Something brought up by the article below – in which the way gaming causes us to change our behaviour in the real world is discussed – is quite how brilliant that stuff actually is. It’s the same thrill you can get from watching a superhero film, or being inspired by a character in a book. Those bizarre, often hilarious moments in life, when you’re taken back to a gaming experience. I think they deserve celebrating, so let’s all do that below.

I think the most distinctive example for me would be after playing Thief 2 at university. Spending long evenings in the pitch black, skulking around the medieval city streets, I became well-attuned to avoiding the light, and spotting potential routes across building tops. Such that as I walked through the equally life-threatening streets of Stoke On Trent I would do the same, automatically evading street lights, and scanning my eyes across the university buildings to work out the best imaginary route.

It’s essentially playing. As in, how kids play. Your imagination laid on top of the reality around you. It’s not an inability to distinguish between reality and fantasy. Were that the case we’d all be dead by now. It’s something fun.

My about-to-be-wife gets very annoyed with me each time I see a giant red container or radio tower with red and white stripes across it, and I loudly declare (usually while she’s talking about something sensible) that I have to destroy them. I don’t really plan to destroy them. But a part of my brain trained by Just Cause 2 starts looking for the rocket launchers. I don’t really start looking for the rocket launchers.

So what about you? Which games have augmented your real life in such ways?