Playing Dead

Clive Thompson about the interesting effects death has on players of video games:

When I’m in a really intense firefight in a game, I’m a total wreck, emotionally. Sure, it feels good to vanquish my foes, but sometimes it’s just nice to get a break, and dying is — among, uh, other things — certainly a break.

Part of this has to do with the intriguing aesthetic question of precisely how the first-person-shooter represents the player after the moment of death. Multiplayer Halo online offers my personal favorite death vignettes. The instant you die, the game shifts to a third-person camera perspective and follows your body as it slumps to the ground or, more often, goes pinwheeling through the air.

This sudden switch in camera angle — from first person to third person — is, in essence, a classic out-of-body experience, of exactly the sort people describe in near-death experiences. And much like real-life near-death experiences, it tends to suffuse me with a curiously zen-like feeling. The emotional narrative goes like this: During the gameplay, I’ll be desperately fighting for my life, ducking behind pillars, firing spastically, and synaesthetically wincing each time I take gunfire. Just when I think I’m safe, I’ll turn a corner, and whoa — find myself face-to-face with another opponent who slams me with a surprise punch, killing me instantly. The final attack will give me one final jolt of amygladaic shock, and then …

… hey, I’m dead, and my body is floating through the air, and I’m watching myself just sort of tumble around lazily, like a ragdoll.

It’s amazingly peaceful.