video games are dangerous

Scientists have always been trying to prove that video games cause aggressive behaviour. Take it from someone who plays a lot of video games (and I mean A LOT), the scientists are right. The thing is, the scientists are not looking at the right games. I've played all three Dooms, I've played all three Quakes. I played the original Castle Wolfstein as well as Return to Castle Wolfenstein. I've played all of the GTA games back to the original, which was not the Grand Theft Auto released immediately prior to GTA:Vice City; and while that was released as GTA III there were actually three GTA games released before "GTA III". So trust me, I know what I'm talking about. The Scientists are barking up the wrong tree. I've played all of those games and none of them causes me to act aggressively; if anything, all of those games are actually very good ways for me to blow off steam and relieve stress.

But you know which games do make me want to act aggressively?

Puzzle games. Like Tetris. Remember that game? The one you could never win. The pieces just kept coming, faster, and faster, and faster, until you lost. Every. Single. Time. Sure, there was Tetris B which was released to make people feel good about themselves, where you just had to clear 25 lines and you'd "win" the game, but that was only because the programmers of the original version of Tetris were killed when their test-ape became extremely frustrated because he couldn't beat Tetris. Never. Won. A single. Game. Ever. And so the test-ape went bananas. Get it? He's a test-ape. And he went bananas. HA HA! So their test-ape went bananas (HA HA!) and killed the original programmers, and the people who came to clean everything up, they saw the Tetris game and said "Yeah, it's a good game, but you can never win, and that will drive people..." Bananas??? That's not as funny as a test-ape going bananas (HA HA!) So they made a Tetris B which you could "win" as long as you could complete 25 lines. But the original Tetris. You can't win that. No one can. Eventually, you get tired. I don't care how good you are. You're going to get tired. You're going to lose. Everyone does. So Tetris frustrates me. Tetris makes me want to crush, kill & destroy. Forget those violent, first-person shooters. They've got nothing on Tetris.

Platforming games drive me nuts too. No, not bananas. Do I look like a test-ape to you? I might be as hairy as one...but all resemblances end there. Now, where's my banana? I'm gonna kill someone if I don't get my banana!

See, platformers really bring out my aggressive side, too. Especially when the programmers devise a level so maniacal that you have to make several pixel-perfect jumps in a row, and if just one of your jumps is off by more than just one pixel (you know how big a pixel is? It's smaller than a bee's dick), if you're off by just one pixel your avatar falls to his death. And you have to repeat the level. From the start. And the pixel-perfect jumps you need to make? They're at the end of the level. And it takes you fifteen minutes to get that far. And you can't save. And when you finally get there again, you once more have to make several pixel-perfect jumps in a row, perfectly, or you have to start all the way over from the start, again.

Frustrating, isn't it?

Doom, Quake, Wolfenstein, GTA. Not frustrating. Not at all. Why not? Because I'm releasing aggression! I'm not building it up, getting more and more frustrated with the game! I'm not being driven into a murderous rage. I'm already in there killing computer people. I'm letting it all out! Oh, YEAH!!! And when I'm finished, I push myself away from the computer, and I let out that big, long breath I'd been holding...and. I'm. At. Peace. I am in my happy place. I have attained Nirvana (and I don't mean the extinct rock band).

But some games do kill. I'd heard about this from a friend. Couldn't verify it, until now, when, as is the way of The Net, while searching for one thing, I stumbled across another. I came across the story of a Korean man who played video games at a video cafe (like an internet cafe but dedicated to gaming) for 50 hours. Straight. Well, not quite straight. He got up to use the bathroom. But he forgot to eat or drink. What do you think happened? Yeah, he died.

I thought it was bogus, but there it is, on the MSNBC website. So it's true. Video games really are harmful. They can even kill you. And as Brooke Shields said, if you're killed, you've lost a very important part of your life.