No Boundaries
You are walking up a mountain path. The midday sun shines high on a quilt of endless blue. Twigs crunch underfoot as you proceed ever higher. Fallen trees and rocks offer momentary diversions to clamber over. Somewhere among the trees deers are grazing. Finally upon reaching the summit, the massive expanse of the land rolls out beneath you, seeking out the horizon. Not far off the city sits serenely; the hustle and bustle of thousands of lives is temporarily hidden.
Bats Are Assholes
If I was a bat – like a real live, nocturnal, flying mammal who navigates the sky with the help of sonar – I’d have real problems with the way my species was portrayed in videogames. I mean, movies already give bats a bad name. You’d think all bats do is fly noisily out of caves, like a cloud of vermin sending the womenfolk into a tizzy. Never mind the vital ecological contributions of plant pollination and seed dispersal that bats do every day with nary a “thank you.”
Mind Games
It is a commonplace that horror games draw on the stock character of the “criminally insane” to create their bogeymen and bad guys. Even reasonably uncomplicated titles, like PlayStation’s original Crash Bandicoot, had a little of that flavour: the Hammer Horror mad scientist who enjoys nothing better than genetically splicing innocent island creatures while cackling maniacally at his plans, even if this was set in a world of Wumpa fruit, floating platforms and totem poles.