The Code Games News Report 08.10.07
Posted by Shawn Struck on 08.10.2007
A tribute to my late mother-in-law, an exclusive interview, far-right Christians Using PC games to Corrupt, Q*Bert and NASCAR.
Hello, fellow Struckoholics and 411Maniacs. This is going to be a short column this week. There's been a devastating loss in my family recently... my mother in law, Carol Mullins, passed away this week, after fighting for her life for two days in intensive care.
She was only 69 years old.
So while I do have a lengthy exclusive feature for the column this week, I'll beg your understanding as this week, I dedicate this column to her and speak a bit on what she meant to me.
The surprise I hinted at last week will go up next week.
This is... The Code.
R.I.P. Carol Mullins: September 1, 1937 – August 8th, 2007
Carol was a classic, no-nonsense Italian-American mom, who made so many friends feel like family, and their kids seem like her kids. She was a hard-working lady too—she was at work the day after major hip surgery.
She loved auto racing—she was a fixture at Cowtown Speedway in Kennedale, TX ever since her son started his racing career, and cheered on her practically-adopted-grandson, Joshua as he rose through the ranks of go-karter to Late Model modified driver.
She was a loving, caring lady who'd laugh at my smart-assed jokes even when she was ready to smack me for making them. She was a bedrock of support when my wife-to-be and I were in a long-distance relationship that lasted for four years before we got married. She was someone who encouraged my to take the first steps into entering the freelance video game journalism biz, and convinced me to keep at it, and that my first successful article wasn't just a fluke.
She was a scrapper with an encyclopedic knowledge of racing, and playing the slots, and she had a way to crack a smile no matter what was going on.
She LOVED playing Q*Bert, and would sit with my wife for hours and play it, over and over. She was really, really good, and I wish I'd taken her up on her challenge.
Now I can't.
It's been two days. And I miss her already.
The last words she spoke to me were on Monday night, her first night in the ICU... she was in a lot of pain. But even through her pain and confusion, when my wife brought me in to see her… and I took her hand, and I said "I love you, Carol", she seemed to snap out of it for a moment, looked right at me, and said "I love you too, hon."
Rest In Peace.
Computer Games Helping Train US Soldiers In 'Holy Crusade'?
Exclusive Interview With David Neiwert (via The Nation, Orcinus) When America's Army was released for the PC a few years ago, there were rumblings from some people about the potential for US Army propaganda to be delivered via the irresistible lure of an intense FPS game.
But what about an evangelical entertainment group distributing apocalyptic Christian propaganda to soldiers with the tacit approval of the Department of Defense?
With the endorsement of the Defense Department, [Operation Straight Up] OSU is mailing "Freedom Packages" to soldiers serving in Iraq. These are not your grandfather's care packages, however. Besides pairs of white socks and boxes of baby wipes … OSU's care packages contain the controversial Left Behind: Eternal Forces video game.
The game is inspired by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins' bestselling pulp fiction series about a blood-soaked Battle of Armageddon pitting born-again Christians against anybody who does not adhere to their particular theology. In LaHaye's and Jenkins' books, the non-believers are ultimately condemned to "everlasting punishment" while the evangelicals are "raptured" up to heaven.
"Yeah, yeah," you yawn, "but the books are different from the games, right?"
Here's a quick refresher on the game, via David Neiwert, a freelance journalist based in Seattle who won the National Press Club Award for Distinguished Online Journalism in 2000 for his terrorism reporting for MSNBC.com:
Imagine: you are a foot soldier in a paramilitary group whose purpose is to remake America as a Christian theocracy, and establish its worldly vision of the dominion of Christ over all aspects of life. You are issued high-tech military weaponry, and instructed to engage the infidel on the streets of New York City. You are on a mission -- both a religious mission and a military mission -- to convert or kill Catholics, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, gays, and anyone who advocates the separation of church and state -- especially moderate, mainstream Christians. Your mission is "to conduct physical and spiritual warfare"; all who resist must be taken out with extreme prejudice.
... This game immerses children in present-day New York City -- 500 square blocks, stretching from Wall Street to Chinatown, Greenwich Village, the United Nations headquarters, and Harlem. The game rewards [players] for how effectively they role play the killing of those who resist becoming a born again Christian. The game also offers players the opportunity to switch sides and fight for the army of the AntiChrist, releasing cloven-hoofed demons who feast on conservative Christians and their panicked proselytes (who taste a lot like Christian).
David Neiwert noted this confluence recently, and said he was very concerned about this latest convergence of the military, evangelical outreach and the video game because "… [b]y making this proselytization part of official DOD ‘outreach', we begin the process of making the Christian conversion of American soldiers official military policy… then we are sending these converts into a Muslim war zone with visions of crusades dancing in their heads."
I got the chance to interview David Neiwert about this for The Code this week about this eyebrow-raising issue. Here's what he had to say:
Shawn: In your latest dispatch on the subject, one quote jumped out at me: "Knowing that these soldiers are being preconditioned for a "kill or convert" mentality through video gaming, that concern just became a bona fide state of alarm." Do you really think that somehow that mentality will transfer over soldiers that play the game? Or are you more concerned with Left Behind being distributed with the [Department of Defense's] tacit approval by a group that is devoted to prosteltyzing?
David Neiwert: I'm concerned that some of the more damaged and vulnerable veterans are going to transfer the ethos they learn in the game to their real lives… I'm not saying it's going to be a pervasive effect, but it only takes a few of these actors to wreak a lot of damage -- see Tim McVeigh.
Multiply McVeigh by a significant factor --there are many thousands more to have served in Iraq than in Gulf War I—and many more of them have endured multiple tours and violent combat. And the care they're getting back home is substantially worse.
Shawn: Do you really think Left Behind is an effective vehicle to do this, though? It's an awful game that has been near universally panned by critics and gamers.
DN: Yes, I'm aware that it's an awful game-- my own gaming skills lapsed after Doom, but I read the reviews and have a nephew who keeps me somewhat up to date-- and that at least offers some hope it won't spread its message very far. But I'm nonetheless concerned with the message it conveys, especially when it comes with imprimatur of a DOD outreach program, and the possibility that it will spread. Especially when twinned with "crusade" oriented proselytization that we know does attract followers who are going to be absorbing those messages even if they only play the game once or twice.
Shawn: Well, what about the fact that the game offers a mode of play where you can take the side of the Anti-Christ (even if you can't win)? Won't that dilute its message?
DN: An option to play the "antichrist" is an inconsequential palliative in a narrative where the chief object is to convert or kill; at best, it merely encourages the player to imagine himself as innately evil, so the option isn't exactly a heartening in any event.
Shawn: First there was America's Army, the FPS. Now there's Left Behind being distributed in care packages with the official okay of the Department of Defense? Does this mean prostelyzing or propaganda via official army channels could be a growing trend?
DN: There are signs that intramilitary proselytization is indeed a growing trend; there has been a rising controversy over military chaplains' behavior of late, particularly within the Air Force; there were also, of course, the well-noted remarks of Gen. Boykin; and four Air Force and Army generals were recently disciplined for participating in a fundamentalist proselytizing video in uniform. The OSU, however, is the most prominent manifestation of the trend.
****
As if that didn't sound like enough cause for alarm, it actually worse—Left Behind is so laden with spyware and adware, it could actually help compromise troop safety. Seriously. From an Ars Technica article on it:
The game comes fully loaded with what some would term built-in spyware, in the form of in-game advertising that tracks the amount of time ads are seen, how often the game is played, and the player's geographical and personal information. It then sends this data back to the advertiser's servers.
This means this information could be used to track troop movements. No, I don't think Al Qaeda has infiltrated marketing or advertising firms… but if that information is available to civilians, it could still be a security risk.
All YouTube, All The Time: Q-Bert on 14 Hours and 1 Quarter; Video Games, Sports and NASCAR
This edition is going to cover two loves of Carol's that bridged the generation gap between us: NASCAR... and Q*Bert.
First up, a video of a news report on Kelly Tharp, who attempted to play a marathon of Q*Bert at Challenge Arcade in Reading, PA in March of 2006. He played a single game, on only ONE quarter-- for 44 hours straight! He got a high score of over 19.9 million points.
Sadly, he didn't make the world record books.
This next one is a fascinating clip from an ESPN report on the effects of video game popularity on professional sports in general, and NASCAR in particular.
Pimping Is Easy When You Use The Code! Angry Gaming: Damian tackles the squishy issue of whether or not RE5 is a racist game. You know, it might very well be. I mean, everyone's assuming that just because the enemies are zombies, all they wanna do is eat your brains. They not unreasonable... I mean, no one's gonna eat your EYES.
Press Pause: A great round-up of some genre-defining video game commercials, with a great deconstruction of the "Wii Want To Play" ads for the Nintendo Wii.
The Game Plan : James McGee' muses on the fate of the games industry if more Hollywood Moguls decide to take a whack at game directing, too.
The Full Circle: Mike Minotti has the skinny on the Xbox 360's pending price
drop, GTA IV news, and more.
Nintendophiles: Our very own Nintendo para-elemental, Theo, has the news on the latest Nintendo firmware updates, Quake on the DS, and lots of Super Smash Bros. info and screens. The Negative Edge News Report Tommy Coloma has some great PS3 shopping advice and a deconstruction of Dead or Alive creator's Heavenly Sword dissing.
When America's Army was released for the PC a few years ago, there were rumblings from some people about the potential for US Army propaganda to be delivered via the irresistible lure of an intense FPS game. 
