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Activision's GUN Misfires With Native Americans
jkdove writes "Gamergod.com has published a news story reporting on the backlash from Activision's western shooter, GUN. From the article: 'In reaction to the content of GUN, the Association for American Indian Development has started a boycott against Activision. They have requested that certain explicit violence and stereotyping be removed from the game ... Ultimately, the Association for American Indian Development simply wants to see the content corrected in respect of the Apache people ... Even though the historical period portrayed in GUN was fraught with racism, Activision's decision to publish a racially stereotyped videogame represents a serious misstep in social responsibility.'"
Who cares? GUN was the worst game I bought in the past 3 years. It was just about as dumb as a video game could get. After killing some 200 Indians with my pistol that never ran out of ammunition, riding around on a stupid wagon and in general dumb dialog, I took it out of my PC and put it on the shelf, to be ignored forever. Cowboys and Indians are cool. Westerns are cool. GUN was stupid, mundane, and boring. The best thing for it is to ignore the stinker of a game and wait for it to get into the 2 dollar bin and then disappear.
Hoist Number One and Number Six.
Be careful what you ask for. The ALA reports on books that are chalenged. Tom Sawyer is on the list. Although it doesn't list the reason, I recall hearing that it was for racist views.
"It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education." -Albert Einstein
The first half of the game COULD be considered insensitive, if taken completly out of context. But in the second half, the main character realizes he was wrong for fighting with the Apaches, that the Apaches are simply defending their land, and teams up to help them.
The main character also single handedly destroys a U.S. military base and butchers the solders inside, and kills the Marshal, and the Governor of the Terroritory, and literaly thousands of other people too, all of whom are stereotyped as bloodthirsty rednecks, so it is not like Apaches where singled out.
The story is really bad, the acting is worse, but it certainly doesn't portray any single group as the bad guys.