Gaming, for me, is about being able to do things that I either could never or would never do in real life. Now, I admit. Some day, I might go deer hunting. Or small critter hunting. If I ever had the equipment and the "help" of friends to figure out what the heck to do with it when it was dead. Hunting is a respectable thing, and SHOWS respect to the land and it's animals - especially when you use every part of what you hunt, and I would.
However, I would never hunt an elephant.
In real life, anyway.
The Hunting Unlimited series is one of my favorite hunting games for PC, despite it's jerky, annoying graphics and hard-to-get-used-to controls, and that is for one unique reason. You can hunt African Elephants.
I have never found another hunting game that let me take down elephants. Rhinos, yeah. Other African "Big Five" critters, yeah. But not Elephants. Now, this makes sense, since in real life they're endangered. However, in the game? They aren't. They're everywhere. And I can take them down.
I don't know what it is. I don't know if I was picked on by mammoths in a past life. I DO know I have no deep seated dislike or hatred of pachyderms... In fact, I LOVE them. Mammoths, Elephants, Mastodons, I find them incredible, intelligent, and awe-inspiring.
And when it comes to a game, there's a thrill of power that comes with putting a bullet in one of their heads. To think that something as tiny as a bullet can fell a creature the size of a bus... To see that massive bulk hit the ground after one shot... Oh, it's a thing of beauty.
But it isn't anything I'd ever do in real life. However... I'm thrilled to have this game back, and to have Elephants back in the crosshairs again.
There's something primal, and, honestly? Something incredibly HUMAN about needing to take down the biggest, best creature around to prove your superiority. Maybe this is why paleolithic man looked at a Mammoth and decided they could make it meat.
But for me, a video game is good enough.
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