Wednesday, 26 November 2014

Life doesn't imitate art, it imitates bad television

Van Hemlock tweeted:

https://twitter.com/vanhemlock/status/537566278119333888

prompting happy reminiscences of playing at least three of those on an 8086 PC with 640k of RAM (upgraded from 512k) and a mono CGA screen capable of four amazing shades of grey, while being slightly jealous of the staggering nigh-photorealistic (in comparison) graphics of Shadow of the Beast on the Amiga. Ah, happy times. It wasn’t all fun and games, though; the evil menace of “space invaders” had already been recognised in The House of Commons as far back as 1981 as causing young people to resort to theft, blackmail and vice to satisfy their addiction, and this new generation of increasingly sophisticated games prompted further worries, as we can see from this editorial from the September 19th 1989 issue of The Daily Comet:

Video “Games” Spark Copycat Fears

For too long has the youth of our nation been bewitched by the malevolent glowing screen of “television”, breeding a generation of stoop-shouldered square-eyed troglodytes unsuited to healthy British pursuits such as hiking, taking cold showers and planting flags in random bits of the world claiming them for the Queen.  Society must now take action against a yet more insidious threat presented upon those screens, so-called video “games”. Of course televisual and cinematic entertainments have, in the past, prompted some to emulate the activities they see, but where’s the harm in a child dressing as a penguin and trying to carry a bucket of water over a slippery roundabout? Indeed beneficial role models can be presented to instil advantageous values, such as machine-gunning Huns by the score. The interactive nature of these new “games”, though, blur the lines between reality and the wicked depravities depicted therein such that a naive and vulnerable youth can barely tell the difference. Teacher Clem Fandango relates a cautionary tale of Form 3b, carefree children like any other until they came under the sway of a new game called Populous. “They got hold of a load of shovels and started digging up parts of the playground, using the earth to fill in and raise up other sections, completely flattening it on top”, said Fandango. “Apparently it was something to do with being ready in case someone sent a flood upon them; I think they might have been paying a bit too much attention to Michael Fish.”

Parent Ken Suggestion is also worried for his son Neville. “He used to be such a normal boy, hanging around street corners and beating up younger children to steal their lunch money, then he started playing this Sim City. Now all he does is sketch outlines for ideal town layouts with a balance of residential, commercial and industrial zones, and grapples with setting a tax rate low enough to stimulate growth while still raising enough money to fund pubic improvement works. I’m worried that we’re raising a generation of… urban planners.”

Most dangerous of all, though, is a part of the newfangled Microsoft Windows 3, which is going to be released next year but we’ll just ignore that inconvenient bit of chronology. Minesweeper may seem like an innocent puzzle game, but for quantity surveyor Duncan Clench it proved anything but. “My wife Jane just kept playing” said Clench, “hours every day, increasing the difficulty level, until it simply wasn’t enough. One night I woke up and went to get a glass of water only to discover the kitchen had been flooded, and an irregular pattern of Type H Mark II mines had been laid. Of course it was quite straightforward to negotiate those, being simple contact mines, but I was woken the next day by the drone of a Heinkel He 111 dropping a Luftmine B fitted with combination magnetic/acoustic detonator, a much more difficult prospect.”

“Honestly” he continued “it hasn’t been this difficult getting to work since she watched Knightmare, installed those giant circular saw blades in the hall and made me wear that stupid helmet…”

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