Liveable Video Game Worlds

This is a tough one. At first what seem like harmless games turn out to be sick nightmare worlds that we play through for our own sadistic enjoyment. Imagine living in the twisted world of Diddy Kong Racing, where we force baby animals to race in complex vehicles, trained to attack each other with all kinds of sickly ironic weapons.

What about the Mario universe? If he’s not spending his time ticking off and killing enraged apes, he’s running riot through his own world, killing everything in his path. The only creature he doesn’t kill is Yoshi, who he firstly enslaves, then sacrifices to further his unrestrained terrorism. If you live in the world of Mario you’d be just another hurdle for his endless hate crimes against the local population.

And that’s not even the worst of them. What about Pokémon? Sure it looks all cute and cuddly when you’re playing through the detached portal of your gameboy, but what if you were living in that world? Kids are kicked out of home at the age of ten to roam a world filled with f***ing monsters! Have you seen a Charizard? He’s a 20 foot fire breathing demon from the pits of hell (read Japan).

Wikipedia tells us they breathe intense flames that can melt any material and that due to their reckless behaviour, they are known to unintentionally cause wildfires. My own common sense tells us that if a ten year old Chazz meets a Charizard in a cave, he’s gonna get messed up.

The roads between towns aren’t even save. Rabid giant rats and agitated birds of prey attack you the minute you step out for a casual walk. The residents of Violet town must live in constant fear.

I didn’t even think of The Sims?! Have you ever trapped a Sim in the centre of a pool while they urinate themselves continually and eventually starve to death? I have. A few friends and I had a competition between a bunch of Sims and cheered them on as they dropped one by one.

You think those Sims can’t see us in their virtual sky, cheering the death of their loved ones? Torturing them for a few minutes of sick entertainment. I tell you they can. And they look upon us as their evil Gods, dominating their every move.

Excuse me. I’m going to go curl up in a corner and cry myself to sleep.

Follow Chazz on Twitter @Chazz_NFG

This week’s question had me digging deep. I’ve played through a lot of game worlds and I’ve come to love many of them. From exploring multiple iterations of Hyrule to exploring the exploring the galaxy in Knights of the Old Republic I’ve been to many exotic places. Skyrim was by far one of my favorite areas to explore, but unfortunately it didn’t take the cake.

But in the end I would have to go with diminishing frontier of Red Dead Redemption. The expansive map took you across several portions of the west and offered a varied scenery beyond the desert and tumble weeds you would expect. Rockstar added areas with plains, mountain forests and even towns nestled in backwood swamps to give an authentic feel to the environments that encompass the west. The fluid and natural animal appearances, along with active and believable NPC’s in town brings an otherwise desolate environment to life. Much like Skyrim, this was a place where you could get lost and never feel bad about doing so.

Follow Stiv on Twitter @stivostiv1

Emma K: 

First game that sprung to mind was Bastion. Having my entire actions of day to day life narrated by Logan Cunningham would be pretty frickin’ awesome. But then I realised that living in Caelondia after the “calamity” would not be so cool. It would get fairly lonely and depressing pretty quick.

I also thought some of the Lego games would be a lot of fun to be immersed amongst. They always seem to have a blast shooting everything in sight and it will always produce lots of studs to collect. However, I think this would grate on me after a while. I could not live in peace because I would probably have to spend most of my time putting the stuff that I’ve broken back together. Unless I was in the Lego Harry Potter games and I could use the Repairo or the Wingardium Leviosa spells. Hmmm this is looking more appealing than I originally intended.

But my final thought (before I realised the magic that is Harry Potter) was that of Tropico. The simulation games in which you are El Presindente. I would need to watch out for Llama Flu and that crazy bitch radio lady and the rebels. But apart from that I have complete and total control of a tropical island. I can put my minions to work and I would totally live it up! Yes, that is definitely something I could get used to.

Follow Emma on Twitter @Kwate7