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The Platypus Knows JUSTIN BAILEY*********


What is adventure? Why do we all have this part of ourselves that longs for something beyond the world of safe and comfortable things? Why do we like being scared?

I tried to think what made "Metroid" such an instant classic. It's one of the oldest Nintendo games I can remember, and yet they're still making sequels to it today.

The clinging metroids seem to be the key. They remind me vaguely of the "face-huggers" in "Alien." There's also that sense of dark and mysterious "other" in every corner of the game. The eerie effect is only reinforced by the soundtrack. Like "Alien," there's very little frantic action in "Metroid," but rather a sense of deepening mystery and creeping dred. Unlike "Alien," however, it has an added sense of enchantment that runs throughout the game. 8-bits and all, the imaginary world of Zebes and its bizare flora and fauna are marvelous. Something in it taught me what it means to have an adventure; that longing for and experienceing of the other. Could I have understood at that time, it was all in Dante (what do they teach them in these schools?). In a strange way, I think my childhood of playing video games fitted me to understand and appreciate Dante in a way I wouldn't have otherwise. I had already followed Samus Arran into and back out of the Inferno.
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