My apartment is relatively compact, meaning the kitchen, dining room, living room and study all occupy the same room. What this means is, I don’t have the luxury of a basement “man cave” where I can stash all my videogame consoles and musical instruments. What this means is, my wife frequently finds herself in the room with me while I’m playing videogames. And that probably wouldn’t be such a bad thing—it’s easy enough to plug in headphones, which provide a better sound experience anyway—but I have this one compulsion that drives her crazy.
Anytime something even remotely awesome happens in a game I’m playing, I spin around in my chair and plead with Summer to sprint over and watch whatever is happening onscreen. The only problem is that the games I enjoy playing involve a string of awesome moments happening in rapid succession. Like a series of wired-together C4 base charges attached to the bottom of my brain stem. Also really good videogames tend to trigger my more annoying, overenthusiastic impulses.
A beautifully rendered cutscene begins to play: “Holy…oh my…Summer, you’ve gotta see this cutscene. Look at how well that guy’s hair is modeled. Each strand appears to be powered by its own custom-built physics engine. Hey, you’re not even looking!”
A boss fight: “Hey, Summer! This boss is crazy! He’s got like tentacles coming out of his face! Check this out!”