So! I've finally managed to break the surface from drowning in my school work and lack of sleep to find time to play a game! However, I'm going to leave that post for another day because I want to talk about a particular article that I found on the Escapist a few days ago, and thought was pretty interesting.
The first two paragraphs of the article deals with the outside world/media's commonly negative attention on video games. This almost goes without stating, but for those of you that live under a rock, the media likes to point out how video games make serial killers of us.
*hides the dead baby with the other dead babies*
So apparently the media was worried some time ago (this article was written last month) about this game called Virtual Jihadi. It's apparently just a graphics hack of a game called Quest for Saddam. Basically, Quest for Saddam was...well, a game where you work your way through Al-Qaeda soldiers up to Saddam and kill him. Virtual Jihadi takes it and spins all of us Americans on our heads by making so we work our way through American soldiers and up to killing Bush.
It was made before Obama was president, but I'm sure that had he been in it, they would've called him racist too.
Anyways, the idea of killing American soldiers hits a hell of a lot closer to home for many of us than the idea of killing Iraqis, but that idea is exactly what the graphics hack is aiming to do; to get us to think about the type of strange ease we take towards killing foreigners in a game, but when those foreigners are suddenly not so foreign, one practically does a double-take: "Wait, what?"
I really liked the article because, before now, I didn't really think of games as a way to make a point. So, for the rest of this post, I am going to list off mainstream games and what point I think they're trying to make!
Metroid: A deep and thoughtful perspective on the feminist movement, where the Space Pirates represent the chauvanistic male's reluctance to recognize women, Samus represents the small but persistant force of women trying to gain recognition in a man's world, Dark Samus represents the even smaller amount of women that believe every woman's rightful place is barefoot in the kitchen. This climaxes at the end of Metroid Prime 3, where Samus finally defeats the true force that was holding back the women's movement.
Legend of Zelda/Mario/Halo/Final Fantasy/maybe the new Megamans/Guitar Hero/Rock Band/Pokemon: Proving that a load of fan wank will always sell, provided you had a good fan base to begin with.
I didn't realize that
Want to tell this author what you think, but you don't want anyone else to see it? Think she's full of it and need to set her straight? Want to worship the ground she walks on? Well, good luck with that last one, but you can email Chrys at catharticgamer@yahoo.com and at least tell her what you think.
Ah, that's an interesting hack that reminds me of another game.
ReplyDeleteOn the PC there's a very interesting game made on steam, thanks to the source engine, called Insurgency.
The premise is very simple; It takes place in Iraq during the War on Terror. One team consists of the NATO forces, while the other is the Al-Queda threat.
More is piled on top of this; weapons jam, you don't see your health or ammo left, and you can hold about two weapons.
To win a mission; The NATO forces must take control of all the control points (or flags if you so desire), while the Al-Queda have the easier task of stopping them. I say easier because the NATO forces only get three respawns per round, while the Al-Queda threat gets as many respawns as they so desire, and can also win through capturing all points (if attack/defense map) or when time runs out.
For every game I've played, no matter the side. The Al-Queda nearly ALWAYS win, save for maybe three or four times. It's quite scary, to be honest, because it truely reflects how the 'War on Terror' was being played out.
Anyways, enough of my own review; keep the awesome work up!