WARNING: GAMES WILL MAKE YOU CRAZY. NOT MILDLY CRAZY. BUT BLOWING AIR THROUGH YOUR LIPS AND MAKING BUH-BUH-BUH NOISES CRAZY.
Fresh from letting us all know about the insanity of ex-Nintendo CEOs, Wired warns us not to play Katamari Damacy TOO much, or we’ll assume life is actually a PS2 controller.
“I was driving down Venice Boulevard,” recalled her husband, Dan Kitchens, “and Kozy reached over and grabbed the steering wheel and for a moment was trying to yank it to the right…. (Then) she let go, but kept staring out her window, and then looked back at me kind of stunned and said, ‘Sorry. I thought we could pick up that mailbox we just passed.'”
While motorists and pedestrians shouldn’t worry too much about rogue Katamari Damacy players, Kozy Kitchens’ experience with having a difficult time separating her real-life consciousness from that of her game playing is all too common among hard-core gamers. It’s so common, in fact, that game publishers might want to consider warning their customers that they may soon be unable to tell the difference between the game and reality.
But wait – not only can you get Reefer Madness from playing video games… you can even get a contact high!
“The weird thing was that last night in my half-sleep, half-awake haze, I thought I was playing Katamari Damacy, too, and I kept trying to roll Kozy up in my ball,” said Dan Kitchens. “I think I got this just from watching Kozy play the game for hours.”
So, I’m wondering a couple of things. First off, is Kozy Kitchens a real name? I mean, come on. I’m pretty certain that’s the brand name for a pudding. Less important, did anyone at Wired actually sit back and, in a moment of silent reverie, note “You know, I’m pretty sure the people who were interviewed for this story, not to mention the person who reported it, are complete crack monkeys. I mean, if someone plays a game where you roll continents up into a huge ball, and that somehow spills over into reality, hey, they may not have a clear definition of the whole ‘reality’ (waggling fingers) concept to begin with. Maybe we should write about something new! I know, top ten things that will bring Cyberspace to your skull jack in six months! Get me rewrite!” Because, well, I completely lost my train of thought. No, actually, I thought I was invading Russia again. Damn it, I HATE when that happens.
Or maybe, Wired wrote a purposefully wacky story beyond the realms of sanity to get credulous bloggers to link to it thus driving up revenue? Nah. Now I’m REALLY living in video game land. Undo! Undo!
“I’ve been using the computer for so long, and command-Z works for undo in all the software programs,” Hoffman said. “So whenever I find something in my life that I want to undo, I reach for the command-Z keys and I find it weird that it doesn’t work.”
Oh, wait.