The Trouble with Too Much Video Game Realism

In a review/overview of Guitar Hero and Rockband by David Hajdu in the December 2, 2009 issue of the New Republic, Pretending, there is examination on how reality of computer games.

As with most video games, the play action of Guitar Hero and Rock Band takes place in a fictive landscape conjured in a vein of digital stylization now so familiar to gamers that it has become a form of realism, a projected reality of the digitally fabulous. As usual, the player is represented on screen by an avatar--in these games, either a real rock star or a custom hybrid of actual or player-invented characters such as one, say, with the hair of Billy Idol and the nose of your cousin Donny.

In the Red Dwarf story/novel/episodes Better Than Life there is a computer game that more enjoyable and flashier than real life. In the end it becomes the real life for its players as their bodies slowly fade from too little exercise, too little nourishment.