How Come Video Games Mimic Real Life?

Video games are becoming more realistic every day! But wait, you want to ride a skateboard… and, not the real thing? What’s going on here?!

I miss the old days of video games; when I picked up my NES controller and told myself, “Today, I’m gonna jump on ants with big eyes, shoot fireballs, go through huge-ass pipes, and hope for fireworks at the end.” These were the days that we played a video game with the intention of doing completely atypical things. We invaded evil scientists’ lairs, we flew around on weird ostriches, and we fought super-fighting robots as a super-fighting robot. These days, it’s all “play the guitar!” or “do some cardio!” What the hell happened?

I have absolutely no problem with a creative gaming peripheral here and there – heck, it would be awesome to see a game that finally gets sword duels right (besides Wii Sports Resort; I wanna cut somebody’s head off with motion sensing perfection, not knock them into the water). There is a fine line, however, between “creative peripheral” and “just go and do the real thing already.” Let’s hover our oculars over some examples, shall we?

Rock Band

I really, really love Rock Band. I love the music, I love the group experience, and I love the graphics. It’s awesome, and a lot of fun. However, something dawned on me not too long ago – why don’t people just… play real instruments? I understand that the guitar peripheral in the set is not very realistic, but the drums and microphone? If you can sing or play drums on expert in Rock Band, you should look into singing or playing drums for real. I believe there are even load screens in a similar music game that detect you playing on expert and tells you, “Why don’t you pick up a real instrument?” At least I can say I learned how to play the real guitar prior to the release of any of these games. That’s right, ladies, the real guitar.

Wii Fit

Seriously. Just go to the gym, or run around the block a few times. Parents who got this for their kids are just cruel, “Aww, look at little Jimmy! He’s fake-running around!” Why are children in America fat? Because they are being told that they can exercise on a video game. While I will defend the game as being a really good yoga coach, I must say that the rest of the activities you are asked to perform should just be done for real. The jogging in the game isn’t even that good; you’re running in place! Besides, every kid who did get this game figured out how to cheat the Balance Board in order to get ridiculous score on all of the minigames.

Tony Hawk: Ride

When I saw this on display at Best Buy, my heart filled with sadness. Here, we have a skateboard deck – just a little smaller than the real thing, and it obviously has no wheels. Instead it has buttons on it. Yes, buttons. Some kid is gonna get really good at Tony Hawk: Ride, go out with a real skateboard thinking he’s all set, and then probably break a limb. I know I’ve said it before, but just go out and do the real thing! Kids, turn to your parents and say that you want to learn how to skateboard. They will make you wear nerdy helmets and pads, but it’s gonna be more fun! Adults, if you buy this game, I have only this to say: it’s a fake skateboard, and you’re an adult. I can kind of dig the fake instrument thing, but this is a fake skateboard. You can probably afford a real one, go scrape your knee.

In closing, I just want video games to focus on being completely incredible and unbelievable. Who wants to do real life things through a TV screen? Not I!

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