Games in Palestine by David Cohn
I had just arrived in the Middle East, and my editor was describing my
first assignment for the news agency: I was to accompany the Israeli
Defense Forces on a raid of a suspected terroristâ??s house. The piece
would be published in a European paper that wanted a story on what happens
in such raids and how prisoners are treated. Equipped only with a map,
a notebook, and advice, I set out to meet my contact, a commanding officer
in the IDF.
Then I leaned back in my chair at my San Francisco
apartment and got perspective. I wasnâ??t actually about to witness
a weapons raid, I was playing Global Conflicts: Palestine, a
video game designed to teach the intricacies of being a journalist,
and about the volatile situation in the Middle East.
Global
Conflicts: Palestine is made by Serious Games Interactive, a Danish
company that is at the forefront of a new wave of games that explore
management and leadership challenges facing the public sector. Other
examples in the genre include Peacemaker, in which players are
either the Israeli prime minister or the Palestinian president, and
Food Force, a game in which you discover the difficulties of dispensing
food aid inside war-torn countries. Global Conflicts: Palestine
is the first â??serious gameâ? where you play as a journalist, and
itâ??s been sold in some fifty countries since its release in July 2007,
and has won multiple industry awards for creativity. Can a game really
capture the perils and responsibilities of being a journalist in a war-torn
country?
Hereâ??s how it goes: after receiving an assignment
from your editor, you are left to your own devices. You can wander the
streets of Jerusalem, take a cab to the Palestinian town of Abu Dis,
or visit the Jewish settlements and the neighboring Palestinian villages
in the desert. Every move and decision, every sentence you utterâ??picked
through multiple choicesâ??affects relationships with sources. Those
relationships evolve throughout the game over time, so you donâ??t want
to burn anyone. For example, Israeli soldiers have negative reactions
if you donâ??t don an IDF bulletproof vest while following them in the
raid, but Palestinian citizens are much harder to approach while wearing
such a vest. There is no â??winningâ? in this game; the best you can
do is write an â??articleâ?â??actually a selection of quotesâ??that
makes an impact on the situation through the breadth of information
gathered, has the right angle for the paper itâ??s written for, and
keeps a critical distance. Sound familiar?
Global Conflicts: Palestine wonâ??t teach
anybody how to write. After moving all around Jerusalem, the resulting
story consists only of a headline, a photo, and three quotes of the
playerâ??s choosing. Still, through the eyes of the main character you
learn something about the daily hardships of the Palestinians, the daily
fears of the Israelis, and the difficulty of having to work between
the two as a journalist. â??David Cohn
that is pretty amazing!
that’s a seriously DEEP frickin’ video game! whatever happened to Sonic the Hedgehog?!? New games are so intense…like all these Tom Clancy novels, and WWII re-enactments…weird I tell you.
There are lots of games dealing with serious topics – Global Conflicts: Palestine is just one of many. See the ‘Games’links at http://trippenbach.wordpress.com/ . . .