was simply skateboarding, and my love of it, that had developed my brain to think of architecture in terms of whether it was skatable or not and, if so, in what way.
The way I see it, this is essentially the same thing. Which I, at least, found quite interesting whilst glaringly obvious.
21/09/2011 at 14:19 kaibren says:
Flatout 2: when some car is backing out into road and is still sideways with my car, then my first thought always is “I need to crash into it!”
Trackmania2 – when going into curve, i really want to drift it..
21/09/2011 at 14:37 westyfield says:
I get the drifting around corners one as well. I’m always tempted to handbrake-turn into my driveway, because that’s always how I turn sharp corners in games.
21/09/2011 at 14:41 LionsPhil says:
Conversely, some proper simmy F1 driving with wheel and pedals made me better appreciate the nuances of breaking and accelleration’s effects on cornering control, because driving faster in that virtual world amplified the effects until they punched you in the face and screamed “HELLO I AM UNDERSTEER”.
21/09/2011 at 15:58 halcyonforever says:
I’ve actually caught myself handbrake turning lately, even ended up causing a fairly controlled drift around the corner from my house. Very bad habit.
21/09/2011 at 14:20 Jockie says:
I have an expectation of being told how great I am for completing completely arbitrary tasks that I would expect to perform in my daily routine.
Achievements have spoiled me.
21/09/2011 at 14:24 LionsPhil says:
Achievement Unlocked: House Trained
Avoid soiling yourself through appropriate lavatory use 1,000,000 times.
21/09/2011 at 14:40 Kester says:
@LionsPhil: Assuming a human lifespan of 80 years, that’d involve going to the bathroom ~34 times a day. I don’t relish the thought of trying to grind that one.
21/09/2011 at 14:45 Theoban says:
CHALLENGE ACCEPTED
21/09/2011 at 15:48 Askeladd says:
This made me spill my coffee with laughter.
21/09/2011 at 16:21 grundus says:
Askeladd has been playing so much Deus Ex that he actually spill his drink in real life
21/09/2011 at 14:21 mentor07825 says:
Playing Grand Theft Auto for a long time. Whenever I got behind the wheel to learn how to drive I would always see people and cars as potential points to make. Old people are five points :P
That and when they’re walking on the side of the road my aunt would swear that the car was edging closer to the road….
21/09/2011 at 14:29 Bozzley says:
Grand Theft Auto 3. Played it in every spare minute I could find for a week. Friday night comes, and my flatmates and I are squeezed into a car heading to the pub. A police car is coming towards us, and I instictively flinch as it passes, thinking it’ll ram into us and force us off the road. Freaked me out a fair bit, that did.
21/09/2011 at 14:46 Monkey says:
After playing San Andreas alot i started to go to the wrong side of my REAL car thinking that was the drivers side.
I still go to the wrong side in the games aswell
21/09/2011 at 14:48 mejoff says:
GTA3 has been known to cause feelings of unjustified elation upon seeing or hearing ice cream vans.
21/09/2011 at 18:08 Cvnk says:
I see unique jump opportunities everywhere for weeks after I finish playing a GTA game.
21/09/2011 at 14:22 liqourish says:
Neptune’s Pride.
Oh, the sleepless nights, the paranoia, the better exchanges with former friends.
It’s a wonderful game.
21/09/2011 at 14:22 roethle says:
After playing Grand Theft Auto 3 for many hours on end I went to pull out my non existent Uzi after being cut off on the way to work.
21/09/2011 at 15:37 Ergates_Antius says:
Did you really try to “pull out” an Uzi then realise you didn’t have one? Honestly?
Or did you just fantasise about shooting the guy who cut you up. Because most people do that – even the ones who have never played GTA3.
21/09/2011 at 18:25 Berzee says:
I think if some guy cut you up you wouldn’t be in a state to shoot *anyone*.
21/09/2011 at 14:23 Shinryoma says:
I lived in Stoke on Trent. Pottery is serious business.
Also, Burnout and Carmageddon.
21/09/2011 at 23:27 Navagon says:
You live in Stoke? So how realistic is Fallout then?
22/09/2011 at 19:04 phuzz says:
Actually burst out laughing, but I’m a bit old to just post lol
Also, this does make me wish RPS did a “Comment of the day/week”, it would be a good way of highlighting the great bunch of commenters on here that make it a better site.
21/09/2011 at 14:24 Teddy Leach says:
In the Sims 2, I meddle WITH life.
21/09/2011 at 14:47 atticus says:
I actually played alot of The Sims when it first came out. Started imagining bars for my needs and stuff IRL. “I have to get out of this poorly decorated room before my mood drops too much and make me underperform at work tomorrow, preventing me from being promoted to astronaut”.
21/09/2011 at 15:29 Dom_01 says:
Sometimes, after playing the Sims games, I would walk around trying to imitate the animation system.
For example, I would walk up to a chair, stand still in front of it for half a second, then begin the sitting animation to actually sit on it.
I did it mostly for my own amusement though, haven’t done it without noticing AFAIK.
21/09/2011 at 20:34 sinister agent says:
I used to have Sims conversations with my cousins after we discovered it. I don’t mean the gibberish speak – I mean we’d regularly have conversations that went like this:
“Football?”
“Football! Football football. Basketball?”
“Basketball! Basketball. Chess?”
(shakes head, speaks with disgust) “Chess.”
“Oh.”
(awkward silence)
“Sandwich?”
“Sandwich!”
21/09/2011 at 14:24 angramainyu says:
After much too much Quake deathmatch, I would find myself strafing around corners in the hallways at work.
21/09/2011 at 14:28 LionsPhil says:
I have caught myself doing the slightly awkward Supreme Commander ACU walk before now after a long enough battle.
21/09/2011 at 16:52 Koozer says:
After incredibly long amounts of time playing Goldeneye, Perfect Dark or TImesplitters I used to circle strafe and analogue-stick-look when noone was looking.
22/09/2011 at 02:44 Skabooga says:
@angramainyu: I strafe around corners at work as well, and I’m pretty sure I picked it up from run’n'gun FPSes, but I continue to do it because I’m less likely to physically run into someone that way.
21/09/2011 at 14:24 The Sombrero Kid says:
Reading books, for me, actually is the most powerful transferance affect for me, but also programming.
21/09/2011 at 14:25 Tom4J says:
I’m a graphic designer and to my frustration, no matter how hard i try, I cannot ctrl+z my way out of awkward situations.
Tom j
21/09/2011 at 14:35 mike2R says:
Know that feeling. Once, at a time when I was playing a lot of X3:Terran Conflict, I got put on hold by a customer when she was considering whether to place a large order. I tapped the ‘j’ key on my keyboard to advance time…
21/09/2011 at 14:27 GibletHead2000 says:
I mentioned this in the other thread, but: Baldur’s Gate. Every time I had to think about anything even remotely complicated, such as ‘what shall I have for breakfast’ or if the phone were to ring, I would instinctively reach out and press space.
21/09/2011 at 14:27 LennyLeonardo says:
I enjoyed discovering that the suppressing fire mechanic from Brothers in Arms also works in real life paintball, especially against teenage girls. I spent about a hundred quid on bloody paintballs that day. War is hell.
21/09/2011 at 14:33 enderwiggum says:
LennyLeonardo: I’m the opposite. I play so much paintball that I started using Paintball tactics in FPS games. For the most part it works, assuming the game designer put a little thought into human reaction time.
21/09/2011 at 14:27 enderwiggum says:
I actively try to avoid making any noise when I walk. Thanks Sam Fisher.
From Splinter Cell, you ingrates!
Ohh, I know what I’m going to be for Halloween!
21/09/2011 at 14:46 Sian says:
Be warned, though: Walking around crouched for any length of time is hard work!
21/09/2011 at 15:37 mrwonko says:
Yep, crouching’s tiring. Found that out the hard way when I played laser tag the first (and so far only) time. That’s actually the only time I can remember a game influencing something I did in RL. Besides seeing the polygons/primitives making up buildings etc., but that’s due to modding, not games.
21/09/2011 at 14:28 metalangel says:
I often wish I could load my last quicksave.
21/09/2011 at 14:35 LionsPhil says:
Roguelike rules only, sorry.
21/09/2011 at 14:28 Teronfel says:
AssCreed– I try to sneak behind my friends and “stab” them with pens and other things.I do this at least 4 times a day.
I once did it to a girl.She didn’t like it.
21/09/2011 at 14:37 LennyLeonardo says:
Is the second paragraph supposed to be related to the first? Because I didn’t read it that way.
21/09/2011 at 14:53 Belsameth says:
Heh. To me it did. Especially based on how he shortend Assassins Creed…
:p
21/09/2011 at 15:51 Ergates_Antius says:
Haha, Win!
21/09/2011 at 14:29 AlwaysRight says:
Pacman
Thanks Marcus Brigstocke.
21/09/2011 at 14:42 Richard Beer says:
+1 for Marcus Brigstocke
21/09/2011 at 14:29 Benkyo says:
Bit different, but after playing Go endlessly I found myself thinking in terms of ‘strong’ and ‘weak’ formations for the relative positions of… oh, just about everything.
21/09/2011 at 15:55 Askeladd says:
I don’t get Go but I get what you are saying.
21/09/2011 at 17:33 hermitek says:
Yes. And trying to find tesujis in real life problems. (tesuji is +- really smart and not-so-obvious cool move)
22/09/2011 at 00:48 squidlarkin says:
And figuring out when you can sacrifice something to gain something greater in return…
Yes. Go is great for this. Go makes you better at life.
21/09/2011 at 14:29 Alexander Norris says:
I still do the thing where whenever I’m in a vehicle looking at houses/trees/whatever outside, I imagine the dude from Shinobi running along and jumping (but I can’t let him touch the ground or he dies).
Also, after playing Human Revolution, I kept getting the urge to punch people in the face in the street.
21/09/2011 at 14:59 sPOONz says:
“after playing Human Revolution, I kept getting the urge to punch people in the face in the street.”
Well thats great, not. Mainstream media will have a field day with this article.
21/09/2011 at 15:40 Jarenth says:
I’ve done the same thing (though not with the Shinobi dude, per se, it was usually Sonic for me) since I was a little kid. It’s the best way to make a boring car trip more interesting.
24/09/2011 at 10:03 KenTWOu says:
@Alexander Norris
I do exactly the same thing too, but I prefer to use Trinity from Matrix, nanosuit from Crysis or Faith from Mirror’s Edge, It depends on landscape type and vehicle speed. : )
21/09/2011 at 14:29 doubledope says:
Not a specific game, but more gaming in general have changed me I think.
My eyes are trained to look for anything suspicious thanks to playing FPS games. It’s more of a real life where’s wally thing. I instantly spot anything I might be looking for.
If someone tips over something and I am in a radius of 2 meters from them, I catch them, before they hit the ground.
I somehow am programmed to collect everything I come across, because I might need it some point later in my life. I pretty much blame every RPG/ Adventure game for that.
Because I love playing puzzle games I am very good at problem solving. I work as a 3D artist and am always the one guy my colleagues go to if they have a problem and I am mostly 90% sure of the cause within a minute.
My english is better than it would be, just because I talk to others while playing games.
The only drawback I can think of is that I sometimes tent to steal vehicles and drive with insanely speeds over pedestrians, crashing over a hotdog stand into the front of a building. But hey, gaming is working out great for me :)
21/09/2011 at 15:08 Bishop says:
I remember going to meet my brother in town after playing a lot of Bad Company 2 as a sniper. I spotted him from miles away, literally the other end of the high street (Southampton West Quey, so it’s a biggun). He was about as big as a real life pixel.
21/09/2011 at 15:42 CMaster says:
Yeah, the “Hazard Perception Test” that UK learner drivers are required to pass is ridiculously easy if you’ve played many FPSes. “Movement” – *click*
21/09/2011 at 16:55 Koozer says:
Problem is you start shooting the grannies walking down the pavement too.
21/09/2011 at 22:48 Tams80 says:
So that’s why I did so well…
22/09/2011 at 00:35 jaheira says:
I scored 36 which I thought was shit. What did you guys get?
22/09/2011 at 20:15 SlappyBag says:
Yay Southampton West Quay.
Erm.. If i can’t find my socks I do the mental process for Ctrl+F
21/09/2011 at 14:30 John R says:
For a while after getting the original Deus Ex on PS2, my first instinct when passing an ATM was to hack it for free cash. I even did a double-take first time it happened, confused by the machine’s lack of a triangle button.
21/09/2011 at 15:00 Sinomatic says:
After a long stint of Deus Ex, I was about to walk out into the hallway of the flat I was living in at the time and thought I would need to hack the alarm system panel on the wall first.
21/09/2011 at 14:31 c-Row says:
After a pretty long gaming session, DX:HR made me see orangle outlines around my front door.
21/09/2011 at 15:43 CMaster says:
Really? Because that is at the level of “hallucinations” described in the paper John rubbished earlier. Did you actually perceive orange outlines, or did you just expect them to be there?
22/09/2011 at 08:14 c-Row says:
I don’t think they were really there (obviously they weren’t) but I kinda expected them to be. Might have been the medicine on that particular day, though, as I had a slight cold.
21/09/2011 at 14:34 MiniMatt says:
I never really had any desire to perform handbrake turns before Gran Turisimo (I know, station’o'play) showed me how much fun it was.
Now, every winter I’ll find an empty snow covered car park and giggle like a schoolboy until I throw the tracking out.
21/09/2011 at 14:34 Det says:
I read cross channel and stopped finding rape victims/”used goods” awkward.
Well, if you want a “real game”, I guess there’s midnight club 3 making me scared of driving since I crashed a lot in it when I was younger. Lasted for…5~6 years, it did.
21/09/2011 at 14:35 LennyLeonardo says:
What about when it’s the other way round? When real life becomes more like a game? I remember reading about how attack drone operators in Iraq and Afghanistan suffer bad psychological problems due to the so-called “Playstation mentality” of using a game-like interface to kill.
21/09/2011 at 21:00 lumenadducere says:
Yeah, those guys actually have the highest rates of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder out of all branches of the military. Kind of nuts.
21/09/2011 at 14:36 juandemarco says:
It’s not necessarily gaming-related, but after a week of very intensive computer use, I tried to click and drag the cup of coffee that was sitting next to my monitor.
21/09/2011 at 14:40 juandemarco says:
Though I’ll be really preoccupied when, after a long session of Fallout: New Vegas, I’ll try to drink from the toilet.
22/09/2011 at 02:51 Skabooga says:
Haha! At least you’d be pleased with the low level of rads.
I hope.
21/09/2011 at 14:37 somini says:
Repost from the other thread:
Since the first Assassin’s Creed, when I’m late for school I run like Altair, bending over and keeping my arms extended. Apparently it’s a very efficient way of running, but I’m not sure because “SCIENCE” said that I don’t really grasp reality.
Oh, and this article can be resumed in a few words:
AND.IN.THE.GAME.
21/09/2011 at 14:38 Tei says:
With oGame I learned to awake at 3:00 AM withouth a clock, to run some midnight attack, or some weird fleetsaving strategy. I don’t really need a clock now, I can tell my body to be up at 9:00 and this is enough. I think is a weird thing, but I am not the only one oGame player that have adquired this skill.
With Declathon I learned welding to repair 80′s electronics. Million of joysticks have died because of this game. I use to repair the electronics that way.
21/09/2011 at 14:55 Malibu Stacey says:
Soldering isn’t the same thing as welding but ditto, repairing many a broken computer peripheral in the 80′s & 90′s taught me far too much about electronics.
21/09/2011 at 16:01 Askeladd says:
Sadly those days are over.
21/09/2011 at 22:37 Starky says:
Not really, you just need to learn some basics on microcontrollers (Arduino is a great start) and you can play with all kinds of toys and interface them with a PC as a generic device (or even as a 360 pad if you like) in all kinds of cool ways.
22/09/2011 at 19:14 phuzz says:
What set me on my path to being a sysadmin was having to work out how to get various computers to play games, most notably my Amiga. Many years of working out what commands I needed to make a game just load, or working out what files I needed to move to stick a game on my harddrive rather than playing off floppy.
Eventually (although not until after doing a degree in physics) I realised that this skill I’d honed after hears of hacking about with stuff could actually earn me money.
So thanks gaming, for keeping me in beer. And games :)
21/09/2011 at 14:38 CaLe says:
Nothing comes to mind..
21/09/2011 at 14:40 MiniMatt says:
And not a particular game as such, perhaps MMOs through the ages and general online culture, but the urge to actually say “lol” and “rofl” out loud is often strong.
21/09/2011 at 14:40 Ephaelon says:
Playing faaaar too much Operation Flashpoint (CWC and Resistance), online and off, whenever I was outdoors in an open area with woods in the distance, I’d immediately have “flashbacks” and try to imagine myself or an enemy skulking around the woods, trying to survive.
And a popular one is definitely after too-long sessions of Assassin’s Creed (any), and, living in any old-type city (e.g., Lisbon), it’s very easy to imagine handholds and ways up everywhere I look.
21/09/2011 at 14:41 ockhamsbeard says:
Dunno about games, but I regularly pine for Alt-F when reading a book.
Oh, and D&D has convinced me I have at least a 5% chance of success at anything.
21/09/2011 at 14:42 Patches the Hyena says:
When going out after a few rounds of Team Fortress 2, I’m REALLY paranoid about who’s moving around behind my back.
21/09/2011 at 14:57 Malibu Stacey says:
I’m guessing you play medic.
21/09/2011 at 16:26 Vlupius says:
I get that too, in RL and in other games- I always look back every few seconds to see who’s behind me.
Also, when behind a bunch of people, I sometimes think how easy they would be to backstab.
21/09/2011 at 14:43 Kester says:
On a particularly cold walk back from the station, I remember wishing that I’d upgraded zealot legs so I could get home quicker.
21/09/2011 at 14:45 CrowPath says:
When about to cross the street, I found myself working out how many action points it would take and whether it would be better to crouch and fire on reaction during the alien’s turn. Bloody UFO.
21/09/2011 at 14:48 3lbFlax says:
When I was still at school, playing Rebelstar Raiders and Laser Squad every chance I got, I once woke up in the night needing the toilet and became very confused trying to work out if I had enough action points to get to it ‘this turn’. I knew something wasn’t right with the situation, but I couldn’t put my finger on it (which would have helped).
I made it in the end, I hasten to add, but that weird mix of logic and confusion made a huge impression on me.
21/09/2011 at 14:51 Quine says:
You should have left some points in opfire before going to bed, obviously.
21/09/2011 at 14:50 Quine says:
After playing way too much Team Fortress Classic back in the day I definitely heard a sentry gun activation noise float in through a window while in a bank queue and instantly made a lunge for a corner.
21/09/2011 at 14:51 constantino says:
Too much X-Com would give me “End-Turn” anxiety in public places.
Also, if exposed to a crowded area after any reasonably long time with Warcraft (or Starcraft) I would find myself trying to group select people and move them out my way.
21/09/2011 at 14:51 Sian says:
I tend to imagine a UI overlay over the world, courtesy of whatever FPS I played last. If I concentrate, I can change the overlay and even go 3rd person, though I still can’t look around corners without sticking my head out.
I’ve always had a very active imagination, though.
21/09/2011 at 14:53 Quine says:
Also back when GTA3 hit the world I really wanted to knock up some illuminated spinning pickup mockups and leave them in inaccessible urban locations. I’d have definitely had a reality issue if someone had actually done that.
21/09/2011 at 14:55 Pobblepop says:
Monkey Island.
Often after playing I’d go to make a coffee or something and think ‘Use the spoon with the sugar pot’ or ‘Put the cup on the kitchen surface’
21/09/2011 at 14:55 Faceless says:
Probably not quite in the same category, but D&D has taught me the important difference between intelligence and wisdom, among other little things.
WWII shooters and real time strategies (Age of Empires and Total War) had, in a way, helped me pass my history exam.
21/09/2011 at 14:55 PointyShinyBurning says:
I knew the way around the Met Museum in New York on my first visit thanks to Rainbow Six. I didn’t gun down any German tourists, either.
21/09/2011 at 14:56 Tatourmi says:
Oh, actually there is one: I played a lot, and I mean A LOT, of garry’s mod and I became quite apt at seeing where are the strong points of structures and how to overcome an object’s “weakness” in the most convenient and/or aesthetic way possible. This game taught me how to build stuff.
21/09/2011 at 14:56 tenochtitlan says:
I have a wonderful memory with a old childhood friend: We were regularly playing Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine and although we were very bad and didn’t find the time to play often enough to actually finish the game, we really loved that game. There were two real-life consequences – first we would regularly use “Stoi!” (“Stop!” in Russian, really overused in this game) to irritate other friends or family. The real fun part was the “sneaking” in the game – because there was no actual gameplay mechanism to do that, you would just have to slowly walk at a corner and try to turn the camera to see around it. We often found ourselfs tilting our heads in front of the monitor in an attempt to better look around corners…
21/09/2011 at 14:57 John Brindle says:
Advance Wars 2. Not a PC game (unless you’re emulating), but I found myself sitting down at dinner, staring at my food, and considering which part of it to eat first. Should I slice off and gobble down a piece of sausage? Perhaps, but that would prevent me from taking a forkful of mashed potato for some time. I could even try at the peas, but that was a gamble. Whatever I did, I knew I would have to wait for a while before I could make my next move. And then I realised this wasn’t true at all and experienced a sense of joy and release never since equalled as I tucked in without the restraints of a turn-based system.
21/09/2011 at 14:57 Batolemaeus says:
Sim City
I can not go through a city without constantly analyzing the infrastructure, finding structural flaws, brilliant design, styles of city planning changing as i go from old to recent to old parts.
It is simply impossible to take a subway without having a look at how the town deals with traffic. It’s both unnerving and fascinating, imagining a settlement from the pov of a sim city god-like mayor.
21/09/2011 at 14:57 Taidan says:
Tetris helped me organize my spare room to almost 100% efficiency, thank-you very much.
22/09/2011 at 17:15 Cunzy1 1 says:
And of course, I always start whistling the Tetris theme when I pack a suitcase*.
*Euphemism for Upper Decking.
21/09/2011 at 14:57 Thingus says:
Too much Mechwarrior left me with a feeling that my knees were on backwards and my arms were missile pods.
21/09/2011 at 14:58 PatrickSwayze says:
After playing a multitude of games like Crackdown, AssCreed, Uncharted, Splinter Cell, Fear and Crysis, I took up climbing and Parkour.
I decided I’d like to be able to get around the urban environment better.
I also practice archery and have a multitude of glorious paper books on surviving in the outdoors so I guess if there is any kind of apocalypse, I will fare much better than the average RPS’er :)
21/09/2011 at 16:05 Askeladd says:
We shall see.
21/09/2011 at 17:45 Caleb367 says:
No Prototype? Having a set of blades growing out of your arm and being able to hijack flying helicopters REALLY helps survival, you know.
21/09/2011 at 18:36 PatrickSwayze says:
I forgot to add that to the list but as much as I could be inspired to run up skyscrapers, until I get augmented I won’t be quite that good at traversing the urban jungle.
21/09/2011 at 14:59 mejoff says:
I know after a weekend LARP I’m massively over-aware and twitchy of people moving around me for a couple of days. I’m not sure I’ve ever had that second of thinking I could load my last save in real life, but I certainly did after one foolish decision led to the death of my last Maelstrom LARP character.
21/09/2011 at 15:00 Lambchops says:
Playing Outcast led me to wearing orange jumpers in the hope that poeple would believe I was there saviour.
Also while playing in goals at football I got the urge to knock out the opposing stricker by throwing the ball at him as if it was a magic one like in Little Big Adventure.
Not to mention trying to combine random items on my desk and declaring “that doesn’t work” as if this would solve all of life’s problems.
22/09/2011 at 02:57 Skabooga says:
If I encounter a locked door, I’ll sometimes say to no one in particular, “Unnh . . . it’s locked.”
21/09/2011 at 15:01 tomnullpointer says:
Playing too much tomb raider 1 & 2, I would seriously gauge the disttance between gaps on buildings… Is that a standing jump , a jump and grab, or a running jump and grab.
21/09/2011 at 15:03 Robslap says:
This actually happened to me the other day:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVljiwwqwfc
21/09/2011 at 16:12 Askeladd says:
Your game froze and you had to take the HDD out of your case and blow on it?
21/09/2011 at 15:03 Vexing Vision says:
After playing Cyanide’s Bloodbowl for a long, long time in a row, I started calculating dodge-chances through crowds….
22/09/2011 at 02:28 frenz0rz says:
Dont worry, you’re not the only one. After joining a number of Blood Bowl leagues and playing 2-3 games a day for a few weeks, I often found myself lying in bed at night thinking about tackle zones and block/blitz strength calculations. I dont recall any such thoughts actually transferring over to the ‘real’ world though; rather, they would just occupy my mind when daydreaming or waiting for something.
21/09/2011 at 15:04 frymaster says:
after a long run of playing X2:Reunion, I was walking along the street, noticed something in the distance, and my left hand twitched up slightly to reach for the “Alt” key so I could zoom in.
21/09/2011 at 15:05 squiddy3000 says:
I would get this kind of feeling from loads of different games but particularly after long sessions of Gears and CoD, I would get the urge to “roadie-run” everywhere.
Recently I’ve found myself making comment to my brother about a guy who was digging up his front patio and saying “If he used a diamond pickaxe, it’d go much quicker.” Damn you Minecraft!
21/09/2011 at 15:05 Moni says:
Since Mirror’s Edge, in both games and reality, whenever I see a box stacked in front of a larger box I imagine myself running and jumping over them to get a longer/higher jump.
Also after playing Assassin’s Creed 2 I started talking in a stupid Italian accent for about a day and a half.
21/09/2011 at 16:43 fugo says:
thats-a because-a they-a where-a stupidly-a comical-a
i totally did it too. my (quite racist) italian accent is based on that game.
21/09/2011 at 15:13 Blackcompany says:
I once saw a round, white septic tank lid in a backyard and proclaimed, rather loudly and without stopping to think about it, “Look, an Ayleid Step.” Too much time playing Oblivion.
.
I live in Pennsylvania, and every time I visit Washington, DC, in addition to sweating through all of the hot air there, I find myself looking out for gun-toting Super Mutants. I just can’t help it, its almost survival instinct by now.
21/09/2011 at 15:16 Uglycat says:
While not gaming-related exactly, when I was mapping for Unreal Tournament, I’d regularly look at objects around me and break them down into their constituent brushes. Architecture would be broken down into subtracted or additive objects.
21/09/2011 at 15:17 Jams O'Donnell says:
System Shock 2 made me want to hide from security cameras.
And I think that’s it for life-meddling games for me. Not very exciting, I suppose.
21/09/2011 at 15:24 Ian says:
It’s not an uncommon occurrence if I’m walking about my flat in the dark for me to wonder what room I’d be best going to before making my theoretical move. Combining things that would make good makeshit weapons, how easy it’d be to conceal myself, lines of vision, what would give me the best position for a “surprise assault” for where an intruder would likely be walking, etc.
I’m blaming this on stealth games. I have never been broken into and have no concern that it’s going to happen, and yet still I do it.
What’s more, if anybody actually did break in when I was in there I’d almost certainly cack myself so all this thought would be wasted.
21/09/2011 at 17:25 Aiken Drum says:
The idea of a makeshit weapon is both terrifying and awesome. Pic please.
21/09/2011 at 15:27 Belsameth says:
Rollercoaster Tycoon made me look at rollercoaster in a whole new way. I now not only just enjoy the thrill but actually pay real attention to how they’re designed.
21/09/2011 at 15:28 Theodoric says:
Assassin’s Creed has given me a few odd thoughts, but they’re gone nw. We humans adapt pretty fast.
21/09/2011 at 15:33 Torgen says:
Playing Ultima Online *far* too much when it first came out, I found myself searching for reagents on the campus while walking from class to class.
21/09/2011 at 18:13 Eldiran says:
Ahh, UO. I remember joining a roleplaying server and playing an orc; our tribe used a fake guttural language to communicate. I knew I’d played a bit too much when I accidentally responded “nub” instead of “no” to an RL query.
21/09/2011 at 18:19 Torgen says:
I remember you guys! I was part of the original Mage Tower Project on Great Lakes. Oh, and do you remember Kazola’s tavern?
21/09/2011 at 19:24 TillEulenspiegel says:
The Shadowclan Orcs were awesome. I played in a few different RP guilds on Catskills.
21/09/2011 at 19:40 Eldiran says:
I’m afraid that, weakling orc I was, I never ventured far outside the orc caves except for during one ill-fated raid on a nearby human settlement.
There might be multiple orc tribes with a similar dialect… I don’t actually remember the tribe’s name, but Shadowclan doesn’t ring a bell.
21/09/2011 at 15:35 Zeewolf says:
I have actually caught myself doing things like attempting to pull my real life curtains with the mouse pointer. Just a reflex-thing I guess.
21/09/2011 at 15:37 iisjreg says:
Sadly, I have done the Wii Warioware Dance in a night club…
21/09/2011 at 15:45 hadrianw says:
You can remove this. Wrong window…
21/09/2011 at 15:47 LowKey says:
I hungered for the flesh of man after playing resident evil
itchy
tasty
21/09/2011 at 15:51 Groove says:
How has no-one mentioned Zombies yet?
They were the biggest single distraction for me. Everywhere I went after I was 16 (now 26) I would imagine how to baricade the building in event of the zombie apocalypse.
Heriot Watt University is a hard one, they have buldings going down hills, so you’re never that far off the ground….but one part is a suspended corridor between two buildings. It’s also near to the food hall, has ladders leading down from each end, and is a natural chokepoint. My current work is all ground floor and has multiple entry points. I may need a new job to be on the safe side.
This is both movies and games, but still.
21/09/2011 at 17:32 Daiv says:
I have a window which overlooks the breezeway which is the only way to reach the part of the building I’m in. I’m safe from the Horde as long as the ammo holds out, but I have no access to water.
22/09/2011 at 02:38 frenz0rz says:
Oh yes, this is a big one for me, particularly two or three years ago when I was playing a ton of L4D with my clan.
See, St Patrick’s Hall at Reading Uni has this typical square court building with a big iron gate behind a huge wooden door. If you were to somehow barricade/block up all the ground floor windows you’d have a veritable fortress, with plenty of accomodation and a large fertile area in the middle for growing crops and/or grazing animals. Theres even a tall 4 story house with roof access (where I lived) outside the front gate that would serve perfectly as a lookout point, with the staircase and hallways inside providing multiple long killing zones and obstacle fields that could easily be protected by rows of sandbags.
And thats not to mention the last two places I’ve lived.
23/09/2011 at 06:13 Wraggles says:
Zombies are a big one for me.
The side door to our house is big and glass. I’ve moved a table in front of it so that it could be upended and used to fill the gap at a moments notice. Otherwise I’ve noticed the only point of weakness is the side gate….as such I keep several heavy boxes there that may potentially be placed against the gate.
(these are actually also convenient locations for both table and boxes). Also canned food, I don’t eat canned food, yet every time I shop I buy more….
21/09/2011 at 15:52 Was Neurotic says:
Morrowind. Being repeatedly swooped on by those flying pterodactyl-like creatures early on in the game caused me to walk around in the street looking upwards all the time. I nearly got ran over doing that.
21/09/2011 at 17:41 Caleb367 says:
Now that I think of it, had one regarding Fallout New Vegas the other day. I was driving by a quarry and, without noticing, I carefully watched it for signs of movement.
21/09/2011 at 15:53 Lugg says:
EVE Online made me a ruthless capitalist scumbag anarchist. True story!
21/09/2011 at 16:48 Danny252 says:
Got to the stage where those real-life coins you use to buy food are mentally marked as “Isk”?
I also know someone whose ingame bio is a list of “you know you’ve been playing EVE too long when”, including gems such as “when you throw all your shopping in the cupboard, and hit ‘Stack All’”. I wish…
22/09/2011 at 01:11 Lugg says:
Yep! Isk is one example… but in all sincerity, it made me reevaluate the mechanics of how social bonds form and are maintained, and taught me a lot about how to manipulate them. I don’t think my morals have been improved by my 4 years with the game…
21/09/2011 at 15:55 Berzee says:
Hmm — not 100% the same, but after playing Bastion I did try (and fail hilariously, I’m sure) to talk like Rucks for the better part of a week.
21/09/2011 at 16:02 gory says:
I’ve yet to get that feeling, other than being very cautious when walking the desert for sandscrorpions and… oh wait!
Not as much gaming related, as it is pc-related. Gimme a goddam ctrl+f command for reading articles and studying aaaaaaaaaargh!
22/09/2011 at 01:13 Lugg says:
That’s easy! If you work a lot with published journal articles, most of them can be obtained in PDF format (often, if you can’t access the journal archive from your home computer, try a computer at the library – they may have an online subscription). Otherwise, scan your articles and use one of the splendid PDF OCR tools to do a fulltext search! :)
21/09/2011 at 16:02 Hendar23 says:
I was playing Planescape Torment last year. There is a quest where you need to find a gravestone. The next day I’m driving around and I see an ad for gravestones on the side of the road and I think ‘oh, I need a gravestone’ and start thinking of noting down the phone number.
21/09/2011 at 16:02 Mist says:
Just as the kid in the original article, after playing a lot of HL2 (and hundreds of hours of HL2DM) I often felt like using the gravity gun. In the game picking up objects eventually became a subconscious thing; my consciousness was concerned with ammo management, where the enemies where etc, so when I spotted a toilet bowl that I wanted to use, I just wished for it, my hands made some motions on their own, and the item then appeared in front of me. For a good few years, whenever I desired to hold an object in real life, that same “oh I’ll just use the gravity gun..” feeling was present in my mind, and it was always a bit of a disappointment when the item didn’t float towards me :P
Also, as others have mentioned, the desire to use quicksave. I remember one instance of physically reaching for the key before answering a question in class (and I didn’t have a keyboard in front of me.. must have looked weird ^^ ).
Unexpected noises always make me go on high-alert to a somewhat absurd degree. Whether that’s because years of FPSs have taught me that “sudden noise = PROBABLY ENEMY BEHIND YOU!1!1!!1″, or because I’m just scared by nature is still up for debate..
21/09/2011 at 16:03 Ergates_Antius says:
The original Black and White had a nasty trick up it’s sleeve.
It’d get your name from somewhere on your computer (not sure where – windows registry or something) then, when you playing the game late at night, in the dark, it’d whisper it to you – which if you’re wearing headphones sounds like someone is standing behind you breating into your ear!
First time it happened, I absolutely shat myself (nearly literally!). Proper knotted-stomache, metalic-taste-in-the-mouth scared.
Several times since then, when I’m in creepy situations (alone in the dark), I’ve kind of half-heard it again – exactly the same voice. I hope I’m imagining it.
21/09/2011 at 22:20 LennyLeonardo says:
Well, if you’re imagining it then I must be imagining hiding in the shadows and whispering your name in the middle of the night. Weird…
22/09/2011 at 02:44 frenz0rz says:
Wow, thats astonishingly creepy. Cant find more than a couple of references to it after a quick search either. I’d love to hear more about it.
22/09/2011 at 05:39 Hypocee says:
Well, it did two things that might add up to that in your memory…? It named villagers after contacts in your Outlook address list, and it softly whispered ‘deeaathhh’ every time one of your villagers died (the last one really annoyed some people, I remember). Your name doesn’t happen to sound vaguely similar to ‘death’, does it?
21/09/2011 at 16:04 Magnetude says:
If I get a scratch, a gentle voice in my head will say “Minor lacerations detected”.
21/09/2011 at 16:19 Askeladd says:
Admistering Medicine
21/09/2011 at 16:05 JackShandy says:
After a System Shock 2 marathon my finger started twitching for the quicksave key whenever something important was about to happen in real life.
21/09/2011 at 16:07 Matt says:
a couple of years back I was out shopping with the family, and suddenly in one shop i found myself getting twitchy and eyeing the corners, so much so the wife asked me what was wrong. I couldn’t explain it.
After a few minutes i realised that the muzak being pipped in was a tiny version of “somewhere beyond the sea” and we decided that perhaps i’d been laying a little too much Bioshock…
21/09/2011 at 16:16 Milky1985 says:
Did she say “would you kindly stop doing that”?
21/09/2011 at 16:33 Matt says:
well thats a totally other game-related story… ;-)
21/09/2011 at 16:14 Milky1985 says:
I’m sorry, but seeing that picture instantly made me think “Those need to go down! where are the cables? is there a helicopter nearby?” :P
21/09/2011 at 16:17 bagitomacho says:
The first Deus Ex. Quite long ago.
I remember finding myself piling up a chair and a few boxes to get up a locked study hall so that I could see my grades on a Sunday afternoon. I stopped with a chair in my hands and realized that I wasn’t in cyberworld Hong Kong anymore and I could have gotten expelled.
21/09/2011 at 16:34 Biscuitry says:
Planetside. My other half commented on seeing workmen on scaffolding and suppressing the urge to shout “Warning! Sniper!”
21/09/2011 at 16:38 RoTapper says:
Eve Online. Sitting on an op for 4 hours (with maybe 5 minutes of shooting action). Going afk for a sec and realizing the entire fleet has warped or died when you come back. Your now 30 jumps out from safety in your shiny ship, asking yourself “why the hell do I do this and how do I get those 4 hours back?”
21/09/2011 at 16:41 Bobtree says:
Demon’s Souls makes me want to kill myself . Just kidding!
21/09/2011 at 16:45 Berzee says:
I saw a mudcrab the other day.
21/09/2011 at 18:05 LionsPhil says:
Uch, dreadful creatures.
21/09/2011 at 20:39 sinister agent says:
Good morning!
21/09/2011 at 23:34 thegooseking says:
That’s a nice tnettenba.
22/09/2011 at 03:03 Skabooga says:
“You should have paid the fine!”
I shout this regularly at people, but I’m not sure how many of them have played Oblivion.
21/09/2011 at 17:01 Koozer says:
Whenever I see or walk on square paving slabs my mind instantly warns me to not stand on the cracked ones.
After playing quite a lot of Half Life 2, I found myself expecting “E” to pop up if I could use something I was looking at.
There’s probably a zillion more I can’t remember. Now excuse me while I type rosebud 50 times into my online banking.
21/09/2011 at 17:04 Nallen says:
Due to SC2 I find myself attempting to figure out build orders in real life and criticising my micro. Which I can only describe as a useful thing to be honest.
In fact I suspect most people just call it time management :)
21/09/2011 at 17:07 Suction Testicle Man says:
A friend of mine is set to graduate next year with a degree in Politics & Internal Relations – he never fails to confess his first and foremost inspiration was playing Metal Gear Solid aged 10. :)
21/09/2011 at 22:22 LennyLeonardo says:
Metal Gear Solid made me want to be a robot.
21/09/2011 at 17:08 Daiv says:
Tribes: I can make the top of that building in a single jump in a Light suit, but to reach it in a Medium I’d need to use the building next to it as an intermediate stage.
Bridge Constructor Set: Either that support is superfluous, or that roadbed span is a lot more brittle than I expect it to be.
Alien Vs Predator: I’m behind you. Always. Watching. Waiting for the teeth to appear in my vision.
Swat 4: You know you’ve played too much co-op when you stack a door with your friends before opening it… And not even realise it until you’re through.
Total War: That hill would be a great defensive position for archers, unless it is attacked from this direction by cavalry, so that’s where I’ll put my spearmen.
Magicka: Needs more fire!
21/09/2011 at 17:10 Demikaze says:
Flashback. When I was about ten or eleven, Is be sitting in the back of my parent’s car as they drove through London, and I’d stare out the side window and imagine a wee man running and jumping along the roofs of the buildings.
21/09/2011 at 17:13 Napalm Sushi says:
After playing ARMA II for any length of time, I’ll spend several days viewing my environment in terms of cover and fields of fire.
I’d be interested to know if real life war veterans are afflicted with something similar.
21/09/2011 at 17:18 Demikaze says:
And, um, this is a horribly embarrassing story but one I have to share. I introduced my girlfriend to half-life 2, and she played around for a bit, messing around with the physics. We then hit the town and became utterly leathered. We came home, and one thing led to another, and led to another a little too soon. She then shouts, ‘It’s ok, use the recharge point!’
‘What?’
‘You know, the recharge point, the beep beep beep fzarfgh!’
And it slowly dawned on me what she was talking about. Definitely too much to drink there…
21/09/2011 at 18:56 angramainyu says:
Haha, awesome.
21/09/2011 at 17:22 Caleb367 says:
After playing Amnesia: The Dark Descent, I’ve developed an odd and infuriating habit of closing EVERY door in the room I’ve just entered. I’ve mostly grown out of it, but must admit that to this day I feel uneasy having my back at an open door.
21/09/2011 at 17:27 Rusty says:
For a good year after I moved to Venice (California, not Italy), I stayed close to home because I was viscerally aware that it is not advisable for tourists to visit the canals at night.
Also, yes to the Thief-skulk and general FPS checking of corners, balconies, doorways, etc.
21/09/2011 at 18:44 Berzee says:
“not advisable for tourists to visit the canals at night.”
LOL
perfect
21/09/2011 at 17:30 Aiken Drum says:
My daughter was late out from school one day, I caught myself wondering if she’d crashed on zoning.
21/09/2011 at 18:12 Brumisator says:
I once had an “inception moment”, while I played just cause 2 and assassin’s creed 2 on and off. I ketp trying to grapple my way up buildings in AC2… damn weak renaissance technology.
21/09/2011 at 18:17 Joof says:
Whenever I’m taking a long walk somewhere, I imagine myself pulling out a hookshot and hookshotting place to place.
21/09/2011 at 18:20 Synesthesia says:
i once evaded a would be thief by using metal gear solid tactics. Not even kidding. It worked, too!
21/09/2011 at 18:26 El_Emmental says:
- Deus Ex, now I frequently stack various furniture when I should get the ladder (or buy one for my univ-appartment). 2 days ago, I fixed an electric cable at the ceiling using a chair, coffee table and a tabouret.
- Deus Ex, now whenever I (or a friend) can’t open a lock (for a door or something else), I immediately try to picklock it (and feel like I got some XP reward + shiny items when finally opening it).
- Vietcong, now I can spot anything behind thick vegetation. From rare birds to lost items. My landscape analysis pattern greatly changed after that (it’s much more efficient).
- Operation Flashpoint, now whenever I play it again, I run like the ingame weapon-less animation (yea, that one) for 2-3 weeks. And yes, this is ridiculous (and I find it hilarious).
- Online FPS multiplayer, now I sometime (pretty rare) feel safer when behind cover/facing all exits/not in wide open space/in movement.
- Online FPS multiplayer, now I always predict people’s movements and attention (where they’re looking at) and sometime (rare) find myself preferring a path/position giving me an advantage (like if I was in an FPS multiplayer).
- Online FPS multiplayer, now I always interpret obstacles (like “oh no the door is closed”) like in ingame maps : where is the secondary access ? what glitch can we use to get through ? – When in group, I’m always the first to climb a fence/wall, check the area for other access, find items to stack.
- GTA 3/VC/SA, now when no one is looking (and I don’t mind sweating), I prefer to run to get from point A to point B, rather than waiting for the boring walk.
…
Long story :
There is one time I used skills gathered ingame to get me out of a situation.
Was 13 or 14.
I was at a birthday party, but the guy having his birthday was kind of a moron, not getting what “being a friend” was.
So he gave airsoft guns (plastic guns shooting small plastic pellets at low velocity, just enough for small bruises) to some of his friends, and started shooting each others. Of course, we were 4 or 5 without any guns, just there doing nothing.
Of course, they rapidly turned against the unarmed chaps.
Hidding behind cars, I lead the escape squad by jumping over garden fences of the neighbor (to sneak back into the house later), and made up a plan to search his room for other guns (or something precious enough we could exchange with a cease-fire treaties or guns).
Using diversion, we could lure the enemy (who teamed up against us, the unarmeds) into running in the opposite direction, letting us get into the house. A true hero was lost, but we could get inside.
(For the sake of keeping people in the “game”, the true hero turned traitor, “my country betrayed me !” and everything)
There, we couldn’t find any weapons, and suddenly they were back on us, so one or two surrendered (only to get shot at, humiliated with light beating, water and face-in-the-mud), one tried to hide behind a door (only to get caught rapidly), while I set up a bunker in the bathroom (locking the door with various furnitures).
There, I held the siege for 2 to 3 hours, avoiding airsoft pellets going under the door and through the bathroom windows (it couldn’t be closed), stopping the horde from opening the door.
They tried to use a prisoner to lure me outside (he was pretending to have escaped) but I quickly outsmarted them.
Finally, when the area was clear, I got outside the bathroom and hid in the attics. Upon finding cardboard boxes, I got into one (thanks Solid Snake for the idea ! :D).
A few minutes later, they were back, searching for me everywhere…
When they got into the attics and found no one, they turned around and were going to abandon searching…
But one of them had played MGS before, and suddenly turned back to the room, walked toward the cardboard boxes, airsoft gun raised.
When he pulled the one next to me, I jumped like a tiger on him, grabbed the pistol and his right hand and twisted his wrists ligthly, forcing him to drop the gun, while I got behind and headlocked him with my right arm. It really felt natural and in one single motion, like a dancing move.
Having a hostage/body shield, I could avoid the few airsoft pellets shot in panic, while the enemy ran away in fear, as I was throwing away my body shield to catch their guns too (they were at 1.5/2 meters from me).
The shock and fear they felt was enough for them, they put the guns back in the cupboard and we could now enjoy a “normal” birthday party : playing together, not against each other.
Of course, when I disarmed my friend, I instinctively slided the weapon in the sleeve of my sweater and kept it concealed until the end of the party.
When it was over, the guy realized a gun was missing and start freaking out, asked us to search for it (it was his cousin’s weapon, not his own).
After “searching” a minute or two, we had to go so we left him, and upon leaving the house, I put the weapon right in the middle of the living room shelf, like the rose or playing card you leave on the scene.
That day, I was proud of video games and myself :D
22/09/2011 at 13:25 Dozer says:
That’s an awesome story! Thanks for posting it.
22/09/2011 at 14:08 Berzee says:
Ha, that’s amazing :D I wish I had jerk friends I could defeat with my vidya game skills =)
The only thing I have that comes close is that I was able to get out of a pickle (like the actual situation whose technical term is “pickle”) in a real life baseball game because I had lots of experience with pickles in NES baseball games. =P
But that didn’t involve shooting anyone, or barricades, or hostage situations, or defeating large numbers of gunmen.
*sincere applause*
21/09/2011 at 18:28 Heliocentric says:
Walking in a crowd after playing assassins creed and keeping track of where a few policemen were totally automatically.
Quite freaky actually.
21/09/2011 at 18:40 Moonracer says:
GTA3 made me a slightly more aggressive driver in real life, I’m pretty sure. Also, in my prime of playing those games, friends and I admitted to seeing cars while on foot as something we should and could take for a split second.
“ooh, that’s nice!”
21/09/2011 at 18:59 Carra says:
Carmageddon of course. “That old lady on the side would give me some nice points”.
21/09/2011 at 19:25 Saldek says:
I found that my superior knowledge of POIs in Chicago was remarkably ill-received, when I started exclaiming “Ooh, look, Sear’s Tower!”, or “Hey, that’s Soldier Field – I’ve been there”. (Whilst watching movies). The long night-shifts in Midtown Madness went sadly unappreciated :/
21/09/2011 at 19:31 Krugah says:
after playing Minecraft for outrageous amounts of time i find my self wanting to keep all areas of my house lit for fear of creepers and any time i find an unlit room i expect one slide into the doorway and begin the chase.
21/09/2011 at 19:39 Shinan says:
I can remember two specific instances. One was at night I was delivering the morning paper by car and I figured I could probably cut through the park with my car, I mean sure it’d be a bit bumpy but how bad could it be? Then I caught myself. I had been playing far too much GTA, where I basically drove anywhere and anywhen. I took the proper road.
The other would be after playing Mirror’s Edge (combined with some cool parkour moves), I sat on the train and looked at the cityscape passing by and thought about how it’d be possible to travel through the city by parkour.
Oh and a bonus one. When I was a kid we had a cork-mat thing on the floor. With a seam. On top of it was a regular, fairly long mat. And it stuck out a little bit over the seam. Just the kind of size where in Prince of Persia the floor would give way. Well. Whenever I saw that and stood on the edge of the mat (with the seam) I always imagined that part of the mat falling off into a spike pit so I had to jump off it.
21/09/2011 at 19:41 Bart Stewart says:
Back in the day I wound up playing Wing Commander on (what was for the time) a giant 20″ NEC 5D monitor. After several hours of jinking to blow up space kitties, I would then drive home at night.
Until one night when I caught myself starting to swerve slightly to line up oncoming cars in my (nonexistent) gunsights.
Of course, once I noticed this I controlled it. And the evidence of a reasonably stable and successful life suggests that I was and am fully rational and able to distinguish fantasy from reality.
But I’m still curious to see what will happen when I pick up WC 1 & 2 from GOG and spend a few hours playing them on the 24″ monitor I use today….
21/09/2011 at 20:07 NthDegree256 says:
After going on an extended Myst binge, I walked into a restaurant whose decorations included all of the symbols of the zodiac emblazoned along the walls. I very nearly pulled out a pad of paper to jot the order down in case it was important later. JUST IN CASE.
Similarly, after Mirror’s Edge, every bright red pipe or door I’ve seen has caused me to do a double-take.
21/09/2011 at 20:37 sinister agent says:
I keep forming an army and trying to invade Scotland. Bloody Paradox.
21/09/2011 at 22:48 DirtGunfrey says:
Arkham Asylum. I kept trying to enter detective mode and zoom in on distant objects.
22/09/2011 at 00:11 brog says:
Playing too much Nethack makes me pray when hungry. Doesn’t tend to work.
22/09/2011 at 00:22 Baf says:
This phenomenon is not unique to computer games. When I was playing Go frequently, I would automatically size up the arrangement of people in cinema seats, for example, and decide where the next person should sit to maximize defensive strength.
22/09/2011 at 00:43 jaheira says:
Playing Thief once for ages I had to sneeze. Carefully, I paused the game, sneezed quietly so the guards wouldn’t hear me and restarted. Didn’t realise what I’d done for hours.
22/09/2011 at 00:46 Unaco says:
Not game related, but after reading “A Song of Ice and Fire”, I now refer to anyone from South of Perth as a ‘Southron’, or similar disparaging epithet. And ever since reading “Dune”, whenever I find myself somewhere hot/sandy/dusty, I always make sure to breathe in through the mouth, and out through the nose. I don’t walk without rhythm though, it isn’t very easy.
More game related… I did get into my current academic field (Theoretical Neuroscience) due to an interest in Artificial Intelligence and Consciousness, formed largely from depictions of AI in games like System Shock and Marathon. That’s not really meddling though, more inspiring me to get involved with something I find challenging and fascinating.
I wish my budgetary sense could be translated from my gaming to real life… I always end up self sufficient and with far too much money in most RPGs.
22/09/2011 at 06:42 sinister agent says:
Since reading Dune, I refuse to sit with my back to a door. It’s somewhat unlikely that I will be assassinated anyway, but I don’t care.
22/09/2011 at 03:30 Jason Moyer says:
The last time I replayed Morrowind, I walked to work 4 miles every day along this set of railroad tracks near my house. For at least 2 solid weeks I couldn’t stop imagining that I was about to get owned by cliff racers.
22/09/2011 at 05:29 Hypocee says:
I’ve posted them elsewhere before, but I’ve had one and a half game bleeds.
1: My city’s mall has geodesic skylight domes on two intersections and a fairly grand food court entrance facade of metal and glass – two three-story Romanesque arches flanking a curved wall that encloses a merry-go-round. One day while walking toward the doors I found myself mysteriously wanting to walk around to the side of the arch structure. Reexamining my semiconscious thoughts for the last ten seconds I found as follows: ‘ Oh, that’s easy. Agi one if the metal frames count as grab edges, level three if not, but that ledge means you could glitch the collision and double-jump into a curly muffin. Right, let’s do this. There’s no way they could resist an orb on one of the domes, one tucked into the AC plant, there has to be one on one of the arches – I can’t see it, but it’s upsun – what agi level am I anyway? Oh. Oh.’ It had been eight months since I played Crackdown.
.5: Not technically a reaction to the real world, but: I’m at a friend’s house and the TV’s on while we’re working on something else. A pharmaceutical ad comes on, I assume a boner pill – impeccably healthy late-middle-age couple walking hand-in-hand down the beach, laughing at the joy that each day of pharmaceutically-enhanced life offers in front of…a scenic old wooden pier at low tide. I freeze for a second, then laugh and have to explain why to my friend. I wanted to scurry under the pier like a rat. Playing Route Kanal in HL2 had recently taught me that when you see a wooden pier, you get under it now ‘cuz that chopper’s almost on you.
22/09/2011 at 05:38 Fumarole says:
Playing Carmageddon for hours on end at work would regularly have me driving home in a rather naughty fashion many years ago.
22/09/2011 at 10:55 AbyssUK says:
Gran Tourismo 2, when ever Feeder “Buck Rogers” comes on my speed ups by at least 20% all the time
Also because of Burnout Legends on the PSP don’t be on the road if , We are scientists, nine black alps or yellowcard are playing….
22/09/2011 at 13:34 Dozer says:
I used to fly gliders, back when I thought I had more cash. A big part of learning to fly an aircraft – especially a slow, light, long-wingspan aircraft like a glider – is learning to turn correctly. If you just roll the aircraft (with the joystick) and do nothing else, the extra drag from the up-going wing will pull the nose sideways in the opposite direction and you end up basically flying slightly sideways, which isn’t a very good way of doing things.
So the pilot must correct this by applying the rudder to keep the aircraft flying straight. The rudder is controlled by pedals – one for each foot. It rapidly becomes reflex: “I am going to turn right, so I will look for aircraft on my right-hand side, then simultaneously move the stick to the right and slightly back, and apply pressure to the right pedal, and we’ll have a nice balanced turn.”
This doesn’t work so well when going round a roundabout on the way back home.
22/09/2011 at 13:35 Dozer says:
you eat my comment RPS?
22/09/2011 at 13:36 Dozer says:
FFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU
22/09/2011 at 14:12 Berzee says:
I would like to collectively thank all commenters in this article for the entertainment you have provided over the past two days. I haven’t time to thank you individually but I have read and appreciated every reply. You are true heroes. (And in the game). (Except for the carmageddon people.)
23/09/2011 at 06:06 msarge says:
The main tool in Garry’s Mod is the physics gun, with which one can manipulate a physical object. Pick something up, rotate it around, and freeze it in space.
So once while cleaning my room after playing a whole lot of Gmod, I picked something up and was about to “freeze” it in midair in order to more conveniently clean my room.
23/09/2011 at 06:27 Wraggles says:
I have definitely started ordering menial tasks as though I had several quest chains active at the same time. Go to the loo first, then go to the kitchen to get a drink, but my cup is in my room, also need to take out the trash, ok if I take out the trash, on the way back I can grab my cup, then leave it in the kitchen, then to the loo, and out to pour myself a drink on the way back to my room.
I think all up it’s made doing chores a lot more efficient.
I also find in general my pattern recognition skills have improved thanks to platformers, after the NE line of traffic turns, the crossing signal goes, so If I jog a little I’ll make it in time…
24/09/2011 at 10:30 KenTWOu says:
It’s odd that nobody mentioned Hitman series! 47 drastically changes your way of thinking and your attitude to a variety of things! Crowd, streets, blind alleys, lifts, trash containers, you name it. Even passersby dress size draws your attention! You’ll never be the same again.
26/09/2011 at 23:46 barsanuphe says:
So what, i’m the only guy who got the urge of picking up dirty coke bottle caps from the sidewalk after playing Fallout NV 10h a day for a few days in a row?
Apart from that, for me it’s more a matter of sounds. For example, when I hear a walkie-talkie, I expect for a split second half-life soldiers to come gun me down.
29/09/2011 at 01:30 kenmcfa says:
HItman (Blood Money in my case). Security cameras. When first played Blood Money, I started avoiding Security cameras like the plague.
04/10/2011 at 09:17 Hastur says:
I played Duke Nukem so much in college, that I would wince whenever the microwave would beep, waiting for the tripwire explosion sure to come.