But it sounds so nice…. oh please, I just like the title. Stop complaining already…. ok… well, as a subtitle you can add "Anger Management Therapy" if you like. We will take it from there.

            Why do you play games? Well, tonight it will be because I need some serious Anger Management Therapy (henceforth known as AMT, cuz I'mma laaazy bear). It stands to reason then I will play a fairly aggressive game like Unreal Tournament or Rogue Trooper, in which I get to kill stuff first-handed, preferably brutal (Flak Cannon and/or Rocket Launchers), up close and personal (Rogue Trooper's sneak moves come to mind), and efficiently (fifteen headshots in a row please). In ye Olden Days I would have done some earhunting in DII in order to act as a tension release, but *sigh* apparently I should not vent my rage on innocent bystanders in a game. Never quite got that, especially the innocent, as a lot of people cheat in online games and act as general sons of -fill-in-yourself, but ok.

            Rage. It comes in different variants. We have road-rage, where people go berserk because their ego expands with the size of their tin cans. We have domestic rage, where you go mad because your spouse did not clean the toothpaste from the sink despite the fact he/she/it always leaves it in there. We have rage-at-work, where your boss annoys you, you roll that d20 and state you just, to your utmost regret, passed your berserk roll. Lots of rage there is. Rage… it leads to anger, and hate, and then to the dark side, or something. So, what do you do to prevent yourself from giving that other driver the finger, insulting your spouse, or taking that baseball bat to work? Yes, you play games. (Now really, tell me, did not everyone who reads this not expect this conclusion? We're at a gaming website, so my point of view, the only point of view politically correct for a gaming website, is that you GAME! Muha! Ha! Ha!)

            Games are an excellent tension release from the real world sometimes. Exercising also works, but it is… different, and sometimes you just fancy blowing stuff to kingdom come. Of course, you could also go and chop some wood (did that when I still lived at my mom and dads place), because then you also smack stuff, but axes and people occasionally end up on the wrong side of each other and that's not so great. Same goes with people who vent their rage with guns… eventually someone greatly mistakens his own capabilities, the bullet flies high and hits someone, and that's that. Bad idea. Gaming is a very nice tension release, and you usually don't give bodily harm to someone else during games. Oh, and then there is sports… sports make you feel tired… we're all nerds here, nothing to be ashamed off. So we play FPS, Hack and slash, RTS, RPG, Actiongames, and vent our rage. Funnily enough I don't see you venting your rage in an adventure (what are you going to do… move the soapbox onto the shovel twenty times in a row?), but a lot of games are ideally suited to… relax… escape… and to imagine " Tamerlane" looks like your boss (or simply set the bots with your boss his name *evil scnicker* ).

//Barry