“Sometimes I feel guilty about playing games: I’m busy, I’ve got kids, always working, and yet I manage to squeeze in hours and hours of gaming,” reflects Peter Serafinowicz, comedian and console addict, who has lent his voice to games such as Dark Souls II and LittleBigPlanet 3. “But then I don’t watch football, I don’t go out drinking. I have quite a boring life, really. So you’re allowed something, aren’t you? I don’t want to call it a vice…” Indeed, video games are not a vice but a character-building asset in modern life, as Serafinowicz and Martin will attest…
Computer games give you your fondest childhood memories
Peter Serafinowicz: I remember [early video game] Spacewar. You had to manoeuvre these little triangular ships around space and try to shoot each other. I was totally enthralled by these little dots. I thought it was the most exciting thing ever.
Felix Martin: The aesthetics of those early machines were great – the rubber keys, even the pungent blue packaging, which was probably full of carcinogens. The Atari 800 is still the most beautiful computer I’ve ever seen. There was such a build-up to playing early computer games – the loading of the cassette – that it felt ceremonial. Even getting the game started was a magical thing.
Games are about the journey, not the destination (which is usually death)
PS: Games such as Bloodborne and Dark Souls are poetic experiences, in which you piece things together as you go along. It’s not about “winning”.
FM: Yeah, even when they’re unrelentingly punishing and full of people who are utterly horrible to you, on some level they’re a fun way to demonstrate the power of your own brain, your muscle memory.
Camaraderie is important if you don’t want to end up as a pool of blood and organs
FM: I always had to share with my older brother when I was a kid; my allotted task was to press one key. There was a game called Commando: he would do all the movements and the hard bits and I would just repetitively press the fire button.
PS: In Dark Souls, you have 15 or 20 different gestures like waving, bowing, pointing. This etiquette has developed – if someone comes into your world, you bow before you start fighting them – and if you jump the gun and start hitting them before that, it’s considered very poor form.
FM: You can help other people as well. In Bloodborne, you have a bell you can ring and other people can respond to that if you’re in a tight spot. It’s very cooperative.
PS: You feel a real friendship with these people for those moments in which you’re fighting together.
Games actually teach you to do proper, grown-up life skills
FM: Last year, as well as gaming I was also learning to drive, and I found many parallels in the way your mind and body fuse these skills. It accrues over time the more you do something.
PS: I got Deus Ex when I was 15; it’s set in a futuristic dystopia. Funny, it’s the only video game that’s been set in a nightmarish dystopia ever, I’d like to see another one… Anyway, you’re hiding in a building and to get out you have to get past all these robot guards. And depending on how you wanted to play it you could sneak past them, take each one down one by one; you have all these different tools at your disposal. So it’s creative, it’s problem solving.
Games help you to ‘monotask’
PS: There ought to be a backlash to multi-tasking. Do the task in hand.
FM: Yes, that’s the beauty of the video game world – that you are immersed in a single experience.
PS: I played a game called Enchanter when I was a kid. I remember a friend coming round during the holidays for a few hours but I was so obsessed with the game I had no idea he was there. He was very hurt; he thought it was a reflection on him but it wasn’t, it was just the game being so utterly compelling.
Computer games are a bona fide art form
FM: I like any art form that’s full of atmosphere, that’s immersive, well written, well-designed. I don’t see a distinction between a good film, piece of music or video game.
PS: I’m in Dark Souls II as an actor. I play a character and I do all the exertion noises – all those “URRGHH!!” or “ARRGGH!”s – but I still play the game, and I always forget I’m part of it until I get hit and hear myself grunting or screaming.
Your gaming prowess will impress your peers… er, actually, scrap that
FM: There’s a game called Alien: Isolation, based on the movie franchise, and one of the things you find yourself doing is hiding in cupboards quite a lot, looking through a crack in the door and this can go on for some time. My girlfriend would occasionally walk in and see me doing this and being, like: “What the fuck are you doing?”
PS: I was so excited to do this job [voiceover for Dark Souls II], I turned up in this black T-shirt that says “YOU DIED”, which happens when you die in Dark Souls. I walked into the studio – the writer and director were there – and said: “Hey, everybody!” No one mentioned it at all. I just thought: “What the fuck are you doing, you idiot?”
Peter Serafinowicz directed the Hot Chip videos Don’t Deny Your Heart, I Feel Better and Night And Day
