Trigger Happy

Shoot first, ask questions later

- STEVEN POOLE

Blasting my way through Turrican Flashback, the collection of 1990s Metroid-alikes featuring the classic music of Chris Huelsbeck, I am reminded that it was a more naive era when it came to the prospect of machine intelligence. According to the first game’s scene-setting preamble, the idyllic world of Alterra has, after a “devastating earthquake”, found itself “at the mercy of the sentient AI MORDUL”, which used to help run the planet and has now become a murderous monster. Figures. So why, three decades later, is humanity trying its best to usher in that earthquake here?