Quake meets real life....
Playing games with words - an article on how novelist Christopher Brookmyre was inspired by Quake for his book "A Big Boy Did It and Ran Away". So the BBC journalist beat me to it - I read the book this summer and have been wanting to write about it for some time ;)...He has these nifty "load game" scenes where he keeps loading "Real Life" with great dissatisfaction. But in the end, his mastering of the Quake levels helps take out the Bad Guys and all ends good, even Real Life. I quote (from beginning of book where protagonist thinks of his teaching job):

"
/set skill level nightmare
/set opponent_num=30
AWAITING GAMESTATE
LOADING REAL LIFE [tm] ENGINE
LOADING MOD: ENGLISH TEACHER
LOADING SOUNDS
LOADING MAP: BURNBRAE ACADEMY[burnb.asp]
LOADING GAME MEDIA
LOADING PENCIL
LOADING RUBBER
LOADING RULER
LOADING JOTTER
LOADING BLACKBOARD
LOADING OTHELLO
LOADING LORD OF THE FLIES
LOADING ROBERT BURNS - SELECTED POEMS
LOADING WEAPONS: PUNISHMENT EXERCISE
LOADING WEAPONS: HOMEWORK ESSAY
LOADING HAZARDS: WINDOW-POLE
LOADING HAZARDS: FIRE ALARM
LOADING HAZARDS: MALEVOLENT FART ACCUSATION
LOADING OPPONENTS
AWAITING SNAPSHOT...
RAYMOND ASH HAS ENTERED THE GAME
What do you want to be when you grow up?
Not this.
/Start new game
This will abort the game in progress. Are you sure?
_Y_es/_N_o
"
# posted by Lisbeth at: 10:13