Modern Warfare 2

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, the first-person shooter game that has grossed more money than your expected income for the next millennium, is addicting. Obviously video games destroy my very precious brain, but this game has me bound to its multiplayer Team Deathmatch mode. I do not own the Playstation 3 that I play it on, nor do I own the flat-screen, high-definition television that it's connected to. These belong to my girlfriend. The books in the corner are mine. That's my anthology of Shakespeare on the table. It's not in my nature to play a video game like this with such passion. Yet, here I am writing about a game that involves shooting, knifing and blasting.

I find myself debating whether to read Coriolanus or to play one match - it's never just one match - to see if I might unlock a new "killstreak" or find a new weapon's combination that will make me invincible. I'm chagrined, but it's all true. I've debated whether it's best to pound the enemy down with power or to sneak under the radar, kill silently and then run away while they die with a knife in their back. All this satisfies a rather base desire, maybe many desires, but as I play there is no remorse. The thrill of outthinking an entire team of enemies is too much to resist. It's a rush to think that I'm the alpha of my team, that my skills in warfare decide the match; that my well-timed grenade toss took down three incompetent enemies at once; that I know my terrain so well I can wait in the shadows and kill unnoticed. These have been my crude obsessions for a month or more.

I suppose there comes along a video game that appeals to every person at some point. This game must recapture my pre-teen fascination with aligning army men in strategic lines and envisioning the battle that would ensue. The plastic pieces never bled, though. I'm aware of the death of a large number of my brain cells when I put down the controller, but somehow this does not stop me from picking it back up. Perhaps the more I play the less aware I am of my brain decomposing and this comforts me. Eventually it becomes easier to continue doing the very thing that destroys us. This is a war that rages on long after I get up from the couch and turn the television off. In the end, this war is a better one than the one fought on the screen.