I'm Dead Inside, They Say

"You just can't get into games as much as other people. You have to think about them like a reviewer."

My brother told me this during a discussion we had about Dead Space. I told him that the sequel had only spooked me once in my brief time with it, so he thought that it was less scary, not having played it himself. I then told him that the first Dead Space didn't scare me either, and he gave me an incredulous look. There was no way I could sit through Dead Space without a jump, a yelp, or a quiver. I was acting tough, the told me. Then, when I insisted, he spoke the above line.

I refuted him, obviously. Just because I was a "reviewer" didn't mean that I couldn't immerse myself as much as other people. Dead Space just didn't scare me. Like an employee at a haunted house, I could walk the claustrophobic halls of the USG Ishimura without wondering what would happen next. I knew what was going to happen. I was going to get attacked by a monster that surprised me. And in Dead Space's case, I'd shoot its limbs off mercilessly. I could take any monster thrown at me. When the spooks busted through the vent, I didn't jump. My heart didn't stop. I'm always expecting the critters, so instead of yelling in surprise, I'm acting like the monster was late to its appointment with my gun.

You could chalk it up to Dead Space's player empowerment, but that's not why. I've played my share of actual survival horror games, the ones that are scary in part because of their poor controls, and they don't scare me either. This hallucination I'm experiencing may look like a hideous nurse, but the worst thing it can do is kill me. Which would send me back the save point, wasting the time and progress I'd made since I saved. That doesn't make me fearful -- it makes me groan. The same thing applies to raising the stakes and making the game a rogue-like.

I'm not pulling a macho act, like my brother suggests. This applies to other emotions as well. A game has never made me cry. They've made laugh, but never to point that my gut would begin to hurt. I smirk and think the joke was clever, most of the time. And I can admit to having been afraid of them before. I couldn't be in the same room as Resident Evil when I was a kid, but that's par for the course. I used to not watch horror movies because of the nightmares they produced; now I don't watch them because of the time they'd waste. (Campy stuff's still fine, though.)

And I don't think this has anything to do with my status as a (amateur) critic either. Sure, I do tend to think in analytical terms, but only during downtime, when I'm looking for at nonevents in the environment. I make assessments. But when a "moment" happens, that's what's on my mind. When I like a game, I'm sitting there thinking to myself "This is enjoyable. I am enjoying this." I'm caught up in the moment. If I took the robotic approach my brother insists I'm taking, everything would feel drab and boring.

Maybe this is why games whose goals are to make you "feel" something don't do much for me. I can admire what they're doing, but I can't get caught up in it. In that sense, I guess I am a robot. There's often a forcefulness, a pushy overtone that I feel is trying to manipulate me, and once I go down that train of thought, my suspension of disbelief is gone. Hopefully that doesn't end up hurting my ability to enjoy things down the road, like I'm enjoying Dead Space 2 right now.