I’m loving the new video game Beast Intersection: Recently Discovered Range of Experiences, but I can’t help but feel that there are a few features missing. You get to create your own island and customise pretty much everything, but there’s a distinct lack of sewer systems beneath the island.
It’s possible I’ve just been spoiled by the immersive gameplay of The Mutant III: Crazy Chase. Every city in that game has an expansive sewer system, complete with monsters and drain plumber NPCs. It really feels like a complete world, especially since there are big battles and even boss fights in the sewer systems. Sometimes entire missions take place there. For example, there’s this one mission where you (Gerbil of Rivers) have to go into the sewers of Ox Fort and fight a giant turtle that actually turns out to be a cursed wizard from a far off land. Now that’s the kind of gameplay that I can’t get enough of.
Unfortunately, Beast Intersection doesn’t offer anything like that. What am I supposed to do when my island has lots of blocked drains? Near Camberwell Island, which I’ve called my game world, there doesn’t seem to be a professional plumber for a hundred kilometres. Did I pick the wrong location for my island? Am I doomed to never experience a truly customisable sewer system because I put my island in the southern hemisphere?
A lack of sewer representation is something I’ve been noticing in more video games recently. What do the game designers expect us to do, just imagine that there’s a sewer system beneath the huge city they’ve built? Don’t be ridiculous, I play video games to experience things, not imagine them.
My favourite five video games of all time all had expansive sewer systems. There’s I’m Famous, Empty Night, Below Story, Bandicoot Who Looks More Like a Fox 2: Big Head Attacks Again, and now The Mutant III. It’s something that I think more developers should think about including because each of those is widely considered a gaming masterpiece. It just makes sense to put a sewer system in a video game. The developers of Beast Intersection should be really embarrassed that they missed this opportunity.