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Harry's hot takes: How to experience your favourite videogames in the real world

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Harry's hot takes: How to experience your favourite videogames in the real world
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| Crossy Road
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If you play video games, there's a very good chance that your knowledge of the outside world is a stunted tree. You've likely never felt the wind on your face, or run through corn fields laughing at the care free nature of life with your friends.

In case you're wondering, friends in real life are a lot like friends on your friends list but real and better and they can buy you drinks when you've run out of money instead of just saying things like haha GG mate over and over and over.

So in the spirit of expanding horizons and showing people aspects of life they might be missing out on because of their hobbies, this week's hot take is going to look at ways you can get out and about but still imagine you're playing your favourite games.

Also, if you feel offended or attacked by the introduction to this article, then tough. As ever, I'm just telling the truth. And if that truth has cut you to the bone, that means I'm doing well. You can't change the world before you change yourself, so let me change yourself for you.

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Pokemon

Animals are like the real world versions of Pokemon. They're little creatures that are alive, and the places we live are literally full of them. Look out of the window right now and there's a very good chance that you can see at least one animal.

Now, real animals aren't all that into getting captured in dimension-defying balls and pitted against one another in life-or-death brawls. And not that many of them can fire lightning out of their hands or send things to sleep with powders they create. But they're not rubbish.

And they're not rubbish because a lot of animals are warm and nice and fuzzy and it's good to let them lick your face. If you want to try and trap them, I'd suggest cutting a football in half, making some sort of hinge, and then tossing that in their general direction. It won't work, but it'll be funny to see you try.

Skyrim

There are two different kinds of outside in the real world. There's the city outside, which is where they have shops and pigeons and knife crime. Then there's the county outside, which is basically like medieval times but everyone has a shotgun.

I think I've played Skyrim for all of ten minutes, but if I remember rightly it's about wandering around in the hills, finding people with funny accents who live in hovels, and then smashing their faces in with an axe.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but that's essentially a weekend break in the cotswolds. You probably won't even have to take your own axe, because in the country outside axes are just laying about all over the place. You can't move for axes out there.

Grand Theft Auto

Just go to Swindon.

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Clash Royale

The only way to do Clash Royale justice would be to train a giant pig to be your steed, then to use that pig to storm Buckingham Palace. Once inside you'd have to smack the queen in the face over and over while she fired one of her ceremonial cannons at you.

I'm going to imagine that the queen has ceremonial cannons, since if she doesn't this whole escapade would just be an awful crime and you'd almost certainly end up in jail for a very long time. And I dread to think what would happen to your trained pig.

Saints Row

Swindon.

Crossy Road

There are lots of roads in places other than your house. I can hear at least 3 going about their roady business right now. Some of them are simple to cross, others are multi-laned death traps where one wrong move will spell your death.

In the videogame world what I just described is called progression. Things get more and more difficult and the player must use all of their skills to overcome the challenges that are being placed in front of them.

I guess what I'm saying is don't sprint out into the middle of the M25 until you've figured out how to safely get from one side of a B road in the middle of nowhere to the other.

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Shadow of Mordor

Swindon again.

(This content was paid for by CHAOS, the Campaign to Hurl Awesome Ordinance at Swindon. CHAOS, bringing order to Swindon by any means necessary.)
Harry Slater
Harry Slater
Harry used to be really good at Snake on the Nokia 5110. Apparently though, digital snake wrangling isn't a proper job, so now he writes words about games instead.