Operation Iraqi Freedom - The Game

Thanks to the Dallas Business Journal for a brief article announcing the release of F/A 18: Operation Iraqi Freedom, an Atari-distributed PC flight combat game that's just about to ship, less than 4 months after the start of the real-life campaign. The game's official website has more information on the title, which allows you to "..jump through your television directly into.. the F/A-18 Hornet.. load up with precision guided munitions and bring the forces of freedom to bear on the Iraqi regime of terror." And yes, this upgrade of GraphSim's earlier popular F/A 18 Hornet flight sim really does exhort you to "Kick Some Ba'ath" on the features section of its site.

Comments

Kinda sad, actually

[captainktainer]

Sad, and disturbing. Sad because, once again, game companies are exploiting jingoism to sell games. Disturbing, because whatever popularity this game amasses may bleed over into the Bush Administration's efforts to hide the truth.

I wonder if the game will mention the civilian casualties caused by the bomb-dropping. On a much more serious and perhaps even scary note, I wonder if the game will have missions to "destroy the weapons of mass destruction" and then reward the player with feedback indicating that yes, indeed, weapons of mass destruction were destroyed. If so- *if*- then I am saddened to think that the game will further contribute to the misinformation that many Americans still suffer from.

Re:Kinda sad, actually

[Michael.Forman]

You make two excellent points.

• It is wrong to capitalize on group-exclusive hatred.
• The game serves as a vehicle for propaganda.

The use of immersive games as a vehicle for propaganda is an important issue which didn't exist ten years ago. What is even more interesting is that there is no collusion between the creator of the game and the American government. If nationalism can be popularized, profit-seeking companies will create vehicles for propaganda without external guidance.

Michael.

Rant/bitchfest (Ignore this post)

[Mmm coffee]

"..jump through your television directly into.. the F/A-18 Hornet.. load up with precision guided munitions and bring the forces of freedom to bear on the Iraqi regime of terror."

I am so sick and tired of this "raa raa we are American we are the second coming of Jesus with an 8 inch dick" hyper-BS propeganda. Wasn't the Iraq war about weapons of mass destruction? Where's the WMD? Why haven't I heard of any WMD being found without it being debunked 2 days later? Shrubya got a hard on for Iraq, the boys at the top spat in the face of the UN and pissed everyone off, and in the end we went in to find WMD. But then you find nothing and suddenly everyone forgets about the WMD that everyone was so afraid of. In the blink of an eye the mindless flag-waving faux-patriots went from "Oh dear God, Saddam's going to kill us all!" to "We're freeing the people of Iraq because we're nice guys, isn't it great?"

Orwell's 1984 is overquoted so much today that it's unreal. And yet every single time I look at the news I am so starkly reminded of it. We are at war with Oceanina. We have always been at war with Oceaninia, and the earth itself will open wide and swallow us all if we didn't bomb Iraq to hell so we could free the people from the very beginning. What the hell is this? When exactly did I start having to defend the fact that what happened a year ago actually happened? Nobody says crap about WMD, it's all about freeing the people. Screw the Iraqis, until we find a big assed nuke with "Hi there!" painted on the side we've just taken out a government for no good reason other than "they pissed us off". But nobody cares. We freed some people! We are America, our farts smell of petunias. Everytime I hear someone state that we had the right to bomb the hell out of a nation of people "just because we're the U.S." my faith in humanity dims.

This game sickens me. Here is a video game based off government propeganda and bad news reporting. Take the most basic BS about this war, toss it into a 3D engine, and BOOM - you've undoubtedly got millions of idiots willing to shell out $50 so they can stop watching CNN and start blowing the hell out of some brown guy in the privacy of their own home. Gotta love the Iraqi war. If the face of freedom is a nice big bomb, then I must have really got some lovin' back when Lisa Campbell racked me in the nads back in the 8th grade.

I love the principles that America was founded on. That's why I'm ashamed to call myself an American.

I really need a fattie. Too bad the shnizt's illegal.

Re:Rant/bitchfest (Ignore this post)

[Ores]

All that page seems to be is a bunch of rhetoric with a few out of context quotes to back it up.

All the old bio weapons degrade over time, so sure there is no evidence showing they are explicitly destroyed, but they would be uesless anyway.

And this page does nothing to debunk the lies that have come out.

The powers that be said that Iraq could launch a chemical or biological attack within 45 minutes.

If they were that prepared then surely someone would of found evidence by now.

They also used "evidence" which was obviously flat out lies like the Nigeria thing, the weather balloon thing. I also seem to recall somthing about the nukes are on the three ghost ships sailing about whything about post war.

And it also talks about mass graves, which is all fine and dandy and we all know Saddam was a "Hitler", but it doesn't help make the case for war afterwards. These kind of things have to come before hand to make it credable as a reason for killing thousands of innocent civilians

There was just so many half flat out lies used to justify the war, that its hard to see based on what they told us, there was a valid case for war.

Ethnocentrism

[Michael.Forman]

Ethnocentrism is a word coined by William Graham Sumner in an attempt to capture the generalized attitude that one's own group is comparatively superior. It is a generalized concept that encompasses such blights as racism, sexism, nationalism, and religious intolerance.

In our culture it is not acceptable to create a sexist game where men hunt down women nor is it acceptable to create a racist game where whites hunt down blacks. Yet we can create a video game where Americans can kill the foreigner du jour. Although currently it is unfortunately culturally acceptable among some of the population to participate in this nationalism, it is in no way different from the less acceptable forms of ethnocentrism such as racism and antisemitism.

Before you come out in support of such a game, realize that, this is group-exclusive hatred and just like McCarthyism, it is only a matter of time before it falls out of favor with the general populace. Then what will people think of your posts?

Michael.

terrorist simulation

[Anonymous Coward]

How would an Al Qaeda protagonist game go over in the US, with objectives like dirty-bombing San Fran? If it sounds shocking, you now understand how this game feels to an under-represented fraction of the world.

Take the high road and don't buy this game.