Something that's seemed to dwell on my mind lately, returning from time to time, has been the subject of disability, disfigurement and disease in games, in particular the idea of losing a limb or some other seemingly integral part of one's body. From the TV shows that I watch, to the games that I play and read news stories about, to the disturbing fan fiction people post in community spaces, for some reason my mind keeps coming back to the subject.
It's not so much a morbid or gross fascination with the subject, rather that I keep being reminded by all these different sources of fiction just how important our sense of wholeness can be to being human, and indeed how integral to being human disability and it's relation to us as thinking, feeling but ultimately physical beings is.
Personally I think a lot of games would be a lot more engaging if they spent more time creating worlds that are believable in-part because the people within them seem like real people with real worries – from the god-like central cast right down to the disposable stooges who inevitably get cut down when the guns start firing.
LOOK WHO CAME: