For hopeless geeks only

Spent the last two days at E3, Electronic Entertainment Exposition, watching thousands of addicts happily plugging away at the latest released or soon-to-be-released video games. Didn't think about politics much. In fact, subjected to that media barrage of sex, violence, and unmitigated marketing blitzkrieg, after a few hours of the deluge it's questionable whether I was technically thinking at all, or simply operating under the basest instincts of my reptilian brain. But a few actual thoughts did creep up out of the shadowy murk. First of all, for those of you who care (probably best if you don't), graphics at the highest end are becoming almost unbelievably photo-realistic and beautiful as well. I was completely awed by the demonstration of lighting effects created by the latest Unreal development tools. Light pouring out of a spinning frame of stained glass did all of the right things on a distant brick wall, on a wooden table, on a chair against the wall. These environments, rendered on the spot and subject to any manner of spontaneous change, could not have looked more real, more perfectly lit, more literally glowing. Difficult not to be awed by the creative forces that are able to recreate such things from a dance of nothing but ones and zeroes.

On the other hand, developers are still far, far away from mastering human motion and expression. It's getting better, but still it's stiff, stiff, stiff. That said, I did have more than a couple of moments when I was honestly confused, at least momentarily, by whether people on the mega-screens covering any and all available corners of the convention halls were virtual or actual, so they must be getting something right.

In the end though, I just find myself incredibly curious about the end result of all of this game play. It is arguably the most addictive non-narcotic activity in modern culture, but what ultimately does it achieve? People spend endless hours at these things, in certain respects (and I've felt this certainly) they are gone, the real world does not exist, they are in the game. I used to stay up until five in the morning playing Quake. I couldn't stop myself, I literally lost the wiill to drag myself away. (I also occasionally suffered brief paranoid fantasies in which I began to wonder if I wasn't working the controls behind a real man-killing robot running around somewhere. Hey, your mind goes funny at four in the morning but that's another story...) It's just entertainment, sure, but at what point does entertainment overstep itself and constitute an actual health, or mental health hazard? Or are games ultimately a good thing in some strange obscure fashion I can't quite comprehend? All I know is, if there were only time enough and unlimited resources, it's easy to imagine that some gamers would never, ever stop, except to fulfill the most essential of survival functions. Given enough time, let's say an additional life just like in a video game, would I? Hmmm..... (In reality, yes, because I'd have to make time for all of those movies, and then all of those albums, books, tv shows, concerts, trips to various points on the globe, and etc... I hereby advocate an extra life for each one!)

Maybe the highlight was the display of old arcade games and home console games downstairs. Got to play Galaga for free - my childhood dream come true. The old obsession with Galaga, upon which I must have spent the greater part of my income from delivering papers, came back full force without a blink. Strangely enough, I think I actually played better yesterday than I did twenty years (oh my god is it really twenty years) ago. And then there was the old Odyssey, the very first of the home console games, where graphics were reduced to color overlays that we had to stick on the television screen through the magic of static electricity. My favorite, after jai alai, which didn't need the screens, was the haunted house game. I was only five but I was addicted even then...