Immersion of the Soul

This is really about how the world of video games affect our own mindset, sometimes in a good way sometimes in a bad way.

 

 

Immersion of the Soul

 

 

Prerequisites to your life: A Nintendo system, two controllers, and the original Super Mario Bros. with the Duck Hunt on the same cartridge. Required courses: Tetris (I didn’t like the game that much, it confused me!) Mega Man & sequels (Grandiose ideas of being an adventurer filled me with delight.) Super Mario 1-3 (I really didn’t like to be Luigi, because my sister always had to be Mario.) Duck Hunt (This was where the seed of violence was planted. Warning: Do not get mad at the dog when he laughs. Everyone wants to shoot the dog.)

 

Christmas is one of the best, and most anxious times for a young child. The glowing lights on the tree reflect inside the round ornaments anticipating the end of each week as he constantly shakes each package, his dimples widen but he remains a poker face as he twisted it as if the package is a crucial piece of evidence. At Christmas, his emotions, ambitions, and dreams are riding on what’s inside the wrapping paper. Only when his mother catches him in the act of investigation, he looks like the cat that swallowed the canary. “Don’t do that!”

He drops it guiltily, as he rises up on one knee and jumps to his feet. Looking back at the present, as if the wrapping paper was a woman’s skin, and his eyes hone on it every time as he will walk by it every other day. Days and weeks pass until Christmas morning the boy is up without a yawn or wearied by fatigue. He has been prepping for this day for the entire month and in one day it would vanish, making it last with every tear and rip. All the packages that read in perfect cursive, “Merry X-Mas, From: Santa” were no different. His mind hesitated to believe this was actually from Santa Claus, where students told him the opposite, crushing his dreams of a fat man magically traveling down a chimney. Only his parents encouraged him to believe that a large fat man turned into a Slim Jim and fit down the chimney, left presents, and eat your cookies was just one phase in his life, except for Jesus. Both were doting figures in his life, judging his every action until on his eight birthday his sister opened a package with a picture of a man running across a black box as a bright shiny box is gleaming as the words NINTENDO GAME SYSTEM reads on the front tray in small red technical font. This little Italian man would be one of his favorite characters in video game history. 

This is D-Day for all video game history�"the precursor to smaller cartridges, disks, and memory sticks. When he is inside a game and moving, it is all or nothing. A boy or man can feel like he has achieved something when everything in his life is not in his control. The next button will help you fully take control of your life, even though his life is sitting still, worlds revolve around him in rapid taps, and his memories are like terse gusts of wind nipping at his face, as sounds of angry conversations from the people he loved intensifies the world of digital mazes and pixilated fantasies.

 

Prerequisites: A Sega Genesis System, two controllers, and a free copy of Sonic the Hedgehog. Required Courses: Sonic the Hedgehog & sequels (I never had to play tails, because my sister lost interest in video games.) Mortal Kombat 1 & sequels (Me and my sister kicked the s**t out of each other in this game. Nothing could stop our rage.) Toe Jam and Earl 1 & 2 (This was the only time me and my family stayed in the room and enjoyed each other’s company. After that, happiness was just an off switch!) Beavis and Butt-Head (They were apart of my teenage years.) Earthworm Jim (One of the games I never really finished, but was fun.) Ren and Stimpy (What can I say, I’m a sick puppy! They used to make me laugh. But the laughs were very short lived)

 

Around him, nothing in his life gave him any happiness.

“Why don’t you want to talk to me!” His mother shouts at his father.

“I don’t want to talk! I’m tired.” His father makes more excuses.

He wants his sister to play with him, but she is even more adamant in his persistence.

“I don’t know how to play!”

He holds up the controller. “I’ll show you!”

“Nah, it gives me a headache.”

He continues through his teenage years pressing buttons, growing even further from reality. He buries his sadness, stomping those keys until it made his hand hurt. 

 

It seemed like a thousand years since the young boy was staring down the half ring mini-game with Sonic and Tails zooming to gain rings to gain twelve crystals. Only the boy managed to get two to four crystals, and when it came to the gray crystal, he gave up. But with this boy, he should be able to have the stamina to jump over the grenades flying at every bending corner. The boy has never been able to see himself with anyone�"he has always left his friends behind�"even if they were his friends�"he has never seen himself as apart of the human race cursing and despising their existence. He knows happiness when he reaches the end of a level, but it is exhausting�"the images burning up all his energy, reducing him to a piece of charred bacon. Desiring to be the lone ranger, cursing and hating, he knows his very humanity depends on another person to play. His sister gave up on the sticks, complaining that it was “too hard” attaching on to people instead of those sticks. Only he would pursue where the others have left off, even if he never could finish the games, becoming an endless consumer of games that the controls are still familiar but out of reach. His memories, feelings, and happiness are out of his reach. He wants to be free but his boredom brings him back to reality.

 

Through early high school and college, he would move through life now through surroundings with the same basic controls from his younger days. He has adapted a few new tricks to life. He learns to move fast through a crowd, keeping his head during a time of crisis, and shutting down when it comes to someone adding onto his personal discomfort. He has now accepted that the world is in 3-Dimensions, people are different, times are different, and with his new controls, he would take them to other systems, but between the Sony Playstation and XBOX, the yearn to be human is nonexistent.

“You never liked me!” He yelled at the television, as his fingers were tapping on the combo moves to God of War’s malicious sword-and-sandal game of going after mythical God’s. His eyes relishing in each bit of blood dashing out of their wounds, as Kratos wielded his “Blade of Chaos” to do the most unimaginable turns and twists that makes the character more compelling and insane. If only he could do that. But it’s a game, right?

He doesn’t think about anything when he is screaming. “Take that…you know you can’t stand up to me! DIE…DIE…DIE!” His voice fell short, as he won a few rounds but then kept getting killed.  After this is repeated, nothing else is new.

 

Prerequisites: One Sony PS-1, 2, or 3 console, one to two controllers, and Guitar Hero Ax (Preferably 80’s Remix Game) Required courses: Metal Gear Solid 1 & 2 & 3 & 4 (I give up explaining! Snake is a blank slate, and so am I!) God of War 1 & 2 (My hands stay glued to the controls, bashing the buttons until…) Hitman and sequels (…more and more enemies die with extreme precision! Where has the humanity gone?)   

 

When the boy lays down his sticks, he doesn’t know his own face let alone know his own purpose in life. Sitting in his room, all those years keep coming back to him with each second he is away from those machines. But the maps of those controls are still in his head, whenever he tends to pick up a controller, this empty human being rejects this idea.

“Let’s give it a rest.” He said, not entirely despondent, but happy to be away from the screen. Happy and with more energy, every second he is away from the sticks, his thoughts became more obvious as the CG heroes and graphics disappeared, here he was…

 

Right here. As the wounded hero clinging to duty, Solid Snake, the righteous stereotype Super Mario, and afflicted warrior, Kratos…here is the man who travels through worlds without original sin and freed from death’s constraints to give reality a second try.

 

 

 

 

Reviews

[Rasha]

WOW!!
I really like this!!
WHAT HAPPENS NXT???
lol x
a lot of detail...in a good way x
plz send friend request when there's more!
:P