> I always imagine, if those little pixelated game characters had little private lives, they'd be in there thinking "Oh DAMN, I'm being played by that MORON again who gets me killed fourteen times a minute and they haven't even worked out how to get off level one yet."
>
> I always picture them thinking as I make them run around the screen, "NO, YOU IDIOT! Not THERE! Make me go up there! The secret area is up there! (Jeez, I should have taken that job in that other game.) Aaargh, now this dork is running me straight into the laser beams again!"
>
> I picture the goodguys and badguys getting together after the game to gripe about the loser who rented them this week. "Well, that was even worse than that eight-year-old player last Christmas. At least THAT one didn't keep making me walk into walls by accident. My face hurts." "You think YOU've got problems Snake, you should try being a guard. I had to keep a straight face and pretend not to notice you when they bumped you downstairs in the cardboard box while my back was turned." "Yeah, at least you get to run around the whole game. Me, I just wait in this room all day staring at the wall until this moron runs you in there and I mow you down with a machine gun. AGAIN." "I guess it could be worse. I met Abe from Abe's Oddyssey at a party once and he said this player makes him jump into meat saws for fun, to hear the noise he makes."

And think about poor Mario. I mean, he goes around, jumping on turtle, breaking bricks with his head, and shooting fireballs from his hands. And you can't forget all those guys from first-person shooters either. They go around shooting everthing, getting shot at, and for what? Just so they can go on to the next level to fight even bigger and badder monsters.

Mar "Three posts?!? What's wrong with me???" vin