Doom 3 should have a warning label for people with heart conditions...

And I'm not the only one who thinks so. Jim Lileks had this to say about his experience:

...I turned all the lights off. I put on the headphones. I was down in a dark corridor, hearing the screams of the Marines on the communications systems, the bangs on the wall, the groan of bending metal; I had my shotgun. I stepped towards the stairs, looking up at the shadows swinging on the wall, expecting to see some hellspawn feasting on the entrails of a scientist, when the door opened and out came the zombies. I fell back, crouched, pressed into a recess, waiting, waiting, waiting –

All the while, unbeknownst to me, Gnat had entered my room. She came up behind me and grabbed my headphones and ripped them off my head, and ladies and gentlemen: I jumped 20 feet and cried out the Name of Our Savior with such force that plaster wafted from the beams above.

So is Doom 3 scary?

Why yes. Yes, it is.

See, kids! I'm not the only one who did that. Well, okay, so I was playing it on my Xbox and in the middle of the living room and it was the middle of the day. But still.... ;)

Gaming as a normal guy...

Our friends over at Websnark are talking about pen-and-paper RPG's today, and this one paragraph juxtaposed with the arrival of my first Paranoia XP book caused me to snarf tea all over my keyboard:

I'm reminded, tangentially, of the old White Wolf jokes. The ones White Wolf developers are sick to God of hearing, I would add. The jokes that they should come out with a Role Playing Game called "Guy: The Slacking," about the one guy in the World of Darkness who isn't any kind of unusual being, isn't under the influence of some Cabal, isn't the cornerstone of some aspect of horrible reality... he's just this guy trying to make a living without noticing that there's packs of mages and werewolves and mummies and sh#t in the streets." ...Websnark, April 4, 2005 comic-book cussing added

I would SO play that.

Sometimes people forget that not all games are full of super-heros and sword-slingers. There are quite a few games out there where your character is a normal guy, just trying to get things done. Deadlands, Space 1889, AgentHero, Call of Cthulu, and many others take a real guy (or at least MOSTLY real guy) out for a spin.

I don't recommend you play any of these games with a new group, or one that's not really in tune, though. A lot of the silly nonsense that you can get away with when everyone's Super will get everyone killed in a game like this, and it can bring hard feelings.

If you get your kicks of having Phenomenal Cosmic Power, this stuff isn't for you. If you want to really take a walk around an mulberry bush a little closer to home, it can be a good challenge. Maybe your gang has begun feeling like they've been there, done that and burnt the t-shirt. Instead of going more powerful, give less a try.