As
one real, tangible, living and breathing door closes, another
virtual, fantastical, not at all real door opens. The great Lovely
Girl Pursuit of Summer/Winter 2011 has come to an end, largely due to
her no longer being available. It’s a minor irritation – so it is
an irritation – but generally it’s not the catastrophic disaster
that old me would have allowed it to become. Life goes on, plenty of
fish, platitude, cliche, stereotype. This is a real thing, a real
thing that has happened in the real world. Actual, physical door
closed. Meanwhile I had exchanged many, many Xbox games in order to
own Skyrim, in which there are dragons.
Dragons,
you will have noticed, are not real. If we all look deep inside
ourselves we know this, we also know they never were real. Sorry.
They should have been real, but they weren’t. Deep breath, accept,
move on. Fortunately however, the universe has balanced this hard
truth with technological entertainment, specifically video games. Due
to faceless, money grabbing, bastard forging corporations, I can wear
Mana regenerating armour, swing a massive sword imbued with the power
of cold and – crucially – I can walk with dragons. As long as
when I say ‘walk with’, I mean ‘kill all of them
indiscriminately’, which I do, so that’s ok. The Elder Scrolls V:
Skyrim (to give it its full title) is amazing. If you don’t know
what it is, firstly: you can stop reading now, seriously, this will
bore you and you will think less of me, and secondly: how? The
advertising campaign has been pretty heavy handed, encompassing
billboards, magazines, television and creating an actual dragon. Ok,
no, not creating an actual dragon, but they should have.
In
the game you play either a male or female adventurer, tasked with
saving the land of Syrim from the fire centric attacks of the
recently-not-extinct-any-more dragons. Unimaginative creatures
dragons. The world you inhabit is what media types describe as
‘living and breathing’. It isn’t, obviously, at least not in a
literal sense. There are preprogrammed townsfolk milling about, miles
of countryside, wilderness and mountain range to explore, and a
plethora of oddballs to cut to ribbons or explode with magic.
Amazing. You can buy houses, work, shop, build relationships, take
side quests, slog through the main story, and any combination of the
the previous and more. It’s quite a commitment. It requires
dedication, affection, time and effort to progress in this fictional,
not at all real world, the engaging gameplay and distracting
narrative need input, and that’s the thing that draws you in: the
need to see more. Strangely though it’s also what usually puts me
off this sort of endeavor.
I’ve
played many huge, sprawling games – from GTA to Fallout 3, from The
Elder Scrolls: Morrowind to Fable. I’ve played them all but only
completed Fable, because Fable was a very light title, it asked very
little of me and gave me horns and almighty power in return. Other
titles demanded too much time, I just didn’t care, or they were
simply too hard to bother with. I don’t know if you’ve noticed,
but reality is a bit of a grinding bore occasionally, sometimes for
extended periods of time, so I never used to be able to cope with a
form of entertainment that wanted me to invest as much thought and
energy and thankless choring into it, as reality already did. I
wanted to blow shit up, relatively easily, again and again. So why am
I suddenly more hours than can be healthy into Skyrim? What has
happened that has made this sort of thing appeal, because let me make
it clear: large segments of this game (which, if played to
completion, can rack up more than 100 Earth Hours) are spent walking
around, doing basically nothing. For hours. Cumulatively.
It
can partly be attributed to the vastly improved graphical capability
of games consoles and PCs, and also to the eagerness of many modern
adventure games to play out like high end cinema. I am instantly
visually engaged, during many of my long walks in Skyrim I have
mentally remarked on how real it can look. I am mentally engaged
through story telling that’s no where near as dreadful as it used
to be, carrying you through the hard times, intriguing you enough to
bring you to the closing credits. However, there is another thought
that claws at the back of my mind. Now, if forensics needed to find a
serial killing thought, and the only way to narrow the suspects down
was to match their claws with the claw marks left on the back of my
mind – CSI style – they would struggle because of the mess of
claw marks left by previous, scrabbling thoughts. Still, this one
stands out.
What
if I’m just more bitter and alienated than I was. I know what
you’re thinking, you’re thinking “is that possible?” Well.
Haha. Really, though, what if, as I get older and more battered by
life, as the years slide by and concern, regret and disgust pile up,
what if I become more attracted to virtual lives. Even now I can feel
my brain fighting with my thumbs. My brain wants to remind me that
there are better, more constructive ways to spend my Sundays. My
thumbs want to press brightly coloured buttons until a dragon dies
and I am a hero. Then my brain goes “alright then, let’s do
that.” A lot has happened in real life in recent months and years,
some of it wonderful, some if it absolutely revolting. The revolting
seems to scar to an extent the good cannot heal, so changed are we.
Then there’s a world of dragons and that. Have I mentioned how good
dragons are? I reckon the escapist in me has accepted he can’t
escape me, and is moving on to plans that involve taking me with him.
Bastard.
There’s
nothing I can do of course. I think I’m going to end up pouring
whole days into my heroic alter ego, the man known only as Prisoner,
because I pressed the wrong button when I had to name me. I’m
enjoying it, and for the moment it does allow a certain, subtle
sensation of satisfaction that is lacking in other areas. God that
looks sad. Much worse written down than in my head. What I’m
basically advocating here is a world in which we all hook up to an
altered, more exciting and fantastical version of what we have. Like
the Matrix, but with swords and poorly animated faces. Or Existenz,
which is excellent. A future in which we are aware of the lie though,
so that we can enjoy the deceit. With dragons.
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