I realized last night that the reason I hate first-person shooter video games is Doom.
I can recall sitting in my best boy friend’s den at the age of ten, Nick helming the computer to play while I cowered behind him. It was a new level of violence that we hadn’t seen before and only played in his house with the sound down when his mom wasn’t around. Which sounds kind of dirty for two ten-year-olds.
The graphics are shit, each wall looks like the remnants of a motherboard from a computer and the armor that needs to be picked up is vaguely reminiscent of Spartan helmets with glowing green eyes.
What always got me were the creatures. Some were a poo brown color and others were hunchbacks in a shrimp shade. Either way, when they were shot, they ended up in a pile of pixilated blood and bones. They made horrific noises that sounded like a dog panting/barking.
In text, there is nothing scary about that, but when you’re ten it’s the thing nightmares are made of. It’s not like when I dream at night my demons are all pixilated, but my god – a million tiny dots never looked creepier.
I also got a case of vertigo every time I watched this, even last night as Tony was playing. There is just no sense of depth or direction as to where you’re going and it all moves by so fast – it’s confusing and sickening.
As I pondered these things last night, I also asked Tony some questions about the game during play - which is apparently a big no-no in gamer world. I also came to find that most questions I asked had answers shot back at me quickly. Eventually he just tapped into my non-gamer brain and started answering my questions before they even left my mouth.
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