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The Politics of the Video Game
illuminata writes "Can the video game industry keep its mittens out of the political slugfest? According to Kevin Parker's article Free Play, they sure can't. In it, he cites Dreamcatcher's Gore and Sega's Legacy Online and Jet Set Radio Future as main offenders. He even goes on to point out how some people want video games to convey their favorite political message in the future. Are there any particular titles or game companies that you think lay on the politics too thick, or is it all just a bunch of foof?"
they never show the poor truck driver, driving for 20 hours straight just to earn a living, fighting exhaustion but alert enough to avoid swerving his big white truck into oncoming traffic
That one was called Night Driver.
Even Jesus hates listening to Creed.
> What other purpose could it possibly have?
Oh, I don't know - maybe training for the military?
It's not exactly true-to-life, but the Army has been using video games as training utilities for possibly 10 years. When they first introduced a Delta Force-type game to their soldiers, they found that the soldiers were voluntarily playing at all hours - voluntarily training.
It was a totally new concept for them. And you know what? It took off. I'd say that counts as another purpose.
This isn't the first time the public has received some of the military's modifications. Some of the modifications made to Operation: Flashpoint for use in the Army made it into O:F's expansion.
It won't be the last time, either. Full Spectrum Warrior is being used for training those commanding troops.
You're comming down really hard on something just based on a assumption.
-lw
Mods: Disagreeing with me != my post Offtopic / Flamebait.
World without hate or war, invaded. Tragic?
That is funny. If I remember correctly, this was from Data East's Bad Dudes and Dragonninja (I played it on MAME a couple of days ago)
There are a huge number of yeast infections in this county. Probably because we're downriver from the bread factory.
This isn't all that new. One of Infocom's pieces of interactive fiction, A Mind Forever Voyaging, was explicitly political. Similarly, Infocom's Trinity took on the subject of atomic weapons. Both of those games were released in the mid-1980s.
Is this the kind of post that references a proven fallacy just to make a lame joke?
More than likely the FF series has gone the furthest of anything in making political statements of one type or another...in the early games, there's an anti-Imperial bent for sure, the large dominating country that's trying to take over the world. Baron and Vector..
In VII, the pro-enviromentalism aspect of the story is basically impossible to avoid. The large power reactors are killing the planet, and the party is trying to stop them.
VIII and IX really relaxed the political aspects of it all I think, going for a more basic love and fantasy story respectivly..
X really brought it back with a vengence however. It's basically a cautionary tale on the dangers of religious devotion and conservative acting. (Why do we do it? Because we always have). Won't spoil it for anybody who hasn't played it, but everything gets turned upside down on its ear near the end.
the money to pay for it came out of the Army's recruiting budgets. Thay also said it was a tool for recruitment.
No real secret.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
There's a fairly recent console game, State of Emergency.
The Gov't/Corporate corruption has gone over the top, and the people are in a state of half-revolution. Mostly this manifests in their simply running around the mall/downtown area/etc, with occassional looting, and various street gangs laying claim to random turf. And naturally the gov't gestapo-esque enforcers.
The camera/controls for that game are more than a little amaturish, and the gameplay pretty repeptitive and dry.
Overall it's not a very good game, imo, but it comes pretty close to what you were describing. (though with meatspace law-violations by the populace).
// "Can't clowns and pirates just -try- to get along?"