Video Games, Movies & the Great Outdoors
January 22, 2010mike Comments OffVideo Games, Movies & the Great Outdoors; three things not typically seen in the same sentence together. Why is that? They are all recreations, ways to help us pass our free time what do they have against each other?
First let’s discuss the great outdoors, perhaps the original recreation. In olden days this place (“the great outdoors”) was omnipresent and could be found a mere foot off your front step. Today urban and suburban dwellers will travel great distances in their Suburu or Suburban (pun intended) to visit this fantastic place. Many moons ago it was taken for granted, today it is much desired and for good reason. It is the most active and healthy of these three activities.
Movies, a favorite topic of mine, have a way of inspiring us, a way of putting us in a time or place or role far from our ordinary. They have a way of telling us a story with no effort, immersing us with or without imagination required.
Finally video games, the new kid on the block. Once the obscure past time of kids you wouldn’t want to be caught dead hanging out with. Is now at your grandmother’s retirement home (yes that is a fact in my case). You can find a video game anywhere and everywhere, and that is their huge appeal. Sure you can load up your Wii, 360 or PS3, or boot up your PC (or Mac) but you don’t even half to. Type a dozen domain names into your work computer and you’re wasting time in a flash; turn on your cell phone and pass the wait time at the DMV. These are serious games too, seriously inexpensive or even free. The more costly video games give us a way to immerse ourselves as a movie would with the interaction originally reserved for real world activities. We have force feedback, gesture input and surround sound in stunning high definition to throw us in the thick of a World War II battle or next weeks NHL Hockey Game you name it you can be all that you can be in a video game.
After that fanboy paragraph about video games one might wonder how other mediums compete and the answer is plain and simple there will never be one way of the world. Variety is the spice of life and as video games gain popularity for their active perspective it reminds us of REAL activities in the REAL WORLD and increases our desire for the great outdoors; and as we get more and more active we long for a passive story that we can relax and slowly digest. The only thing that really has a major effect on our past times is the time itself, and as many people spend more time working they have less time to play, but that, like life itself, is cyclical. In time we will all have more time for fun!