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Unreal

By: Paul Mather

Sorry. This column would have been better, but I've discovered online gaming.

The game's called "Unreal Tournament", although it should be called "Carpal-Tunnel Syndrome" because that's what I expect to get after sitting hunched over my computer, compulsively clicking my mouse with one hand while simultaneously trying to press eight keys using the five fingers of my other hand. For hour after hour. For as long as the game wants me to.

It's not the type of game I'm normally into. It's a shoot-em-up, like Quake or Doom. Pick up gun. Find other guy. Shoot him. Repeat. The thing is -- and this is what was new to me -- you play against other people over the Internet. I've owned other games that let you do that, but I've never had the guts. There's something very intimidating about getting killed over and over by some 13-year-old whose parents think he's doing homework.

The only reason I installed the damn program was to see how fast it ran on my new wiz-bang computer (which, by the way, has become appreciably less wiz bang over the amount of time it's taken me to type this sentence). I think that's actually the secret reason for a lot of video games. It's why programmers keep turning out variations of the same game but with new processor-sucking graphics -- so you can show off how fast your computer is. It's the nerd equivalent of driving up and down main street in your pimped-up Chevy.

Video games are always getting blamed for teen violence, and I don't know if that's true, but I can tell you they're responsible for encouraging a rather casual attitude towards spelling. Look at the names of my opponents: "Malestrum." "time2kil." "Skurge." Tsk tsk! Boys, boys, what's the point of killing all the other virtual burly men when you can't even spell your own name correctly? Maybe first-person 3-D shooters should come with spell checkers.

Then again, these names are probably misspelled on purpose by embarrassed 30-year-olds who are trying to give the impression they're 12 because they, too, are supposed to be doing work. I mean, it's a problem when the device you use to do your job is also capable delivering the digital version of crack. Do you think Hemmingway would have written so many novels if his typewriter had been capable of Open GL hardware-accelerated 3-D graphics? If he'd managed to write at all his prose would have gotten even terser as he tried to wrap things up so he could slip back into his online persona of "hEm-N-wAy rUlez"

I mean, I'm sitting in front of my computer. There are two icons: the word processor, and the game. One brings pain, the other brings pleasure. Which am I going to hit? I have no choice. I've been Pavlovianly conditioned to choose the video game. I'm like one of those chickens at the fair, the ones who sit in a tiny box all day long pecking out tunes on a little piano.

And, hey, once the carpal-tunnel syndrome kicks in like I expect, I'll probably be using my nose to hit the keys, too.