# Things that video games do to you **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [January 19, 2014, 6:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-video-games-do-to-you/679194 "2014-01-19T06:21:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![thelurkinghorror](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7c8e57/32.png) [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2014, 8:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-video-games-do-to-you/679194/41 "2014-01-21T08:40:38Z")
> [@Sleel](#): > > Mirror’s Edge makes me want to climb things and jump over obstacles. Okay, makes me want to do so even more than usual. I’ll start mentally mapping routes to roofs as I’m walking. I live in the Tokyo area, so climbing up the outside of buildings is actually quite feasible in many places. > > The Assassin’s Creed games don’t help. > > The type of combat in Splinter Cell, Conviction fit in a little too well with my type of martial arts and tactical thinking. I googled, and there is a Tokyo Parkour group at [meetup.com](http://meetup.com). Expect to bring superhuman muscles, I’m sure. ---
**Author:** ![zoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zoid/32/336_2.png) [@zoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zoid)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2014, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-video-games-do-to-you/679194/42 "2014-01-21T18:26:52Z")
> [@Attack\_from\_the\_3rd\_dimension](#): > > Why. I changed careers. It’s not because I got myself packed in the back of the truck and couldn’t get out or anything. I just like the phrase. How often do you hear “When I was an oceanographer…” ---
**Author:** ![BrianJ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/54ee81/32.png) [@BrianJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrianJ)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2014, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-video-games-do-to-you/679194/43 "2014-01-21T18:59:23Z")
Playing everquest it ocurred to me how great some of this would be in real ife. test today? Anyone got KEI? Bully chasing you? Run for the zone in! ---
**Author:** ![Sitnam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2014, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-video-games-do-to-you/679194/44 "2014-01-21T19:01:07Z")
I used to play Call of Duty a lot and then found myself looking of enemy air assets while driving. ---
**Author:** ![Sitnam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2014, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-video-games-do-to-you/679194/45 "2014-01-21T19:04:36Z")
I think I drive more recklessly after playing GTA. ---
**Author:** ![Sicks\_Ate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/258eb7/32.png) [@Sicks\_Ate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sicks_Ate)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2014, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-video-games-do-to-you/679194/46 "2014-01-21T19:05:04Z")
> [@dasmili](#): > > Whenever I’ve been playing Assassin’s Creed a lot, I start trying to figure out how I’d scale every building I walk past. Yep, when Tomb Raider first came out I’d find myself automatically categorizing distances between things as “Make the jump”, “Make the jump with a grab”, or “Can’t make the jump”. ---
**Author:** ![hiebram](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/5fc32e/32.png) [@hiebram](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hiebram)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2014, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-video-games-do-to-you/679194/47 "2014-01-21T19:14:38Z")
Driver and GTA-style games…any time you’re driving, seeing a cop car makes you instinctively want to floor it. I have also looked for ctrl+z after making a bonehead move IRL. ---
**Author:** ![Yllaria](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yllaria/32/3452_2.png) [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2014, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-video-games-do-to-you/679194/48 "2014-01-21T20:31:15Z")
> [@Attack\_from\_the\_3rd\_dimension](#): > > . . . On one trip we spent a lot of time playing a 3D tetris game while we were at sea. When we packed for the return trip, the U-Haul was much more efficiently packed, with about a quarter of it’s volume free on the return trip. Nice. A few years ago, when I was playing WOW semi-regularly, my Aunt got sick and I had to make multiple trips to Redding (200 miles) while trying to keep up with things at work and home. About the fifth trip, I found myself thinking “shouldn’t I have found the flight point by now?” ---
**Author:** ![Don\_t\_Panic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/don_t_panic/32/398_2.png) [@Don\_t\_Panic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_t_Panic)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2014, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-video-games-do-to-you/679194/49 "2014-01-21T22:28:13Z")
> [@levdrakon](#): > > You can make a Sim happy by having him take care of the basics, like cleaning the toilet, doing dishes, etc. That’ works in real life too. If I’m feeling down it helps sometimes to bang out some chores and at least bring a little order to my immediate surroundings. That doesn’t work on me at all. Hiring a maid, however, would make me extremely happy. There is something else I’ve picked up, though: A Sim can have the trait “hates the outside”, which means that every time they leave the house, they get in a bad mood because they’re “plagued by nature”. Thing is, every time they go back inside, they get lifetime happiness points. A trick for earning loads of happiness points if your Sim has this trait, is to repeatedly leave the house for just a second and go back in. Now, the thing is, I have this trait in real life, and it works on me too! Which means that I have found the key to a life of happiness: Go out for quick walks every now and then, just for that happy feeling of getting back home. ---
**Author:** ![Geek\_Mecha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/ecae2f/32.png) [@Geek\_Mecha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Geek_Mecha)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2014, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-video-games-do-to-you/679194/50 "2014-01-21T22:53:40Z")
Final Fantasy XI made me wish I had a Moogle in my mog house (apartment). I used to spend a lot of my Grand Theft Auto time basically playing Crazy Taxi. I’d hijack some poor bastard taxi driver’s cab and then pick up all his customers and barely get them alive to their destinations. Now whenever I go to LAX and see the line of taxis outside the terminal, I feel that impulse again. I don’t even drive IRL. In WoW, I’ve played a rogue since 2006 or so, and most of that time I’ve been in stealth. Several times a year, I have dreams where I’m me, but stealthed like my rogue. I also have spammed my Pickpocket macro while people-watching at the mall. I’m also working on 60 Exalted reputations, and have in the real world wondered if I’m Exalted with Ralph’s or Rite Aid or various other “factions” I often do business with. Twice now, I’ve gone to the zoo or aquarium and wondered what loot the animals there would drop. ---
**Author:** ![Attack\_from\_the\_3rd\_dimension](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b38774/32.png) [@Attack\_from\_the\_3rd\_dimension](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Attack_from_the_3rd_dimension)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2014, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-video-games-do-to-you/679194/51 "2014-01-22T01:42:43Z")
> [@hiebram](#): > > Driver and GTA-style games…any time you’re driving, seeing a cop car makes you instinctively want to floor it. > > I have also looked for ctrl+z after making a bonehead move IRL. Parked cop cars want to be stolen. ---
**Author:** ![Hoopy\_Frood](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hoopy_frood/32/8452_2.png) [@Hoopy\_Frood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hoopy_Frood)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2014, 5:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-video-games-do-to-you/679194/52 "2014-01-22T05:51:34Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > There used to be a coin-operated game where your character, a cook, had to climb up and down ladders and walk over burger “parts” so they’d drop onto each other and make burgers. The game was “Burger Time”. The protagonist was “Peter Pepper”. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-video-games-do-to-you/679194.md?page=2)