My Top Ten: Reasons Games Are Scary

Let’s not beat about the bush here, sometimes video games scare me. I don’t mean when they make you jump like in Resident Evil. I don’t even mean the fact that they all seem to predict apocolypse or feature alien invasions. It’s the way they impact on my actual real life that scares me. Let me know your top ten reasons games are scary in the comments below.

• They turn me into a psychopath. Seriously, I can’t think of any other pastime where “I’m going to shoot him in the face!” would be an acceptable thing to say. Wait, is it even acceptable for me to shout that at a game?
• They make me endlessly respawn. Some of them even have a mechanic where I literally can’t die. I’m immortal. That’s scary.
• Dead Space is a video game. I’ve never been scared by anything as much as I have been by Dead Space. Except possibly the movie Psycho when I was 14 and watched it at 1am with only my mother in the house.
• I can’t feel the pain. Am I numb to it? Speaking of Pain, have you tried that PSN game? You catapult the character into a precariously balanced city/theme park/movie set and watch as he bounces around damaging the city. I tried that once, got a broken leg and a criminal damage charge. Who knew?
• They consume my life. The other day I sat down to play a well known RPG and when I stood up I had a full beard, long hair and, embarrassingly, I’d soiled myself.
• They cross over into reality. I’m not just talking about the Xi/Home type crossover. I saw a guy in a yellow motorcycle helmet the other day and my first thought was “huh, Pac-Man!”
• They’re smarter than I am. I don’t just mean that Buzz knows more trivia and Carol Vorderman can do more difficult sums. I mean that video games can have puzzles in them that it takes me hours to work out and when I finally put the pencil down and stand on that last pressure switch all it does is open a door. They’re mocking me.
• They want to make me fit. Ok so the PlayStation isn’t really guilty of this yet but I also own a Wii and unless you want an endless array of games like “Totally Puppy-Dog Cooking Party!” and “Super Happy Platform Waggle! Party!” you’re going to have to go near an example of the Wii’s third genre – “Get Up Off Your Fat Lazy Ass and Waggle. Party!”
• Psycho Mantis exists outside of them too. You might have laughed off that bit where he moves your controller with his mind but it happened. That nutjob actually made an impact on a physical thing in my realm. How long before he has honed his powers enough to move something more substantial? One day he might even be able to knock over my beer!
• They take all my money. This hobby is expensive and disposable income is not as readily available as it was a year ago. My wife has almost worn out her “Really, you’re buying another game instead of new bed linen/crap for the garden/blades for your razor you lazy, hairy git?” face.