Berlin Wall 'Death Strip' Game Sparks Outrage In Germany

gzipped_tar writes "According to Spiegel Online, 'A new computer game where players assume the roles of border guards and shoot people trying to escape from communist East Germany has unleashed a storm of controversy in Germany. The game's creator says he wanted to teach young people about history, but he has been accused of glorifying violence. ... The name of the multi-player FPS game, 1,378 (kilometers), was inspired by the length of the border between East and West Germany. ... [Players] choose between the roles of the border guards or would-be escapees: the escapee only has one goal — to get over the wall, but the border guard has more options, and can shoot or capture the escapee. He can also swap sides and try to clamber over the border defenses himself.' By choosing to play the border guard and kill the escapee, the player would win an in-game medal from the government of East Germany. But then the guard would time-travel forward to the year 2000, where he would have to stand trial. Jens Stober, 23, designed the game as a media art student at the University of Design, Media and Arts in Karlsruhe. He said that his intention was to teach young people about German history."

Comments

Re:It should make you uncomfortable

[iYk6]

It wasn't handjobs and kittens you know.

Actually, mixing those two things together would be pretty painful.

Re:You know what they say

[Hognoxious]

SPOILER

The krauts lose, twice.

Re:It should make you uncomfortable

[rolfwind]

I would caution against talking about kitty porn jokingly.

Re:But who is re-writing history here?

[Cylix]

I'm not learning history until I find a copy of this game.

Though I'm not sure how much it's going to reflect history when I set the escapee to god mode. Unless of course anyone has heard stories of an invulnerable air walking no clipping escape from east germany destroying guards left and right. I'm sure it probably happened sometime even if no one reported it.