Letters to the Editor

The Fiction Issue #2

In response to "The Game Room" from The Escapist Forum: Instead of partaking in the drinking and promiscuous sex that most freshman were, I spent my time in the dorm room alone playing Civilization 2, smoking clove cigarettes and listening to The Cure.

Damn, that was me, too. Except no cigarettes (clove or otherwise) and I listened to an assortment of mostly terrible heavy-metal. But the Civ 2 was the center, the single greatest contributor to my abysmal social life. Forget nerds-vs.-jocks, it was entirely Civilization 2 vs. Reality and the Outside World and Everything Else That Has Ever Been.

Regarding the illicit drug use... um, what? The only drugs mentioned in this article are tobacco and alcohol. A person is described as becoming a "gaming junkie" by playing Mario Cart, but I'm pretty sure that's both an exaggeration and quite legal. Could someone please point me to the part of the article that glorifies herion addiction? I didn't see that.

- Execudork

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In response to "Game and Watch" from The Escapist Forum: I must disagree with the original poster. There exists a fundamental problem with televising computer gaming - the games which are televised at the moment are extremely dull to watch, and the games which I feel that it would be interesting to televise already have real-life analogues which are far more exciting - sports games, particularly motor racing.

Part of the problem, as I see it, is that lack of absorption into the fabric of the game itself. There are no analogues in computer gaming to being at a sports stadium, with the rain pelting down, the wind battering your face and watching your favourite team play, or to the visceral thrills of being at the likes of the Circuit de la Sarthe or the Daytona International Speedway, hearing the vicious twelve-cylinder roars of a prototype sports car thundering off the stands, smelling the odours of rubber and burning fuel, watching the brakes glow as they pass through the corners in the night.

- RAKtheUndead

A game like Counterstrike does not lend itself well to being televised, but other games like Unreal and Team Fortress tend to be much more frenetic games that can be very exciting to watch, especially between two skilled teams. Perhaps this is because in itself, dying has little consequence, and so the players can take more bold risks, but at the same time, dying at a crucial moment can alter the entire game's flow.

- Crusnik