And when the power goes off for good then I
Will play in my head until I die.
Neil Gaiman, Virus

So you've discovered a new video game. You're not quite sure it's what you really want at the moment, but it got pretty good reviews and it's a genre you enjoy, so what the hell. It's just fifty bucks.

You top up, check the minimum requirements then download the installer, and -- if you're particularly studious -- click through the game guide. Then you put it in your system and start to play. And play. And play. And play. Stop for a bathroom break -- Didn't I go just before I started? -- and play some more. And play. And play. And play. And then suddenly you hear an annoying beeping noise -- it's your alarm. It's 7:00 am, and you need to get moving to class.. err.. to work.

But the game follows you. Every time you stop playing, you feel like you still have some pending business. You're seeing passwords in your Alpha-Bits. You try and power-slide on the drive to the office, wherever. Clouds are looking suspiciously like troop formations to you.

Work's interminably long. You speed home and start playing again. You play. And play. And play. Maybe you beat the game somewhere in there, but that's no barrier -- just an opportunity to start over and do things better this time. You play some more. You get the Infinity Plus One Sword. You beat the Bonus Boss. You unlock the Bragging Rights Reward. You argue about the minutia of the game on message boards. You engage in impossibly involved Self-imposed challenges. Maybe you even write some execrable Fan Fic.

Don't feel bad. It's happened to the best of us. Video games are among the most addictive types of media... YAY! and they consume our time in ways that a half-hour television program or a 600-page novel just can't. The Tetris Effect -- when a game permeates every aspect of your life. Named after the original, Tetris, which has superimposed itself on more ceiling tiles and eyelids than any video game ever.

An amusing variant can occur if you've got two of such games at once, and have to split your time between them. Once they start intermingling in your head, the result can be anything from laugh-out-loud ridiculous to seriously creepy... sigh... okay back to Rakion - NEW PATCH, NEW PATCH!