Trigger Happy
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meadows and open spaces to get the player comfortable
with the character.” The terrain is designed expressly to
optimize gameplay.
One theory of how the universe came to exist is a
provocative idea called the Strong Anthropic Principle,
which suggests that the universe is designed exactly the
way it is, with the forces of nature and relative charges
of fundamental particles balanced exactly this way, for
the sole purpose of allowing intelligent life forms such
as ourselves to observe it. We are the whole point of
creation. In videogames, the Strong Anthropic Principle
is not speculation but fact. As Lara Croft’s creator has
explained: “The whole Tomb Raider world is utterly
dependent on Lara’s size and animations. The distance
she can jump, reach, run forward and fall are set
variables. In this way, her world is designed for her to
exist in.”
How strangely comforting. We are everywhere
alienated from nature in the real world, but for a time
we can feel oddly at home in this unreal universe,
where our strengths can always overcome our
difficulties. We prefer the fantasy because it is
fair.
