Shoot to Kill

Thanks to Houman I learned how to shoot both hoops and people last night. The Xbox 360 is a sleek machine with wireless controllers and amazing graphics.

I have no skills on the court and even less with a bulbous controller with 20 buttons in my hands, but after a few minutes of basic training, I did alright. He beat me about 47 - 19. He played the Heat and I played the Knicks.

I couldn't believe the graphics. Sweat drips off these men. The sound absolutely envelopes you into the arena complete with fans, players, coaches, and dancing girls.

The swish of the players shorts looked like material. I was gawking the whole time and perhaps stating the obvious.

For me it's been quite awhile since I have really played these new game consoles. I left the field after Colecovision. Smurf was my game. I ROCKED that game.

After a few games we switched to some Anti-terrorist game where I learned how to duck, cover, switch arms, and shoot to kill.

There was a time when I would cry at this mimicking of violence in the world.
After some fish and chips and being mezmorized by how the composite images were sewn together for a first-person experience, I let that go and engaged. I became a well-shaven white dude with blue eyes dressed in fatigues. I was crouching among cars and walls and whatever to duck from an enemy who did not shy from shooting at me or throwing grenades at me.

And this is no game where you do over or have endless lives. Your vision gets blurry when you've been hit. You see red and your life is over if you get a fatal wound.
The controller jumps with the kickback of the gun. You have night vision goggles for when a smoke bomb is thrown to confuse your vision.

Imagine if Digiscents iSmell were still around?

You'd get the scent of sulphur with every explosion and the wet irony smell of blood as you defended your life against the sniper who was waiting til the last moment to end your story.

I got seriously hooked in.

No remorse. No thinking about Somalia. No thinking about my zits or how fat I am or that I have never had a New Years Eve date.

I was skulking around with my teammate Houman in search of the bad guys. And we had to be each others' backs, as we are in real life. Only with the Xbox, when I wasn't paying attention, I was done.