Becoming Spyro.

Ever since our lecture on immersion in video games I have often reflected on how I have played video games in the past and I have taken extra caution in the way that I play games today. I remember clearly when my girl cousin and I played Gran Turismo on the PlayStation One when I was younger and my brother and boy cousin sat there laughing at us because as we turned around the corners within the space of the game our bodies literally turned outside the space of the game. This happened several times because, to us, to make the turn more effective, our physical bodies needed to also make the turn. Just the other day a friend that I live with bought the PlayStation One game Spyro and I needed to play this game - to bring back the memories from my childhood. I played this on her PS3 and the quality of the game was evidently different to what I am used to. The image was not clear and on the wide flat television screen the image came up in a square which cut off half off the screen. The image looked 2D and it felt like it was made in the 90s. I allowed myself only 30 minutes to play as much as I could but 30 minutes was not enough. When I started the game I ran around a large courtyard collecting diamonds and then I head butted some giants and blew some barrels up with fire. I'd saved the town and the mayor (which turned out to be some Teddy Bear) thanked me. Then I moved on to the next level. This consumed the majority of my time. It was a level in which I needed to use a skate board to collect 15 lizards. Half were in the air at the end of skate ramps and half were running around the courtyard. I thought "I could do this!" But that was not so. The stearing was hard on the controller and I kept bumping into things. I spent well over 30 minutes collecting about 13 lizards. But then there were the last few on the top of some roof that could only be accessed by using a ramp. I must've tried over 50 times to get onto the roof and I was determined to catch the last of the lizards. I clicked the 'x' button, I'd click it twice, I'd click it once and then hold it down on the second go. But I could not get onto the roof. I'd forgotten all about why I'd allowed myself only 30 minutes, I forgot that two other people were in the room with me, I was focused on this one task that seemed simple at first. Then it happened. I became Spyro. I pressed the buttons that would help me make the jump and then, outside the space of the game, I leaped in the air thinking that it would help me within the space of the game. But it didn't. And when it didn't I remembered that it was just a game. I wasn't a purple dragon riding around on a skate board trying to catch the last two lizards. It was just a game. At that thought I threw down the controller and left the room. And when I left the room I was fine. I complete forgot about the game and the hour that I spent playing it. But reflecting on that hour I realized that I'd forgotten about the world that I actually, physically exist in. Perhaps I was diegetically immersed in this videogame when I thought it couldn't happen to me. But it did, and it was weird. Because it was a fantasy game that really had no connection to the real life. And I still let myself get too involved in the game. Maybe I am more into videogames than I let myself realize. Weird.