![]() Superliminal struggles as hard to connect on an emotional level as it does to work on a mechanical level. Glenn tries to soothe me but fails, and the female AI repeatedly chides me angrily for not dreaming correctly. I am accompanied by voices as I descend into a dream world, including the affable but unhelpful Dr. As I go deeper into the dream and the world becomes less logical, I paradoxically feel more constricted, not less. I’m moving from segmented level to level trying to figure out what the game wants me to do, instead of having fun with everything that I’ve been shown is possible. ![]() ![]() This often makes Superliminal feel like Portal. You can’t make everything bigger or smaller, and there are doors every so often that block you from bringing your useful soda cans, exit signs, or chess pieces into the next level. The problem is that Superliminal isn’t a sandbox it’s a puzzle game. It feels like a magic trick, but one that I control. I spend my first hour or so with the game making boxes bigger and then smaller again while chuckling to myself. The key mechanicĮverything comes down to the idea of tampering with reality through the use of perspective, which is legitimately very neat. It sounds soothing, right up until it becomes clear that something, somewhere, has gone wrong, and I’m stuck inside a dream that very quickly begins to feel like a nightmare. I don’t know who I am, but I’m clearly here to test a program and learn something in the process. You see, I’m in a therapy session conducted via dreams. It’s not about what’s real, it’s about what looks real. Portraits, seen in the right way, can become doorways to another environment. I can pick it up as if it were a physical object, and now it’s in my hands. If I stand just right, the block looks real. Later, I find an orange block painted on the walls. This is the key mechanic of Superliminal. However, when I turn and place the soda at the end of the hall, I’ve played a clever trick I can now walk towards the soda can to find its grown to a massive size. When I hold the soda in my hands, it’s quite small. I stand in the hallway of a quiet medical facility, and grab a can of soda from a vending machine. Superliminal is a puzzle game in which perception is reality.
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![]() If poverty is a condition, despair is a state of mind. ![]() But for every teenager who gets bored and joins a gang, there are 10 who find positive, productive ways to spend their time. Authors of articles about gang violence often write something like, "There's nothing else to do where they live." Indeed, youth sports programs, swimming pools or even libraries are often in short supply or poor repair in tough urban areas. Unfortunately, many youths and even gang experts use boredom as an excuse. Dances, sports tournaments and other youth outreach programs can literally keep kids off the streets. This is why many communities have tried to combat gangs by simply giving kids something to do. Alternatively, teenagers might form their own gangs. ![]() If gangs are already present in the neighborhood, that can provide an outlet. With nothing else to occupy their time, youths sometimes turn to mischief to entertain themselves. ![]() Peer pressure is a driving force behind gang membership in affluent areas. Many teenagers do resist the temptation of gang membership, but for others it is easier to follow the crowd. It can be difficult for a teen to understand the harm that joining a gang can bring if he's worried about losing all of his friends. If they live in a gang-dominated area, or go to a school with a strong gang presence, they might find that many of their friends are joining gangs. This is partly because gangs intentionally recruit teenagers, but it's also because young people are very susceptible to peer pressure. However, not everyone who is poor joins a gang, and not every gang member is poor. This partly explains why gangs exist in poor, rundown areas of cities. People who are faced with a lack of money may turn to crime if they can't earn enough with a legitimate job. By committing thefts and dealing drugs, gang members can make relatively large amounts of money. Many gangs exist mainly as a moneymaking enterprise. There are many possible reasons for someone to join a gang, but four primary reasons seem to describe those of most gang members: Those that did join gangs didn't stay long, with the majority remaining in the gang for less than a year. They also found that gang membership is not as prevalent among youth as some fear - between 1 and 2 percent of children ages 10 to 17 were gang members, although the percentage spikes when only "at-risk" youth are counted. They estimated that 49 percent of gang members were Hispanic, 37 percent were black, 8 percent white, 5 percent Asian and 1 percent had another ethnicity. The National Center for Juvenile Justice used a combination of police department reports and self-reporting to compile the Juvenile Offenders and Victims: 2006 National Report. Federal grants for fighting gang violence can give departments incentive to exaggerate gang numbers, while some departments deny having any gang problems at all to appease the public. Police departments don't always report gang statistics accurately, either. Some youths may claim gang membership around other teens to seem tough, and gangs might inflate membership numbers to make their gang seem more powerful. If a police officer asks a gang member, "Are you in a gang?" chances are the gang member will say no, knowing that police place extra scrutiny on known gang members. It's also important to consider the source of the data. If someone "runs with" a gang, but hasn't been initiated yet, is that person a member? Who do you count when compiling your statistics? Some people hang out with gang members, but aren't actually in a gang themselves. Gangs obviously don't keep official records of their membership. Gathering accurate statistics on gangs and gang membership is difficult for a number of reasons. Gangs are also becoming more savvy, using computers and other technology to commit crimes. While gangs are less prevalent in rural areas, in major cities, gang violence is responsible for roughly half of all homicides. According to the Department of Justice's 2005 National Gang Threat Assessment, there are at least 21,500 gangs and more than 731,000 active gang members. Gang violence is a problem in every major city in the United States and membership is on the rise. According to a 2005 report by the Department of Justice, there are at least 21,500 gangs and more than 731,000 active gang members in the United States. |
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