Aah love. The greatest scientific, poetic and philosophical minds on this planet have at some point or another attempted to grapple with what it really is, with what it really means and what it can do to us. Shakespeare had a good crack at it in sonnet form, while Suzuki wrote two of the longest, intricate and most playable love letters imaginable with Shenmue 1 and 2.

So what do we mean when we say we love games? First we have to look at what we mean when we say we love anything. This could take some time, so the easiest parallel to draw is that of our love for our partners. This also allows me to avoid exploring further what my friends mean when they say they love Michael Hasselhoff. Phew.

What’s not to love? At least he can laugh at himself, you have to say that for the
sad old twat. He's big in Germany you know - just like moustaches.

We feel romantic love for our partners and we all love them for different reasons. There are obviously many dimensions to this thing called love, the physical, mental and emotional. I attempted to locate a site including academic and scientific research into all of these but found myself navigating the kind of territory that could lead to the F.B.I. knocking on my door and last time that happened it was a huge inconvenience to me and my family.

But I do love games, perhaps not in quite the same way as the F.B.I. may suspect, but still... When I first saw the trailer for Metal Gear Solid 2 I felt my heart race. I became highly aroused, my heart raced. I felt compelled to watch it again and again. I lied about what I was doing in case my girlfriend became suspicious or thought it a little odd that I was watching it again for the seventh time. When I finally went to bed that evening I felt distracted, my behaviour was “offish.” When I closed my eyes the darkness behind them was imbued with an odd, deep blue colour. When I slid into sleeps soft embrace I did so down a giant silver DNA Helix like a child slides down a Helter Skelter.

A Snake ‘Action’ figure – don’t tell Shewrog’s girlfriend…

So, when the game was released I had a chance and unexpectedly early meeting with it on a Thursday evening around 6pm on Oxford Street in London, in HMV. It was unexpected and I was, understandably, shocked and a little awkward - not sure how to act. Soon, however, we ended up back at my flat. We spent the next three days in bed. I sent my girlfriend away for the weekend. I communicated by text messages alone. On Sunday morning I stumbled to the toilet and looking at my hollow eye sockets in the bathroom mirror realised what I’d done. I sneaked back across the hall and looked into the bedroom through the crack between the door and it’s frame. The sheets were strewn across our bed. My clothes were in a tangle on the floor. I could only see one of my shoes. I thought that maybe the other one was on the balcony where I’d carelessly kicked it through the open doors after I’d fallen laughing on to the bed on Thursday evening. My pants hung precariously from some comics on my bedside table.

I couldn’t concentrate in work on Monday. I thought about how after a particularly long session I’d eaten pizza in bed and right after I was ready to go again. And again.

Alas the intensity of this relationship didn’t last and on Monday evening I managed to end it. The end was disappointing. It was as abrupt and unexpected as the circumstances of our meeting. It left me dazed, confused and disappointed.

Alas, it was never meant to be…

We loved hard, and we loved fast but ultimately this was a very short-lived relationship. I have subsequently revisited the game and part of me still loves it, (despite some major shortcomings) for we will always have that weekend.

It’s strange, most people will shrug off “love” for a particular song, or a soap opera, but will look askance if you say that you have been having a sporadic but nonetheless passionate and deeply rewarding relationship for over ten years with an elf called Link. Music, television, film and books all become inextricably bound up with our lives and these are inextricably bound with our lives – for good and bad.

Videogame ‘love’ is all around us – who could fail to warm to a pillow made up to resemble our favourite consoles. Cuddle up to a Dreamcast and dream of what could have been if only other people had understood her more. Nintendo released a limited edition of the SP on Valentines Day this year that closely resembled their Famicom, a machine that’s inspired worldwide devotion.

There are even places where you can attempt to date female characters from the Final Fantasy Games, a series of eleven protracted and problematic, yet apparently successful relationships. Problematic because you have your own ideas about what direction you want to take, about where you want to end up, and yet you are constantly pushed in only one direction. And also because every conversation you have with the girls lasts for eighteen hours.

We’ll always be together, together in electric dreams.

SHEWROG, July 2004.

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Some links, and why not:

www.davidhasselhoffonline.com - Do not click on the video links. You have now been warned. Any emotional trauma suffered is not the responsibility of WotR or it’s affiliates. No, really. Don’t do it.

http://nfg.2y.net/zumi/ - Ah, fluffy Dreamcast.

http://rx.sakura.ne.jp/~yuhgi//ff/ffm/ - No, we weren’t joking, you really can chat up a FFX babe.