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Gaming has been linked with a lot of things. Repetitive Stress Syndrome, Visual Impairment and even with killings. One thing that it hasn’t been linked with however (At least I don’t THINK it has) is depression.
Mario 64 is a great game, yet everytime I play it, I get really, really depressed! I can’t explain why, I really can’t but I do. But on the other hand whenever I play ISS2000 or WWF No Mercy, I cheer up, not matter what mood I’m in.
It’s inexplicable as to why certain games affect my moods. I really have no idea why they do but no matter what mood I’m in to start with, after playing certain games my mood changes... usually for the better but sometimes for the worst. It’s really weird, knowing that just playing on a specific game can influence me to the point of being extremely happy or feeling like crap.
I’m going to now try and explain why I think this happens.
Games influence every single game players life. There’s really no point in denying it, they do. It’s been talked about before on these forums about games influencing people. But why do they influence us?
Perhaps we’re all mentally unstable and just playing Doom for a bit gives us an urge to go out and blow some things head off. Maybe we sympathise with the characters in the games. Who knows?? But I can sort of guess why I an influenced so much. It’s because I sympathise with the characters.
You may think this extremely sad and pathetic. Hey, you can think that! I don’t care! But what I do care about is people that have had something happen to them in their lives. Usually for the worse.
I feel sorry for homeless people selling the Big Issue, whenever I have it on me I always pay them £1 and, believe it or not, the Big Issue is in fact quite a good publication. I feel sorry for dogs who are lost. Hell, I even feel sorry for dead flies, wasps and bees! I can’t help thinking about their families. It’s incredibly strange and maybe a little over-sensitive, but that’s just the way I am.
So, when things happen to people in games, I sympathise with them too. For example, when Mario loses Peach in Mario 64 I feel sorry for him because he was tricked. I think "How must he feel?" and "Poor little guy, he’s gotta traipse through all those levels just to get her back". I suppose it’s because I have a conscience. A rather over active one.
The atmosphere of the game also has a lot of influence over me. If something is set in a colourful and chirpy place then it will, more often and not, depress me. That I really can’t explain, but it does.
This kind of thing isn’t just limited to games though... at least not for me. In films especially I find myself reasoning with myself. When, in The Green Mile, John Corfi was executed, I couldn’t help but cry. I felt sorry for the guy, he was being executed for a murder he hadn’t committed. He was being killed for someone elses wrong doing! Sure, he didn’t have a family but what if he had? How would they have been affected?
Call me weird, strange, mental, psycho, messed up whatever, but that’s just how I am!
So, do any games affect your moods?
RBS
Mario 64 is a great game, yet everytime I play it, I get really, really depressed! I can’t explain why, I really can’t but I do. But on the other hand whenever I play ISS2000 or WWF No Mercy, I cheer up, not matter what mood I’m in.
It’s inexplicable as to why certain games affect my moods. I really have no idea why they do but no matter what mood I’m in to start with, after playing certain games my mood changes... usually for the better but sometimes for the worst. It’s really weird, knowing that just playing on a specific game can influence me to the point of being extremely happy or feeling like crap.
I’m going to now try and explain why I think this happens.
Games influence every single game players life. There’s really no point in denying it, they do. It’s been talked about before on these forums about games influencing people. But why do they influence us?
Perhaps we’re all mentally unstable and just playing Doom for a bit gives us an urge to go out and blow some things head off. Maybe we sympathise with the characters in the games. Who knows?? But I can sort of guess why I an influenced so much. It’s because I sympathise with the characters.
You may think this extremely sad and pathetic. Hey, you can think that! I don’t care! But what I do care about is people that have had something happen to them in their lives. Usually for the worse.
I feel sorry for homeless people selling the Big Issue, whenever I have it on me I always pay them £1 and, believe it or not, the Big Issue is in fact quite a good publication. I feel sorry for dogs who are lost. Hell, I even feel sorry for dead flies, wasps and bees! I can’t help thinking about their families. It’s incredibly strange and maybe a little over-sensitive, but that’s just the way I am.
So, when things happen to people in games, I sympathise with them too. For example, when Mario loses Peach in Mario 64 I feel sorry for him because he was tricked. I think "How must he feel?" and "Poor little guy, he’s gotta traipse through all those levels just to get her back". I suppose it’s because I have a conscience. A rather over active one.
The atmosphere of the game also has a lot of influence over me. If something is set in a colourful and chirpy place then it will, more often and not, depress me. That I really can’t explain, but it does.
This kind of thing isn’t just limited to games though... at least not for me. In films especially I find myself reasoning with myself. When, in The Green Mile, John Corfi was executed, I couldn’t help but cry. I felt sorry for the guy, he was being executed for a murder he hadn’t committed. He was being killed for someone elses wrong doing! Sure, he didn’t have a family but what if he had? How would they have been affected?
Call me weird, strange, mental, psycho, messed up whatever, but that’s just how I am!
So, do any games affect your moods?
RBS
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Zelda is very Depressing.
I can't bear jogging through the boring Hyrule field with the aim of arriving at Kakiriko village. It's sooo depressing...
It exceeds a state of depression some times, especially if i've had a boring day.
I can't explain it, just like RBS. But when i'm on my own and my eyes focus on the telly, everything around me becomes blurry and i'm trodding a long on foot controlling Link with the Hyrule music playing. It's worse at night. I become so depressed it seems to tear me away from the real world. Walking downstairs immediately after turning the N64 off and talking to me mam is...well, weird.
I can't explain what it's like in Kakiriko Village, so dreamlike that i've almost fallen asleep at the wheel!
I can't bear jogging through the boring Hyrule field with the aim of arriving at Kakiriko village. It's sooo depressing...
It exceeds a state of depression some times, especially if i've had a boring day.
I can't explain it, just like RBS. But when i'm on my own and my eyes focus on the telly, everything around me becomes blurry and i'm trodding a long on foot controlling Link with the Hyrule music playing. It's worse at night. I become so depressed it seems to tear me away from the real world. Walking downstairs immediately after turning the N64 off and talking to me mam is...well, weird.
I can't explain what it's like in Kakiriko Village, so dreamlike that i've almost fallen asleep at the wheel!
What sometimes depresses me about old classics is when playing the opening levels. The first few times I played on them I was amazed by it but now, that game I loved so much is a bit boring now I've played through it all.
As for a games influence on your mind.
I stopped watching wrestling for a while, just before I got WWF No Mercy. I played No Mercy to death for 2 months. Then one day I watched wrestling again.
It was the Rock against the Undertaker, The Undertake whipped the Rock into the ropes. I found myself thinking "if the Rock doesn't grap those ropes then undertaker will get a free move on him" - the way it works in the game. The Rock bounced off and managed to duck the undertakers clothesline. I stood amazed. It took me a good 5 seconds that the way the game worked and real wrestling worked was different.
Another way my mind has been affected by games?
After spending 500 hours on the Gameboy filling my Pokedex with all 150 pokemon, I found myself always thinking of butterflys and butterfrees and bees as beedrills.
Again, I had to stop and think to realise what I was doing.
I know that these are only minor side effects, but what if someone less stable than myself went around shooting people for months and months, someone who's parents had trained them with a gun...
As for a games influence on your mind.
I stopped watching wrestling for a while, just before I got WWF No Mercy. I played No Mercy to death for 2 months. Then one day I watched wrestling again.
It was the Rock against the Undertaker, The Undertake whipped the Rock into the ropes. I found myself thinking "if the Rock doesn't grap those ropes then undertaker will get a free move on him" - the way it works in the game. The Rock bounced off and managed to duck the undertakers clothesline. I stood amazed. It took me a good 5 seconds that the way the game worked and real wrestling worked was different.
Another way my mind has been affected by games?
After spending 500 hours on the Gameboy filling my Pokedex with all 150 pokemon, I found myself always thinking of butterflys and butterfrees and bees as beedrills.
Again, I had to stop and think to realise what I was doing.
I know that these are only minor side effects, but what if someone less stable than myself went around shooting people for months and months, someone who's parents had trained them with a gun...
Super Gohan wrote:
Beating the crap out of a character
> seems to releive the stress and I feel much better. Also, when I am
> annoyed, it makes me play the games better as well.
******
If I'm annoyed and decide to try to lose it by playing beat em ups but I end up losing I just get more and more stressed and throw my controller around the room a bit. Then I put the level setting on easiest and beat the cr*p out of those helpless CPU players
MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Beating the crap out of a character
> seems to releive the stress and I feel much better. Also, when I am
> annoyed, it makes me play the games better as well.
******
If I'm annoyed and decide to try to lose it by playing beat em ups but I end up losing I just get more and more stressed and throw my controller around the room a bit. Then I put the level setting on easiest and beat the cr*p out of those helpless CPU players
MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Zelda's depressing...
I love Mario 64!
Games, epecially not good old ones like DK64 and Turok annoy me... I just can't get into some of them!
In general I love playing games, but there was something missing in the 64 games that I found so abundantly in the SNES librabry. Maybe it was pure gameplay... the graphics were easy to do, so they did them and concentrated on gameplay.
It's the same old graphics Vs. Gameplay maybe, but I don't think there is anything in the N64 librabry that can compare to The Secret of Mana, call me fancy or pompous, I don't care, I just prefer fun games to good looking ones....
I don't get depressed with games... I just get angry when I cannae complete games. The number of SNES and S-MD pads I got through... boy oh boy!
I only hope, that thanks to the easy of games-development for the Gamecube, we'll see some more classics from Nintendo's original gaming roots although, No Secret of Mana 2 unless we see a miracle at Spaceworld!
Game
Games, epecially not good old ones like DK64 and Turok annoy me... I just can't get into some of them!
In general I love playing games, but there was something missing in the 64 games that I found so abundantly in the SNES librabry. Maybe it was pure gameplay... the graphics were easy to do, so they did them and concentrated on gameplay.
It's the same old graphics Vs. Gameplay maybe, but I don't think there is anything in the N64 librabry that can compare to The Secret of Mana, call me fancy or pompous, I don't care, I just prefer fun games to good looking ones....
I don't get depressed with games... I just get angry when I cannae complete games. The number of SNES and S-MD pads I got through... boy oh boy!
I only hope, that thanks to the easy of games-development for the Gamecube, we'll see some more classics from Nintendo's original gaming roots although, No Secret of Mana 2 unless we see a miracle at Spaceworld!
Game
MGS was depressing.
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