and by "Klondike Bar," I mean:
Getting Your SO to Leave You the Hell Alone So You Can Experience Some Freaking Total Immersion in Peace
Immersion: (n) complete attention; intense mental effort.
Total: (adj) involving a complete and unified effort especially to achieve a desired effect.
The first time I experienced anything close to total immersion in a video game was 1994. At the time, I was dating a lovely girl by the name of Baby* (*All names in this article have been changed. –ed.). Baby had gone away on a trip to the Middle East, and I, not to be outdone, packed my QuickTime player and headed off to the land of Myst.
Myst was amazing for its time. It was (and pretty much still is as far as I'm concerned) the standard to which all immersive video games must be compared. In hindsight the four or so days that I spent playing it now seem like one very long, very fun day that lasted about a thousand years. I forgot to eat. I forgot my name. I was all about red and blue pages, and I loved it. Then, about two days into the experience, the phone rang.
I remember clearly that it took almost a full minute for me to realize that the sound of the phone was the sound of my phone. In my house. Three feet away from me. Then I spent another several seconds trying to remember how to make it stop. That, my friends, is total immersion. And it was completely ruined by my girlfriend calling me collect from Jerusalem.
Since then I've experienced many wonderful moments of total immersion in video games, but for some reason I can only recall the ones which were obliterated by women who claimed to love me. Perhaps this is because I tend to dwell on the negative. If so, then that's a pretty stupid way of behaving. I must be a horrible person.
Fallout. After days of wandering in the deep desert I returned to the Brotherhood enclave. I was battered, weak with radiation poisoning, and out of ammunition. But triumphant! I was about to become a member. Once I got my metal suit, the real ass kicking could begin. Cue: Honey.
It was about 1am on a Wednesday and Honey had decided to drop by unannounced. Again. She was high on vicodin, pot and something else she had picked up in Mexico. And she had friends with her. About a dozen of them. Apparently I was having a party. Bye bye metal suit, hello night of cleaning up vomit.
Not long after that, Honey went bye bye to be replaced by Hotpants, who had a knack for waking up in the middle of the night just to interrupt my Outlaw sessions. When she moved in with me it only got worse. I dropped her when I got a copy of Half-Life, and despite the emotional trauma of it all I'm glad I did. You have to take a stand sometimes, my fellow Americans, and that game was well worth the month or two I spent not getting laid. Yes, sometimes the phrase "better than sex" is entirely accurate. (Crytonomicron, Half-Life, a good reposado served neat with a lime "… My list is short, but I do have one.)
Not too long after that I met my ex-wife. AKA: Destroyer of Worlds. How many digitally created men, women and children lost their lives because Destroyer of Worlds, couldn't find the light bulbs, or really, really needed to know what flavor of couscous I thought went better with catfish? Countless civilizations were lost.
The most terrifying example of her uncanny ability to wreak havoc on my game time solitude occurred just after we divorced. I had decided to call in a few favors and take a week off from work – you know, to mourn. And play games.
Break ups are hard, and this one was no exception. There were tears, accusations, and all-night discussions, etc. The bottom line was that everybody was going to be better off, and so it was the right thing to do. So we did it. There was a weekend of stuff sorting, a day of moving and a day of sleeping. And then there was lots of gaming.
I'd rediscovered the Thief series a few weeks earlier and a brand new, unopened copy of The Machine Age had been FedExed straight to my door. I mixed a pitcher of margaritas, stockpiled preparation-free foodstuffs and dug in. It was wonderful. Cathartic even. The game experience was everything I'd ever remembered. The sounds, the shadows (holy crap! I'd forgotten about the shadows!), the music. It was, at long last, total immersion, and I reveled in it.
Four days later I was feeling no pain. I'd left the house once to restock the margarita fixins, which was interesting considering the state I was in (no, not "˜Massachusetts' smart ass). The store clerk looked at me funny for calling him a taffer and I reached for my black jack, ready to take him out and hide him behind the beer cooler, but the crystal went dark again. The moment passed without incident. Five minutes later I was home again, and right back in the game.
Then the computer crashed.
Now I know a thing or two about computers. I'd built this one myself (It was the original $999 Thunderbird Gaming Machine for crap's sake). I'd upgraded it once or twice, rebuilt it a few times just for fun and generally kept it clean and running smooth. I knew this machine inside and out. If anyone should have been able to instantly resolve a crash situation, it should have been me, Seth Brundle, Master of Technology. But the combination of tequila and euphoria had changed me. I was now Brundle-Garret, and I had no idea what to do. I was struck dumb. Literally dumb.
About thirty minutes of staring at the BSoD later, I remembered that some form of reboot would go a long way towards solving the problem. About ten minutes after that I decided which one. I pulled the plug and rebooted. After the booting blahblah, and the Hello! Aren't You Glad You Own a Microsoft Product? graphics went away I spotted the culprit sitting calmly in a corner of my desktop, with its hands folded together, looking up at the sky and whistling: Real Player.
This was a copy of Win98 I was dealing with (don't ask why, it's too painful), and true-to-form it was choking on Real Player's update/info-center app. But that was really only a minor irritation. A simple uninstall and registry enema would take care of that. The real dilemma was that I hadn't installed Real Player on my machine. Wouldn't have. Mainly for this exact reason, but also because it's the Queen of the Damned of spyware offenders.
No, this insidious, little memory hog had been placed on my computer by my wife. My wife. Destroyer of Worlds. Whether she had installed Real Player on purpose, just to screw with me, or by accident I'll never know. The end result was the same. She had proven herself, once more, capable of bringing my wildest flights of fantasy crashing to the ground, and this time she didn't even have to be in the house to make to happen.
Yes, she was that powerful. To this day I fear her. She's like Khan. With her last breath she spit at me, and I did not escape the shockwave.
Comments
That is great.
I remember when I was playing Duke Nukem 3D coop/deathmatch all the time, I wanted to blow up every fire extinguisher I would come across in real life.
It seemed so natural.
It's been a while since I've been this immersed in an article. Is it because it's about immersion? Strange...
Panem et circenses
"You really need to smoke a tree first to appreciate that one." - Sanjuro
Excellent Fletcher, most excellent!
“When I discovered a new plant, I sat down beside it for a minute or a day, to make its
acquaintance and hear what it had to tell.” -- John Muir
That is possibly one of the most interesting articles I've read on this site in quite some time. If you keep pumping out articles like this one, and ones about naked Wayne Brady's I say you get a raise. But since you don't get paid I say someone should Female Doggo-slap you instead.
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Easy to see why you got the nod to write for the site. Very good reading. Thanks, Fletcher. I too have often thought of the tiny digital soldiers, monsters, and other people living within my Western Digital.
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One of the few times I can honestly say this: LOL!
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Great article, again.
Yes the old ex dropped the Sword of Debt +56 on my ass when i was young.
Luckily I hardly see The Evil One anymore!
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Great article, it nails the source of the antisocial stigma on the head for me. I used to catch flak all the time because people thought I didn't want to talk to them, it's really just the fact that they interrupted the game or whatever else I was doing. Once I snapped out of it, I could talk to them no problem, but until I managed to pull myself away I'd just sorta mumble until they hang up. It's why I don't carry a cell phone anymore, people think that when you have a cellphone, your entire life is spent waiting for it to ring so that you can give it total attention.
I remember one weekend in 1995 that had been dominated by Rise of the Triad deathmatches: I found myself sitting in Taco Bell waiting for a tray full of soft tacos, idly pondering whether a single well-placed round from a Drunk Missle would take out everyone in the kitchen.
That was one of the few occasions when I seriously asked myself, "am I playing too many games?"
Excellent article Fletcher!
I've had one total immersion incident with World of Warcraft. I get home from work a couple hours before my husband does and these days ususally fill the time with a quick shot of WoW adventuring without interruption.
A few weeks ago, I was busy playing as usual. He got home from work, came into the computer room, dropped a bag of books on the floor, set his wallet on the desk right beside me, and apparently had a conversation with me.
A few minutes later, he came back into the room. I looked up and said, "Hi, when did you get home?" Didn't register a single thing when he had walked in the room earlier. It was freaky.
Man, I'll gladly Female Doggoslap Fletcher if it means more articles like this. Hell, I'll Female Doggoslap him just because I like him.
Good job, dude
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An absolutely incredible job of creative writing. You sir, have some real talent there and should do something with it...
Not about a game but the other night after watching IRobot (and taking some good drugs for the flu going around) I had a dream about killer robots chasing me does that count as immersion?
Look guys, if you keep reminding Fletch what an awesome writer he is, it might eventually occur to him that he could be writing for a much more high profile outlet and even make some coin in the process. I think we can all agree that would be bad. So, let's keep up the facade, shall we?
I'll start: boo Fletcher. You suck, you no-talent hack!
The thing about smart people is they seem like crazy people to dumb people -- Thing I saw on the Internet
Ah Fletcher...you're a funny, funny man. Although, now I'm not sure I should write the article I had planned for Thursday: Game Widows - How to get that Paladin off his mount and back in the saddle....
I'm pretty sure, statistically, coffee increases violence more than marijuana....I'm going for my second cup and when I get back I'm bringing a shovel.
I was saying Boo-urns.
I also had an ex-wife who loathed the very concept of gaming, and many sacrifices were made during those years. However, I'm much happier now that I'm out of that situation and have a girlfriend who not only likes it when I play - she actually tells me she wants me to play so she can watch.
I'm seriously waiting for the day the ring goes on that finger, and a horrible, disfigured game-hating beast emerges, with a venomous echoing voice saying "I own your soul now sucker!"
The day I give up gaming to sit around with other couples, sipping tea and discussing the OC is the day I personally remove the testicles from my body with a sharp saw.
It's all about balance though, so I do my best to enjoy what she does too, and I have to throw down that controller from time to time. Because afterall, a happy SO makes for a very nice gaming environment
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Not tea, beer! (or coffee)
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Thanks for the kind word guys. I promise to remember all of you when Newsweek hires me by mistake thinking that I'm Elysium.
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What about dudes that look like ladies? Make-outs and Female Doggo-slaps?
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