Self-torture is not a new or shocking thing for me. As someone who occasionally listens to Meat Loaf, some would argue I am the world’s biggest sadist before even taking a look in my bedside cabinet. However, this is torture of a different kind, the kind that the American army would love to have in their arsenal. Lego. No, not walking on it, though we all know how painful that is… I mean seeing it every waking (and sleeping) moment, hearing it and even dreaming of it. As with most things, it is a purely self-inflicted condition that has no remedy other than the sweet embrace of time.
Before anyone thinks I may be a weird Lego-botherer, I shall elaborate. Lego Batman has gone where Lego Indiana Jones boldly went a few months ago and taken over my life. Though diverting and enjoyable enough including their repetitive and frustrating elements, it is the need to complete them and mop up the remaining and often faffy achievements that is the cause of my current woe. Collectibles and the need to regrind levels in order to find them are the main source of the problem. The click click click of assembling Lego items and vehicles starts to settle into my head and over the course of many hours gaming slowly wears a groove. Blinking a few times leaves a lingering trail of pink torpedo targeting arrows, and rubbing my eyes has the Riddler’s mind control beam flashing across my eyeballs.
They’re coming to get you…
After each gaming session, as levels were revisited for various achievements and collectibles, the groove deepened and the images began burning themselves into my mind. Once my eyes were too blurry to see, and the television was blissfully black, the scenes cruelly began to replay and closing my eyes only intensified them. Crawling into bed, they followed me. Click click click, bang. Ladders and canisters assembled themselves automatically in my head, the sound of dread in the dead of night is likened to that of a possessed doll dragging itself from beneath the bed with a kitchen knife. Sinking into REM sleep did nothing to save me. Freddy Krueger may have tormented Elm Street’s teens, but The Joker’s cackle and Harley Quinn’s acrobatics haunted me as the characters infected all other dreams like a plague until everything was Lego and the game could continue. Click click click click click.
Manic cackle alert, move over Janet Street Porter
The completionist in me demanded I play on and I acquiesced. Nothing less than 100% would do, nothing less than 1000 gamer points would end it. What was the matter with me? Did I want my achievement list to look untidy? An unsightly odd number where the glorious thousand should be? Didn’t I want the burst of good feeling that comes with that sort of completion? Why was I whining? They can’t hurt me, the dominant part of my brain tells the cowering gibbering one… Lego Indiana Jones faded. And for a moment the green haze clears. For days I was hearing Lego build-its, chasing the ark, shooting Nazi (sorry, ‘bad guy’) Lego men and digging up glowing artifacts, until one day, they simply weren’t there anymore. As much as I listened, they had gone and the curse had been lifted by whatever game had washed in and slowly eroded the groove.
“Balls…”
So I played on with Lego Batman and endured and triumphed and with the worst over I can allow myself to sink into the colours and sounds of Albion in Fable 2’s capable arms. Someday soon, the images of cursed Lego will fade, my dreams will be mine again, and the sounds will go. I refuse to acknowledge that Lego Star Wars is laying un-played on my shelf, its siren song ignored for now. One day though I’ll decide it’s time to torture myself again and the click click click click – like all stalking horrors, will be back.
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