Video Game Gimp
By H.G. Miller
I’ve learned something about myself, and I think it’s important to share.
I suck at video games.
I’m not talking about that little bit of suck that everybody has when they first start playing a new game. You screw up a few things, say something to yourself like “oh, the left trigger activates the grenades… I get it,” then proceed to have a good time brushing up your skills and becoming a killer of mutants, or a racer of cars, or a savior of midgets… whatever the game is.
I do not have this ability to adapt and learn when it comes to video games. Somewhere in the wiring of my brain, this synapse has never snapped, and I am left cold and alone whenever the subject of video games comes up.
“You played the new Madden, man? That half-back feature is wicked.”
“Um. Yeah.” I try to nod knowingly, but they can see right through me.
I shy away from the group of guys playing games at parties. Somebody will hand me the controller and ask me to play for them while they go to the bathroom, or get a drink, or find out if they’re still married… you know, whatever. Anyway, when they come back, I have usually managed to have their character in the game so brutally maimed that nothing but ridicule can follow.
“Dude, this is Candy Land,” they’ll say. “How did you manage to get sent to the seventh ring of hell?”
“Dunno,” I’ll answer. “Special skill, I guess.”
I’ve tried blaming alcohol on these little mishaps, but that never seems to fly. Apparently, a good gamer can hold his liquor and outrun the digitized cops.
Recently, I’ve started working at a new company, and one of our clients is a video-game manufacturer, so there are a few laying around and over lunch, everybody likes to kick back and play a few rounds of this game where you hunt each other down and shoot each other. Good, clean, family stuff.
So, being the new guy, I was asked to join one day. I took a breath, sat down in this beanbag chair (the proper recliner for killing your co-workers), and tried to figure out how to best avoid embarrassing myself too much.
“Scroll for your character name, then hit ‘A,’” I was told.
I quickly found the ‘A’ button with my thumb, much sooner than I would have liked. The name of my character flashed up on the screen.
FLUFFY.
“Fluffy?” the chorus echoed around the gaming area.
“Yeah,” I laughed nervously. “You wouldn’t kill a guy named Fluffy, would you?”
Nobody laughed, so I guess it wasn’t funny. Great. Now they were going to find out I sucked at video games, AND think I was gay.
Anyway, the game commenced and I began flailing around wildly and shooting at every shadow, rock and teammate I saw – a faux pas, I found out. It wasn’t long before somebody put me out of my misery by exploding my head with a long-range shotgun. I have to admit, if you’re going to get killed, that’s a pretty cool way to go.
“That’s too bad,” I said. “Next time, I’ll get you.” I prepared to leave, but was stopped.
“No, you get more lives,” this girl told me. “You just play until somebody gets 40 kills.”
Forty! How friggin’ long would that take, I wondered.
I found out six minutes, thirty-seven seconds later, when the IT guy had killed me 39 times and some guy from the media department once.
“Wow,” the same girl said in a little bit of awe. “You died a lot.”
“Yeah,” I tried to play it cool. “I wanted to appreciate this game for its existential philosophy and just sort of absorb the whole ‘we’re all dying’ context.”
I don’t think she bought it.