Nov 06, 6:05 pm
My mother always said I lived in a fantasy world, never seeming to be really a part of what was going on around me. I had school reports that said I would be a brilliant student if only I would stop staring out the window as if off in some fantasy of my own making. That was all a long time ago though. As I stood the other day looking out of a hotel room window high about a bustling city I remembered a time when I could have watched below me and made up stories about people for hours without the real world and my own responsibilities and duties ever encroaching on my thoughts. These days I find it hard not to be drawn back to what I ‘should’ be doing. I stood at that window for a minute or so before writing a mental checklist of what I needed to get done that day and then went to the bathroom and rearranged my toiletries. Real life has a terrible way of chipping away at our inner life as we get older.
“When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things”
One of the great things about gaming is its ability to draw us back to a world of fantasy and to hold us there, freeing us from the shackles of duty. To my mind nothing does this better than High Fantasy. I’ve been playing Eye of Judgement on the PS3. Its swords and sorcery setting combined with the old school Collectable Card Game paraphernalia is an absolute joy. The combo of this with the PS3’s Eye camera is excellent. It’s just like the good old days of my youth but bolstered by advanced technology!
When I’ve been able to tear myself away from the cards I’ve been enjoying the extreme beauty and gentle storyline of Eternal Sonata on the 360. Never has a game so impressed me graphically. More than that, the characters and bizarre fantasy about Chopin dreaming up this whole world fire the imagination brilliantly.
I may have grown up and no longer live the fantasy worlds I inhabited in childhood, but gaming has certainly spared me some of the weight of the real world from my shoulders. And whenever I find myself making mental checklists and reorganising sock drawers I know that at least some part of my day will be spent in a fantasy world.
“When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child” but “when I became a man, I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.”
