If you’re like me, you play a lot of video games and just might have a game or two baked into your memory of major historical events. I will always associate election night in 2008, for example, not just with Barack Obama’s historic election as America’s first black president but as the night I had to choose how to end Fable II. I blogged about it back then. If you read what I wrote, you’ll be reading Fable II spoilers, so be careful!
I’d voted that morning and then was trying to finish Fable II that night, ultimately having to pause it just before the game’s final decision, since I had to see whether Obama or McCain was going to win. Fable II may have been a fantasy game, but it was also very much a game of that election. The game was only a couple of weeks old and it had an odd online system that allowed the icons of other players to float through your game world, representing the locations of those other players in their version of the Fable II adventure. Players’ Xbox 360 profile icons would appear above their heads. That year, Microsoft let people use Obama and McCain icons, so you’d see little Obama or McCain logos floating through Fable II‘s medieval world. Kind of weird!
By the way, looking back at that election night 2008 blog post I wrote, I can’t believe Mirror’s Edge was four years ago.
I live in New York City, but, two years later, when Republicans took back the House, I was in Washington DC. I’d taken a train down there the night before so I could cover the oral arguments for and against violent video games in the US Supreme Court on Election Day. Reporters aren’t allowed to use electronics in the courtroom. I had to wait until the arguments were over and then rush outside to file my story about it over the phone to then-editor-in-chief Brian Crecente. Then I took the train back to New York and voted.
I haven’t played any games today and I haven’t attended any video game court cases in the last 24 hours, so I don’t think Election 2012 will be tied to any memories of any games.
What about you? Are any of the big elections filled with gaming memories for you?
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