The VC Advantage: Bonk's Paleobiological Adventure
by JC Fletcher 
{ Jun 4th 2008 at 8:00PM }
We don't expect Bonk's Adventure to be historically or biologically accurate. The very coexistence of cavemen and dinosaurs (and malevolent, animate flowers) comes to mind as a significant departure from reality, as do the talking dinosaurs who promise to be "YOUR NEW FRIEND ARF ARF ARF!!" Early man didn't live on floating, airborne fruit, nor did meat enable him to transform into an invincible, volcano-headed monster. Probably. But all those odd, fanciful uses of creative licenses are done in the name of gameplay or to create a cute setting or narrative.
But we don't know why developer Red decided that the dinosaur who comprises level 1-4 needed several uvulas. How do you even get that idea? Using the dinosaur's uvula as an obstacle is clever, but multiplying it is vaguely psychotic. Also, they have little smiley faces -- why not? Maybe someone at Red knows a lot more about dinosaur anatomy than anyone else -- or a lot less.
The VC Advantage is a weekly look at the secrets inside games -- not just cheat codes, but assorted trivia and oddities. We aim to bring back the feeling of the hint columns from game magazines, except when we do something else.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Mario Panighetti @ Jun 4th 2008 8:17PM
Makes me think of the Disney short "The Whale Who Wanted To Sing At The Met", a story about an opera-singing whale with three uvulas. Clearly there was precedent for this line of thinking.
PiemanPieman @ Jun 4th 2008 8:31PM
Super Mario Land 2: Six Golden Coins also had levels filled with questionable anatomy. I'm sure there are even yet other examples of anatomy giving way to level design in platform games.
Bonk's awesome, anyway.
Mr Khan @ Jun 4th 2008 9:32PM
It's not a platform game, but a critical example of anatomy (and the concepts of space itself) being completely warped for dungeon design is Jabu Jabu's Belly, circa OoT
Seriously, that fish would've had to fill an entire map for that whole thing to occur in his belly
GatorSax2010 @ Jun 4th 2008 11:39PM
That whole video gave off a Mario Land 2 vibe to me (I know Bonk is older, but I haven't played it).
Inanimate @ Jun 4th 2008 8:33PM
Those weren't uvulas, the thing at the very start was.