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The Tetris Effect

Started by castro diaz, September 07, 2012, 12:38:29 PM

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castro diaz

Inspired by the motion sickness thread, heady nostalgia and my own naked desire to create a thread that gets over 10 replies, I started thinking about how games can affect your life away from the controller.  Somebody mentioned seeing Guitar Hero lines away from the screen, and I know the 'Tetris effect' is an actual scientific thing. 

After Bomberman hit my town me and my mates would play it high so much that when I entered a room I'd have an instant compulsion to put my back up against the nearest wall less I get Horishima'd by someone's blast coming through the door.  Funny in retrospect, a little disconcerting when you can't control it at the time.  I had to force myself to stop it and take a break from the game.  Bomber down!

When I got with the girl I wanted to get with, instead of compiling photos to blackmail her with like normal people, I just played the xbox 360 Achievement unlocked sound in my head and awarded myself a generous 50 life points.  I once walked in on a friend of mine in our student house to find him wearing a charity shop suit and drinking cava at 11am because his Swindon Town team were in the Play Off final on Championship manager.  When he went on holiday with his girlfriend he asked me to load up his game to 'check in', after feeling guilty for abandoning them.

Whilst playing Assassin's Creed 2 I'd be out and about and would be scanning every cathedral and rooftop, trying to work out the best route and if there was a handily placed hay cart underneath.  Apparently this is quite annoying.  As a kid I got a job as a paperboy convinced I'd be able to smash windows, dodge dogs and get to ride big jumps afterwards.  Turns out throwing papers on to a lawn and riding off into the sunset is an American thing and not appreciated by the readers of the Barry and District News.

The indie game Braid really helped me after a break-up, as legitimately as the books I read, films I watched and wine I drunk.  "All those years ago, Tim had left the Princess behind. He had kissed her on the neck, picked up his travel bag, and walked out the door. He regrets this, to a degree. Now he's journeying to find her again, to show he knows how sad it was, but also to tell her how it was good."

So, has gaming ever effected your real life?  Has the number of prostitutes you've killed increased or decreased after playing Grand Theft Auto?  Is Pac-man to blame for the Acid House movement?  Let's just get this thing into double figures!

Consignia

I've had dreams which were just games of tetris. They can actually be quite satisfying.

When I was learning to drive, I played lots of GTA 3 and Crazy Taxi, both games where you drive on the right hand side of the road, and a couple of times I subconsciously started driving on the wrong side in my actual car. I corrected that behaviour quickly, though.

BlodwynPig

Explains the 6 mile per hour walking pace story, Castro.

AsparagusTrevor

Due to the many hours of FPS I've clocked, I often strafe around corners in real life, rather than just turning the corner like non-crazy people do.

Treguard of Dunshelm

Falling asleep playing Advance Wars 2 and having a turn-based dream.

Going outside for a smoke after playing Metroid Prime and not being able to stop "locking on" to things.

Walking out of the house after a big session of GTA: San Andreas to go to the shop, and trying to pull open the door of the first car I saw. I think that's the only time the Tetris Effect has ever nearly got me into trouble (luckily it was dark, and the car wasn't alarmed).

I've had the Assassin's Creed thing as well.

Oh, and there's been a couple of times I've been about to do something difficult, thought "better save before I do this" and then realised I can't :(

Puffin Chunks

Mirror's Edge taught me to look out for red pipes and ledges to traverse difficult obstacles. Fighting the temptation to launch myself into a death defying jump that I had no chance of making was often harder than it should have been.

samadriel

I made a mistake once while sketching something, and momentarily reached for the top left of the page to open the edit menu and undo.  You can't undo in real life!  What mischief.

Jerzy Bondov

I have played games of Tetris in my head in order to postpone sexual climax. I find it extremely effective and the way the screen fills up at a game over is usefully symbolic. It does however mean that I am aroused by the sound of Korobeiniki

Big Jack McBastard

I've had a Minecraft dream where I was stuck in a shallow pit and could only make progress by destroying and placing blocks in front of me. No Creepers though thankfully.

A few nights ago I was shooting little red, blue and yellow gems stuck to the walls of a nightmarish looking outcrop next to a castle after navigating a series of jumps and low level Rube Goldberg locks like in Darksiders 2.





mobias

I know a friend who did a big long stint in GTA Vice City one afternoon and promptly got into a car a drove straight off on the wrong side of the road. I used GTAIV to practice driving before going to the US on holiday a couple of years ago where I drove for the first time. It actually worked.

Pulling all nighters playing Tony Hawk's Skateboarding on the PS1, then going out and seeing potential grinds and lips everywhere I went. Great days.

vrailaine

As bad as tetris was for those kinds of things, lumines was a thousand times worse, five minutes of play and it's all over your mind for the day.

Best game ever

Junglist

Due to playing Trials for so long my mind now knows everything about it, I regularly look at angles in the surrounding real world scenery and imagine how I'd get the Phoenix flowing over them in the quickest way possible.

In reality, I can't even ride a bike (nor my mum so hurr).

Absorb the anus burn

I once played Ludo for thirty seven consecutive hours and went temporarily insane. They found me in my y-fronts crawling on the yellow line around the Barbican centre, eating Ludo counters drenched in milk, as if they were a tasty and nutritious breakfast cereal.

Morrison Lard

Duke Nukem 3d.

It was 1997, my first ever flat.
Not sure how he did it, but the egghead of our social circle wired 2 PCs together, and for about 6 months
we did nothing but play duke3d deathmatches.

Every night I'd try to sleep whilst navigating a complex system of vents and carefully planting laser trip bombs.
Then I'd wake up and play until the sun came up and it was time for bed again.

The Masked Unit

Looking out for glowing orbs everywhere when I was addicted to Crackdown.

Cerys

Spotting walls that I should be able to jump up when I was playing Tomb Raider for the first time.  Also seeing a broken slate on the ground and thinking 'I don't remember killing that bat'.

More recently, looking at dropped kerbs and thinking 'target weld'.

And the tiny adrenaline burst of seeing the shadow of a large bird as it flies overhead.

Toast

Quote from: Morrison Lard on September 11, 2012, 12:49:31 PM
It was 1997, my first ever flat.
Not sure how he did it, but the egghead of our social circle wired 2 PCs together, and for about 6 months
we did nothing but play duke3d deathmatches.

You could hook Duke up to another PC with a long serial cable. Good times, although it involved transporting my computer to my friends house which was quite an ordeal. I tried playing D3D the other day with the High Resolution Pack, it didn't feel right though.

Gavin M

Whenever I get bored in the cinema I always find myself examining which parts of the walls and ceiling I can/can't shoot portals onto.

Dark Sky

Quote from: samadriel on September 07, 2012, 01:56:03 PM
I made a mistake once while sketching something, and momentarily reached for the top left of the page to open the edit menu and undo.  You can't undo in real life!  What mischief.

Yeah, frequently, before I make any decision in life, I think about saving the game first, so I can always reload if it doesn't work out.

Since playing Bioshock I have this overwhelming urge to go up to any public litter bin and press E to search it.

And the Thief games completely changed my life, making me always want to travel anywhere hiding in shadows.  They make me scout out the best ways to enter buildings beside the front door. They make me listen out for footsteps and automatically hide if someone's coming, holding my breath as they pass by.  Also, if I'm ever walking up behind someone, I get the irresistable urge to hit them over the head with my blackjack.

castro diaz

We got double figures!  Nothing can stop us now.  This could be the longest thread in the history of the internet.

Spain is great for looking at rooftops and thinking how to Assassin's Creed your way around.  I do the Portal thing too, but only on white surfaces that would be big enough to hold one.  Otherwise, what's the point?

Also, I remember going outside for a joint with my bro after that quite intense part in Gears of War where you have to stay in the light to avoid the krill attacks.  We were talking about tactics and smoking and 3 or 4 bats started swooping around our heads, which they hardly ever do.  It fills me with immense pride that I instinctively ducked, swiveled round like Andy McNab whilst pulling an imaginary shotgun from my back.

Games get in your brains.

Tokyo Sexwhale

I can't think of a game that's had that effect, but I do sometimes have a Satnav voice in my head when I'm just walking.

pk1yen

I just 100%-ed Arkham Asylum in less than a week -- and now everytime anyone approaches me, I get ready to press Y to counter their inevitable assaults ...

Lyndon

I just remembered something: The number 99, and all the 90s in fact, seem very powerful too me, because of a childhood on Ultimate Soccer Manager 2, on which 99 was the top attribute score. Same for 20 and Championship Manager, although not so much for some reason.

Junglist

Quote from: Lyndon on September 16, 2012, 05:50:39 PM
Same for 20 and Championship Manager, although not so much for some reason.

I often 'judge' player's stats during a live match using the CM/FM system.