For many people video games are a form of escapism. These slices of digital art allow us to break away from the real world and enter into a virtual realm, even if only for a few hours every week. We live vicariously through the characters, often enjoying adventures that are impossible to experience in reality.
Video games have become infinitely more realistic over the decades, but they still offer a simple, stylized version of the real world we live in. These foibles often go unnoticed by gamers, but when you bring a video game into the real world the shortcuts and oddities are revealed in glaring detail.
What follows is a collection of videos showing how certain games would look when played in the real world. Some are stutteringly short, others are effortlessly epic. Some will make you laugh, others will make you laugh even harder. All will make you glad real life doesn't play out like most video games.
The Sims In Real Life
The Sims is, on the face of it, the perfect game to translate to the real world. After all, it's pitched as a simulation of real life, so this video becomes a real life simulation of a real life simulator. How very meta. There are some nice touches, such as the way food is cooked and eaten, and the completely inappropriate response to a fire breaking out.
Grand Theft Auto In Real Life
The Grand Theft Auto series has always been a source of controversy, with politicians and do-gooders claiming the obtuse violence in the games is a potentially harmful influence on adults and kids alike. Those people will absolutely love this video, which takes on many of the tropes and recreates them in the real world.
Mario Kart In Real Life
The Mario Kart series invented a genre, and remains at its pinnacle despite starring on multiple different consoles. Many have tried to better Mario Kart but all have failed, many miserably so. This guy manages it though, and in the real world too. He's a brave man to have headed out into traffic on public roads in a regular kart. And he did it while dressed as Mario too.
Minecraft In Real Life
Minecraft can rightly be classified as a phenomenon at this point in time. I don't quite understand the appeal myself, but millions of people of all ages, genders, and nationalities can, so my opinion is of no consequence. This video shows what would happen if the physics and block-building capers from Minecraft were present in the real world.
Zelda In Real Life
The Zelda games from the beautiful mind of legendary video games designer Shigeru Miyamoto are almost universally perfect. It doesn't matter how fantastical they are, there is something about Link and the supporting cast of characters that grabs people of all ages. And yet when he's planted in the real world his odd habits are revealed as insane neuroses.
Pokemon In Real Life
The Pokemon games aren't exactly based in reality, just in case you were under any illusion that they were. Yet millions of people regularly enter into this strange new world where magic animals can be caught and kept in balls. This video, which is the first episode of a continuing series, shows how bizarre some of the nuances of the games are when played out in life.
Street Fighter In Real Life
I was never a fan of hardcore 2D beat 'em ups such as Street Fighter, mainly because I absolutely sucked at them. After being owned by a snot-nosed kid who wouldn't even let me get one punch in, it was time to quit the whole genre. Perhaps it was the lack of a third dimension that threw me, which is exactly the notion that this video plays on.
Portal In Real Life
The Portal games challenge the player with a series of puzzles that can be solved with a device that creates portals between two flat surfaces. In what has to be the most well-produced video in this whole rundown, these guys explore what it would be like if the Portal Gun existed in the real world. Oh, the fun that could be had.
Goldeneye 007 In Real Life
In the days before Call Of Duty conquered the world of video games, first-person shooters weren't very revered. But Goldeneye 007 on the Nintendo 64 managed to bring the genre to a new generation of gamers, myself included. It was a fantastic game, but one level was particularly frustrating. This video sees that level recreated in the real world, with Natalya's woeful AI making the transition intact.
Call Of Duty In Real Life
It has become an annual tradition for many gamers to buy the latest Call Of Duty title, ignore the campaign entirely, and immediately head online to shoot other like-minded individuals. No one ever thinks of the endless casualties piling up in the virtual realm though. This video gives us a small insight into their sad, fatalistic existences.
Conclusions
This is just a small selection of the videos depicting games in real life that are available to watch on YouTube and beyond. In fact, many of the channels responsible for these videos have made more dedicated to other games. Explore the channels and let us know of any you find out there on the InterWebs.
Alternatively just let us know your thoughts on video games in the comments section below. Do you prefer video games that are grounded in reality? Is there a particular game or franchise you'd love or hate to either visit or inhabit full-time? Do you think the next-gen consoles -- PS4, Xbox One, and Wii U -- will up the realism ante?
Image Credit: Florida Supercon