Surely not the ZAP-ZAP-PSHOOO! of Space Invaders and most certainly not the KA-PLOW-BLAM! of Call of Duty. Maybe the new game based on Thoreau’s Walden will surround you with the sounds of lapping water. The NEA gave USC a grant to build the game based on the storied pond. The Guardian explains:
The University of Southern California has been given $40,000 by the National Endowment for the Arts to develop Walden, in which “the player will inhabit an open, three-dimensional game-world, which will simulate the geography and environment of Walden Woods.”
You don’t have to spend two years cooped up in a cabin in the woods. Now you can just head to your computer. From USC: “The game will take place in a real-time 3D environment which will replicate the geography of Walden Pond and the woods in which Thoreau made his home using both game technologies and video.” OK, so you probably won’t get to step through the same mud and kill the same mosquitoes experience the same beauty as Thoreau. Chances are, though, if you spend two solid years playing the game, you might end up all alone in a padded room with all the serenity you can handle.
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