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Cuban Video Game Recreates Revolutionary History
Hugh Pickens writes writes "The Guardian reports that Cuban programmers have unveiled a new 3D video game that puts a revolutionary twist on gaming, letting players recreate decisive clashes from the 1959 uprising in which many of their grandparents fought. 'The player identifies with the history of Cuba,' says Haylin Corujo, head of video game studies for Cuba's Youth Computing Club and leader of the team of developers who created Gesta Final – roughly translated as 'Final Heroic Deed'. 'You can be a participant in the battles that were fought in the war from '56 to '59.' The game begins with the user joining the 82 rebels who in 1956 sailed to Cuba from Mexico aboard the Granma. Players then fight their way through swamps shoulder-to-shoulder with bearded guerrillas clad in the olive green of Fidel Castro and Ernesto 'Che' Guevara to topple 1950s Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista. The game lets you pick from three player profiles, one in an olive hat similar to the one Fidel Castro was known for, another wearing a Guevara-style beret and the last with the kind of helmet worn by the ill-fated Camilo Cienfuegos in many revolution-era photographs. Rene Vargas, a 29-year-old gamer who tried his hand at 'Gesta Final' when it was presented at a technology fair in Havana last week, says the graphics were surprisingly sophisticated. 'Bearing in mind the level of technical support there is in Cuba, it looks pretty good,' says Vargas. There are about 783,000 computers in this country of some 11 million inhabitants, according to government statistics from 2011. Private ownership of computers is low, but many Cubans access them at work, school or cyber cafes. 'We developed (it) keeping in mind the purchasing power and reality of Cubans,' says Corujo. 'It doesn't require incredible technological features.'"
Yeah Castro and his boy Che Che are real fucking heros. Che ran Castro's death camps and got off murdering people. HEROS!!
You're comparing the Cuban Revolution to the rise of Nazi Germany? Congratulations on almost completing your American primary public education little guy.
Yes, that is exactly the kind of meaningless "political" "opinion" I'm talking about. What do you know about people crushing other people's throats with combat boots in the Cuban revolution? A revolution in which 58 men inspired a country of 6.5 million to throw out a dictatorial, postcolonial government? You know nothing.
Seems no different in premise than the Call of Duty games or any of the other war games that USians love to play. Too bad it appears to be a single player game and not an MMO - that would be rather awesome.
Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
Shame. The summary doesn't even mention what game engine was used. And you call this news for nerds?
This article has screenshots and more details about gameplay.
I wonder if it has DRM? Is it FOSS? What does that mean in a socialist state?
Maybe the Cubans could give the game platform to Viet Nam, and they could come up with a plotline where you follow Ho Chi Min to his defeat of the imperialist US invaders. There's jungles and tropical climate in both situations, right.
In China, they could have the Long March MMOG.
On a somewhat more serious note, this is somewhat an exercise in jumping the shark. If you're at the point where you promote your history/ideology by turning it into a video game, it's ceased to be current experience, and has moved into the realm of cultural myths.
In the US, the number of people who have combat experience is dwarfed by the the ranks of the FPS gamers. The real experience of war has been eclipsed by the glamorized painless video version. It's likely that the sanitized version has displaced reality in the minds of a lot of people. This can't be a good thing.
Why is Snark Required?
Look you may not know this, but the Batista government was the bad guy, and was a puppet government propped up by the US after the Spanish American war...you know the one US started so they could get take huge chunks of spanish territory. Before those 82 rebels started their revolution Cuba had the following problems:
75% of rural dwellings were huts made from palm trees.
More than 50% had no toilets of any kind.
85% had no inside running water.
91% had no electricity.
There was only 1 doctor per 2,000 people in rural areas.
More than one-third of the rural population had intestinal parasites.
Only 4% of Cuban peasants ate meat regularly; only 1% ate fish, less than 2% eggs, 3% bread, 11% milk; none ate green vegetables.
The average annual income among peasants was $91 (1956), less than 1/3 of the national income per person.
45% of the rural population was illiterate; 44% had never attended a school.
Now they have a better Literacy, infant mortality and healthcare than the US. I would call that a pretty heroic tale.
Uhh... Bullshit? It always amazes me that so many people are willing to credulousness accept "statistics" like that from total propaganda. You probably also believed that the Soviet Union was a massive economic powerhouse for it's people in the 80s, right?
Hint: People don't take leaky boats and swim across oceans to get elsewhere because where they live is just too wonderful for them to handle. Try talking to someone who's actually lived in Cuba and then escaped.
The party of stupid and the party of evil get together and do something both stupid and evil, then call it bipartisan.
was Call of Duty banned there? I thought I recalled hearing about a mission where you assassinated Fidel Castro which I thought was rather ballsy considering Castro was alive at the time and not at war with the country. That'd be like the NAACP making a game where you assassinate former President Bush.
Just another second banana
Then you should also know why the missiles were there--which is that the US invaded Cuba in 1961, the invasion was crushed, but the US didn't give up and was planning to invade again in 1962 (Google "Operation Mongoose") this time with US troops instead of spoiled rich kids who thought the Cubans would welcome them back with open arms (they did "welcome" them back with arms but not the kind the country club types expected).
Name a single innocent person who was tortured, raped or killed by anyone associated with the Cuban revolution who wasn't punished severely for it. At least two Cuban soldiers in Angola were executed for raping an Angolan woman. Can your army say the same?
So... you doubt the propaganda of other countries but you believe the one fed to you by your leaders.
Hint: My working colleagues did not leave the US because it was so great to live there...
Of course they are not as developed as the US, but that's true for most countries. Cuba has a relatively high HDI, according to the UN, not the Cuban government.
I'm sure his fanboys will make excuses, but here are the words of Che Guevara:
"The blacks, those magnificent examples of the African race who have maintained their racial purity thanks to their lack of an affinity with bathing, have seen their territory invaded by a new kind of slave: the Portuguese."
"The black is indolent and a dreamer; spending his meager wage on frivolity or drink; the European has a tradition of work and saving, which has pursued him as far as this corner of America and drives him to advance himself, even independently of his own individual aspirations."
As the son of exiles and someone who knows many families who lost loved ones to the lack of due process, please stop your ignorant rants and stop reading 'Internet Facts' written by the same people that did the atrocities which are all too well known to those that actually lived through it. You are insulting the memory of many people who actually wanted a truly free and democratic Cuba, and were not afraid to speak out against what they knew even back then was just an exchange from one bad dictatorship to another. The medicine is not better; nor is the education and overall quality of life, but you wouldn't know that unless you actually knew people from there or gone to visit Cuba yourself, and I'm not talking about the tourist areas.
I hope this is an early April Fools joke, even if it is a bad one.
People don't do the same thing to escape the wonderful capitalistic democracies of Mexico and various Central American states?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
Cuba definitely does have better healthcare than the US, where 50 million people have none.
For instance, Cuba has two and a half more doctors per capita than the US
Oh, and here's another datapoint: the table shows literacy levels in Cuba being higher than the USA.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
Dude... 50 million without healthcare.
You know which other first world country doesn't have universal heathcare?
None.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
Every single cuban citizen who has to escape in a raft suffering 90 miles of sunburn while traveling a few miles per hour hoping you make it across the Gulf stream quickly so it doesn't carry you far enough into the Atlantic that no one ever finds you. The fact that people live there make the choice to ride a raft with THEIR KIDS in what is essentially their own personal death march should be enough to answer your question.
I use common sense and the actions of the people there to draw my conclusion. You're still trying to argue which political side is right.
10% of the countries population (roughly) has been so distraught that they elected a trip thats got less than a 1% chance of survival over staying and dealing with it.
We punish our soldiers when we find them committing crimes you speak of. Its well known fact (from those who escape the country) that the Cuban army on the other hand do commit those crimes ... and you yourself give an example of them doing so.
America has its own set of issues, but its hard to believe America and Cuba are even on the same planet, putting them in the same class just makes it clear that you have no concept of what you're talking about.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
You realize when you say something stupid like 'Meruca' you instantly lose everyone in your listener group except the other idiots such as yourself with an axe to grind?
You lose any credence you had instantly and make it clear that you're not out about the truth or facts, you're out to promote your agenda.
If you actually wanted to spread truth, you wouldn't try to drag your own personal agenda into it. You end up letting everyone around you know that your 'facts' aren't trustable.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
Oh boy, I sure hope this game lets you blind fold and shoot people that didnt go along with the glorious Cuban revolution!
http://www.therealcuba.com/page5.htm
Python
Oh yeah, all that horrible Cuban propaganda about their great health indicators...
.: Semper Absurda
It always amazes me that so many people are willing to credulousness accept "statistics" like that from total propaganda.
All available evidence suggests that your average Cuban is literate, doesn't lose children in infancy, and has access to medical care that international organizations routinely rate as highly effective and remarkably low-cost.
For what it's worth, my mother took several trips to the more rural areas of Cuba in the early 1990's, during the worst of the post-Soviet depression they went through, and the people she met were universally literate, fairly healthy, and had enough to eat. They felt safe enough from the government that they could crack subtle jokes at Fidel Castro's expense in private homes (and yes, they had decently confortable private homes). The core of their health care system was the village doctor who lived just down the block and not only cared for everyone who lived there but also promoted public health and sanitation. The Americans on the trip were not followed around by government minders or anything like that. As part of the same program, several Cubans came to the US, and several other Americans made different trips to Cuba over a decade.
The general impression I get: Florida is a paradise compared to Cuba. Cuba is a paradise compared to Haiti, Hondurus, and many other Latin American countries. GDP per capita tells a pretty clear story: US - $48,000 Cuba - $9,900 Haiti - $1,200 Hondurus - $4,400 (all numbers from CIA estimates)
The other part of the story: The US government and the Cuban exiles in Miami have been demonizing Castro's government for over 50 years, so it's hardly surprising that most Americans have a very warped idea of what Cuba is actually like.
I am officially gone from
It's quite shocking to see how much worse the opinion Nazis get is worse than those of Soviets. The latter put a great deal of effort into propaganda, and had a chance to continue it for half a century after the former got defeated.
Nazis were evil, sure, but if you look around, most wars in the history of mankind revolved around "our tribe is good, their is bad, they don't deserve to exist, their belongings/land are rightful loot that should be ours". Try reading the Bible, you have an outright order from the tribe's god to genocide every living being, including even livestock, from a list of neighbours a prophet didn't like. Even in 21th century we have Tutsi vs Hutu, and so on. I'd say there is only one reason to consider Nazis more evil than the rest: Germany was one of the most civilised countries at the time, so such barbarous actions are more shocking than when done by Tutsi or some such. Doing something "for the good of your people" has at least a good intent, even if it's severely misguided. Hitler wanted to give Germans power, to let them expand to lands occupied by "lesser races", protect them from "evil plotting Jews", purge the race from the weak, get rid of "traitors" to the nation, etc.
On the other hand, Soviets had no good intentions whatsoever. Even before the revolution, "good of the working class" was an empty slogan. The actual source of their name "soviets", ie, workman councils, were immediately disbanded, and "dictatorship of the proletariat" was from the start a dictatorship of the Party. Unlike "Animal Farm", it was not a popular movement gone bad, it was planned to be bad.
In Nazi Germany, if you were an ethnic German, physically and mentally hale, and not a dissident, you were ok as long as you obeyed orders. On the other hand, in the Soviet Union, the very working class that was supposed to be the main benefactors of the revolution were also those hit the hardest. You don't go on mass murders of people you intent to fight for.
So even though there are no doubts Nazis were evil, Soviets and their offshots (Mao, Pol Pot, Kim) were a whole new class of evil that makes Hitler a mere naughty kindergarten kid in comparison.
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
Castro's revolution had its flaws but he never openly tortured or killed his fellow citizens
No, he left that to Che Guevera.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
I'm a physician in a New York City Emergency Room. There are plenty of Cubans here, and either Jodido is correct about the wonderful conditions in Cuba or these people are completely making up everything they tell me. Personally, I'll go with the stories of poor immigrants who have no reason to lie to a white Jewish doctor who has nothing to do with Cuba over the rantings of some random internet troll.
Castro's revolution had its flaws but he never openly tortured or killed his fellow citizens
That is flat out, 100% WRONG. One of my high school friends was from Cuba. Both his father and his uncle were tortured by the Castro regime because they didn't fight on the "right" side. They were lucky they weren't simply shot, but my friend's dad walked with a severe limp for the rest of his life. And Che was a murdering bastard who had a habit of shooting people he only suspected of not being loyal enough.
Know what those Che tshirts are good for? It makes it easy to spot complete morons.
-- Will program for bandwidth
was Call of Duty banned there? I thought I recalled hearing about a mission where you assassinated Fidel Castro...
That was the first mission in Call of Duty: Black Ops. You play a special forces team sent in with the failed Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961. The goal of the mission is to kill Castro, but you only end up killing a body double. (It's based on a real historical event, so they couldn't actually have him get killed.)
Visit the
they do have a lower infant mortality rate and a higher literacy rate than the US.
I see this statistic cited nearly every time the issue of Cuba comes up, but it's extremely deceptive. There are multiple reasons why the infant mortality rate for the US is higher, including a greater number of premature births, but one reason is that the statistics are calculated differently. In the US, where medical technology is very sophisticated (and very expensive, which is one reason why our health care system is so inefficient), many infants (usually premature) that would be considered stillborn in other countries can be resuscitated and kept on life support. Typically the survival rate isn't great anyway, unfortunately - but they are still recorded as "live births". So our mortality rate is effectively inflated compared to less advanced countries.