Here in My Car

This is my car.

 

His name is Owen, and he's been with me for quite a while. This car has gotten me many places, and taken me on many adventures. Mostly, he takes care of my regular commute to work, and getting me from point A to point B. Owen's been a good car. A couple of weeks ago, I nearly lost him. Or so I had thought. He wouldn't start.The engine would turn and turn, but nothing would catch on. I thought that I had lost him. I was going to be running late for work, but I was upset for a much more different reason than earning my keep at work. I was about to lose a friend. Owen may be one to have given me troubles in the past, but I still love my little car. I'd hate to see him go. Thankfully, because of a very good friend, and a very good coworker, I was able to get too and from work that day. At the end of the day, I ended up calling AAA roadside assistance, and they were able to get him going again, and told me what I needed in order to keep my car running. My little car still lives, and still runs. It turns out that the engine was flooded. However, I nearly lost a companion. I don't think that I've felt this way for a virtual item.

Lately I've been playing GTA V, and I realized that I couldn't care less about my car. In GTA V, each of the main characters get their own personal cars that they can drive around town. Though, as nice of a touch as that is, it's still just a mode of transport. When you lose your car, it really isn't that big of a deal. Players respawn, and take their pick of whatever thing with wheels and an engine is the most convenient. There is a bit of mourning yes, but you quickly move on, and take some poor saps car for your own. There's no attachment to the characters car. It's just there to take you from point A to point B. It doesn't have any special abilities, there's nothing special about it, it's just transport. In the multiplayer mode of the game, cars are merely assets. A scale of your characters progression through the game. There's no heart put into them. There is time, and virtual, sometimes real, money put into them, but only to tweak or improve.

The whole car modification craze started in the early 2000s with the movie The Fast and The Furious. This trend immediately found its way toward gaming with Need for Speed: Underground. Players could modify their cars to look and drive the way that they wanted them to. While I did feel an attachment to my Mazda Miata, which took me through a majority of the game. However, when I discovered that there was a superior car, I traded it in immediately, with minor remorse. I did love that little Miata, and watching its evolution from a crummy street sedan to the beast that it had become. It was sad to see it go. However, once I got behind the wheel of my new Nissan Skyline, the Miata seemed like a distant memory.

This is kind of the standard fare for video games. Diablo, Borderlands, Forza Motorsport,and Skyrim all have the same format of work to get stronger, to get better items, to work faster, to get better items. It's a vicious cycle that doesn't stop until you reach the top. Which, when reached, is a bit of a bore. There's nothing left to accomplish. It's all been done. I felt no attachment to the cars, or equipment that I picked up throughout the game. Some items lasted me for a good while, but all fade away when I find a better replacement.

In other media, such as movies, television, and books, characters have attachments to their stuff. Characters in fantasy films, or shows, always seem to have their signature weapon. Jon Snow of the Game of Thrones show has his Longclaw. That sword holds a certain significance to him, as he keeps it well taken care of and it becomes part of his identity. Aragorn of The Lord of the Rings has Anduril, The Sword that was Broken. The weapon has history, and it serves as evidence of who that character is. Aragorn's sword pretty much proves that he is the rightful king, just by wielding it. Even in the movie Men In Black, K risks his life just to get back his favorite gun. There are a few guns that I like in certain video games, but I can do without them.

Some games capture that sense of ownership with signature weapons and items. I know I keep going to The Legend of Zelda, but it's a classic game. It's kind of like going back to Star Wars when discussing movies. Though, Link and the Master Sword share a bond, that is tied together by destiny. Link is supposed to have the Master Sword. It is his sword, before he even knew it. There are others besides The Legend of Zelda, such as F-Zero, or Soulcalibur. In F-Zero, Captain Falcon is nothing without his Blue Falcon car. Those two go hand and hand together. It would seem wrong to put Captain with any other vehicle in the F-Zero Universe. With Soulcalibur, each character wields a unique weapon. Ivy has her chain sword, Kilik has his bo-staff, Maxi has his nun-chucks and Nightmare has the Soul Edge. However, all of these are more iconic than personal items. The weapons and fighting styles seem to be more tools, and mechanics than something that the character had to struggle to learn. Even when reading through the characters bios in the extras section of the game, the mention of the weapons re sort of throwaway material. There doesn't seem to be any kind of ties with the characters and their respective weapons, other than they have trained with them for many years. That's all well and good. A good fighter should know how to use their weapons, and such a feat would take many years of training to accomplish the things that they do with their weapons.

However, we don't see those struggles. We don't know how long it took them to get to know their weapons. Me and my car have been through a lot. I've taken care of it as best as I can, and have had to take it to the shop a couple of times. Now, a bo-staff isn't as mechanically complex as an internal-combustion engine, but I'm sure that Kilik had made a few dents and dings into his weapon while training with it. I suppose that the attachment to the items that our virtual counterparts wield is as much as we make up. We can be creative and believe what we want to believe.

Still though, I like my car, and I'll hate to see it go. I've had a lot of fun with the adventures that it has taken me on.