Comments on: You’re Not in Vice City Anymore: Games That Get Inside Your Head

By: Jerad

Jerad — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 05:33:32 +0000

Way back when I used to play X-com: Ufo Defense all the time. One day I found myself coming up on a yellow light and thinking “I’ll just save, and if I don’t make it I can reload.”

It’s been downhill since then.

By: Jonathan

Jonathan — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 18:48:03 +0000

read the last paragraph again. it’s not about the violence, it’s about the strategy; having a problem and trying to find a solution. in violent games, the solution is usually pretty cut and dry. and anyways, getting things stuck in your head isn’t exactly a trait exclusively related to video games. sometimes when i’ve had a particularly lengthy project to work on, it’s kept me up at night while i tried to figure out how to fix one particular aspect of it. maybe it just takes a somewhat perfectionist mindset.

besides, you’re going to tell me you’ve never had the urge to even just smack someone who was particularly annoying?

By: leighsamurai

leighsamurai — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 18:17:45 +0000

This article was interesting but quite exaggerated and definitely in line with what a lot of proponents against “the video game player” visualize our line of thinking as. I think that if your envisioning strangling someone with piano wire that’s standing in front of you, you might need to unplug and seek some help.

By: Nils

Nils — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 15:22:19 +0000

Heh, thank you Chris for alerting me that I’ve been plugged . Awesome list too by the way. It’s cool to see my article got that much attention and that I inspired others to make their own. I just listed some recent games I played that kinda messed with my head, but I’m confident basically every game can temporarily skew your thought patterns a bit.

I imagine Tetris and maybe the puzzle genre in general cause this for most people, but those aftereffects are too similar to make a list full of puzzle games. Obviously a lot of other games tend to trigger miniature mind warps and I would love to have included an example that was psychedelic by nature like Rez, but I’m ashamed to admit I haven’t played it yet (though the upcoming Rez HD will fix that).

Anyway, thanks for the plug and I hope you liked the article.

By: Stephany

Stephany — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 18:07:59 +0000

I totally agree. It happens to me all of the time when I am playing an particularly engrossing video game. Two Examples: BioShock – For a week straight, I had Big Daddies dancing through my head as I slept, and the occasional spider slicer would make its way in as well. I hated those things. The other is Zelda: Twilight Princess – those damn owl statues would pop up in my dreams or I would dream I was pushing blocks to open a door. I wonder if they make a pill for this?