WELCOME TO THE CFZ BLOG NETWORK: COME AND JOIN THE FUN

Half a century ago, Belgian Zoologist Bernard Heuvelmans first codified cryptozoology in his book On the Track of Unknown Animals.

The Centre for Fortean Zoology (CFZ) are still on the track, and have been since 1992. But as if chasing unknown animals wasn't enough, we are involved in education, conservation, and good old-fashioned natural history! We already have three journals, the largest cryptozoological publishing house in the world, CFZtv, and the largest cryptozoological conference in the English-speaking world, but in January 2009 someone suggested that we started a daily online magazine! The CFZ bloggo is a collaborative effort by a coalition of members, friends, and supporters of the CFZ, and covers all the subjects with which we deal, with a smattering of music, high strangeness and surreal humour to make up the mix.

It is edited by CFZ Director Jon Downes, and subbed by the lovely Lizzy Bitakara'mire (formerly Clancy), scourge of improper syntax. The daily newsblog is edited by Corinna Downes, head administratrix of the CFZ, and the indexing is done by Lee Canty and Kathy Imbriani. There is regular news from the CFZ Mystery Cat study group, and regular fortean bird news from 'The Watcher of the Skies'. Regular bloggers include Dr Karl Shuker, Dale Drinnon, Richard Muirhead and Richard Freeman.The CFZ bloggo is updated daily, and there's nothing quite like it anywhere else. Come and join us...

Search This Blog

WATCH OUR WEEKLY WEBtv SHOW

SUPPORT OTT ON PATREON

SUPPORT OTT ON PATREON
Click on this logo to find out more about helping CFZtv and getting some smashing rewards...

SIGN UP FOR OUR MONTHLY NEWSLETTER



Unlike some of our competitors we are not going to try and blackmail you into donating by saying that we won't continue if you don't. That would just be vulgar, but our lives, and those of the animals which we look after, would be a damn sight easier if we receive more donations to our fighting fund. Donate via Paypal today...




Friday, September 11, 2009

RICHARD FREEMAN: Sick Safari


I have always hated video games. As a boy I found them stupefying. I recall getting an old Philips video game console and games as a kid. My granny played with it more than me. Now more than ever I think they are rotting kids' brains. Children should be out with their friends playing and having fun or reading a good book instead of crouching before a bleeping, neon brain cell neutraliser.

My dislike of video games grew to the power of ten after an appalling game I saw the other day. I’d just been for a nice, bracing walk along the beach at Dawlish Warren with my girlfriend Lisa and her son Mitchell. I stopped to buy a bag of doughnuts (incidentally, the very worst I have ever tasted anywhere in the world) when Lisa spotted a game in a nearby arcade. Big Buck Safari, manufactured by Play Mecanix http://www.playmechanix.com/
has the shotgun-armed player graphically mowing down animals such as rhino, hippo, zebra, water buffalo and ostriches. Scantily clad girls in pith helmets advise the player on where best to shoot an animal for a kill and show you the scores at the end, wherein each animal’s bloody demise is shown in slow motion.

You can see a demonstration here

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7m0xY6v_JM



The spotty, disinterested youth who served me the vile-tasting doughnuts (and who reminded me of Jeremy Peterson, the spotty, squeaky-voiced youth from The Simpsons) told me that the brat currently playing the awful game was "great" and "much better than [me] cos he is here every day playing it." The nasty-looking proletarian child seemed to adore blowing the animals away with his gun. What kind of parents would let their kid play a game like that? The answer is estate trash chavs to whom society seems to pander in everything.

So video games now not only rot our kid’s minds they encourage the idea that it’s fine to kill animals for ‘sport’. If you are as appalled as me at this atrocity then e-mail the manufacturers and let them know what you think http://www.playmechanix.com/


9 comments:

Syd said...

Not wishing to be too blunt and offensive about this so called game, I will just that there are some really sick bastards out there.
A similar game should be created where the hunted creatures are chavs and the designers of Big Buck Safari.

Gavin Lloyd Wilson said...

Richard, I am absolutely outraged. I have emailed the company and hope that others will too!

EVERYONE, don't just sit there - email this irresponsible compnay at: contact@playmechanix.com

Retrieverman said...

Here's a video game with a real conservation theme and one that "teaches you while you learn":

http://www.wolfquest.org/

I highly recommend it.

Tabitca said...

"The answer is estate trash chavs to whom society seems to pander in everything." thats a bit judgemental Richard. Not everyone on estates is a chav nor a bad parent.Having taught community courses on sink estates I find the majority of people are good people and good parents and want to have a better life.
I agree with you about the game though.I think all fighting/ killing games are bad because it makes children think it is ok to behave like that .

Jon Downes said...

Of course not Lindsay. Some very good people do indeed live on these estates

Gavin Lloyd Wilson said...

Emails to that stupid games company are bouncing back.

Very convenient.

Oll Lewis said...

I like the occasional violent game, like Resident Evil or Grand Theft Auto, these games are for the home console market and carry age ratings from the BBFC that carry the same legal weight as on movies, so there are controls in place to stop the vast majority of under aged kids playing them, apart from those with parents that just don't care or spoilt little rich kids whose parents give them everything they ask for (which are every bit as bad as the chav kids but people never mention them because their parents are harder for the gutter press to turn into hate figures).

The problem comes when an idiot company makes a game like this for an arcade, there is nothing to stop kids playing a game with such repugnant subject matter. I expect the reason that this game was released as an arcade machine, is because it simply wouldn't sell on a home console system, console and PC gameplayers have taste and do not tend to waste £40 of their money on crap like that.

Unknown said...

I guess tolerance for other culture's values extends only to those currently plitically correct, or perhaps you are just offended by the "proletariat".

gary

Bisto said...

Jon – given the feeing here I hope you have been able to enjoy your recently obtained copy of Command and Conquer 2 - a game that encourages and glorifies warfare, an equally (if not more so) repugnant subject matter ;).

Perhaps Westwood Studios can be let off the hook for also creating a 3D dragon simulator -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DragonStrike_(computer_game)