Hezbollah to release video game

[Pulse]

http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,136026-c,games/article.html

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Raid Israel to capture soldiers, battle tanks in the valleys of south Lebanon and launch Katyusha rockets at Israeli towns -- a new Hezbollah computer game puts players on the frontline of war with the Jewish state.

"Special Force 2" is based on last year's 34-day conflict between the Lebanese guerrilla group and Israel.

"This game presents the culture of the resistance to children: that occupation must be resisted and that land and the nation must be guarded," Hezbollah media official Sheikh Ali Daher said.

Designed by Hezbollah computer experts, players of "Special Force 2" take the role of a Hezbollah fighter, or Mujahid. Weapons and points are accumulated by killing Israeli soldiers.

The game, launched on Thursday, recreates key phases of the conflict, which was triggered when Hezbollah raided northern Israel and captured two soldiers, saying they wanted to negotiate a prisoner swap.

I can see this going down well.

 

[Solaris]

They didn't invade northern Isreal, they invaded Isreali occupied Lebanon.

 

[Nemesis6]

I wonder if they're gonna make it on the Genesis3d engine again.

 

[Rapstah]

If it has ragdoll physics... well.

Considering the millions of games the USA have made for propaganda (America's Army?) this isn't too bad.

 

[Nemesis6]

I wonder if it'll actually have an "Options" menu.

 

[Gorgon]

haha, WTF!!! i say Bring it ON

[YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/v/cUCJlV6s0dU[/YOUTUBE]

 

[hool10]

Great. More ammo for critics like Jack Thompson and the like. :hmph:

 

[French Ninja]

Is it multiplayer?
Lets start a hl2.net clan for it. :O

 

[Atomic_Piggy]

Sounds fun.

 

[K e r b e r o s]

Considering the millions of games the USA have made for propaganda (America's Army?) this isn't too bad.

Oh, sure. For nerds a video game is harmless. But for super nerds being picked on or perceiving an international bias against them by two of the worlds strongest super-powers ... Columbine anyone?

 

[kirovman]

I hope you're not implying that video games were responsible for Columbine.

 

[Laivasse]

I'm getting this on 360 cuz I hear the PS3 version will only run at 30fps and wont have all the same features and shit yo.

 

[Nemesis6]

I wonder what platform they'll target. Having a gaming console is clearly haram, whereas a pc has become a neccesity for the Jihadis. I wonder if they'll make it hardware accelerated, though...

 

[Nemesis6]

Here's a picture from the first game by the way: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/01/Spf9.jpg

Holy crap, they're gonna use the Crytek engine: Take a look at the new games wikipedia page - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Force_2:_Tale_of_the_Truthful_Pledge*

I found this video where they use the farcry engine and characters to depict a kidnapping in 2000 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUuX6nxN5CI

And here's part two, complete with Arabic rambling from Nasrallah!
http://video.google.com/videoplay?d...=44&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=2

 

[CptStern]

http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,136026-c,games/article.html




I can see this going down well.

good article on the game:

Why the new Hezbollah game isn't all that 'controversial'

Since the advent of cuneiform and the ability to poke things with sticks, expressive media have been used as a way to propagate ideas, messages, beliefs, and propaganda. The latest and most unnecessarily fussed-over is a game developed by Hezbollah called Special Force 2. The game is a run of the mill FPS/ army sim and seems wholly unremarkable except that the target happens to be one of the United States' closest allies -- Israel.
If you watch the embedded MSN report on its release, you'll find that the newscasters seem to find the notion abhorrent, or at least in bad taste, even if they don't explicitly say so. Before launching into a fit of apoplectic rage, ponder a few questions with me, after the jump.

What makes Special Force 2 tasteless, as opposed to the slew of army- and combat-based FPS that saturate the market?

Is it the fact that it depicts a present-day war, as opposed to World War I or II? See Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare for a rebuttal.

Is it because genocide falls very clearly at the "horrible" end of the morality spectrum? Killing Nazis is socially acceptable because genocide is bad; however, the moral highroad in the Gaza Strip (i.e. Hezbollah vs. Israel) is hard to find> Hezbollah thinks themselves to be morally righteous in their struggle against Israel, and who are MSN newscasters to say differently? Don't get me wrong: I'm not throwing my internet fame behind Hezbollah, but I'm not going to overlook the fact that Israel has its fair share of skeletons in its collective closet. There is definitely some moral gray area here. Rather, nobody is right.

Maybe because Special Force 2 was expressly created with propaganda in mind, we should find it inherently bad. Video games are simply the next step in the evolution of media, and as such, are subject to the same pitfalls as art, sculpture, radio, film, and TV; that is to say, it can be easily used as propaganda. Our very own Army is guilty of using our favorite pass time to its own devices as well, not to mention that they did it first.

So let's recap: Ubisoft is developing a present-day war game, there is no clearly delineated "right" or "wrong" on the Gaza Strip, and our own government has used video games as propaganda. It seems that our newscasters' (and, in all probability, collective America's) indignation is left with very little to stand on, apart from the fact that an enemy of Isreal is an enemy of ours.

But, is that really enough to discredit the game, call it "controversial", act haughty and smug, and imply that Lebanese Muslims are somehow inherently evil? Again, I re-iterate, I'm not exactly stoked that Special Force 2 exists, but I will try to take the time to understand where it comes from. To boot, I wasn't exactly happy when my own government got into the digital propaganda game. It's not so much that Hezbollah are a shining beacon in the video game world, we should just remember that maybe our own, big budget blockbusters aren't that different.

http://www.destructoid.com/why-the-new-hezbollah-game-isn-t-all-that-controversial--38929.phtml

 

[Sulkdodds]

Also, it'll be shit.

 

[K e r b e r o s]

I hope you're not implying that video games were responsible for Columbine.

This is just genius.

You can't choose to ignore the factors that contributed to the massacre at Columbine. Ignoring the roots of this massacre and all of its subordinate and subsequent results is like ignoring the history of the shooters, altogether.

This was weeks after a Gun and Knife show were friends of Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold purchased the two shooters guns. Seen here in the video is Eric Harris, Dylan Klebold, and several of they're friends discharging they're newly purchased firearms.

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=47e_1180200377
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=61b_1180201670

Michael Moore explains the rest on ease to purchase weapons. Or have you not seen, "Bowling for Columbine?"

Bullying as a contributing and motivating factor, alongside a myriad of confused pro/anti-social behavior the result of social rejection. (judged by the content of they're school and home videos):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nH82TdWBfGg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0W8euM95Ww
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBFo3AGV1YA

Excerpts from several of they're journals:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VqqjQlSR5HE

After these factors, they're environment acted as an initiator to further they're agendas. The massacre reflected this:
http://64.233.169.104/search?q=cach...c+Columbine+and+DOOM&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=6&gl=us

It's possible that what you know is very limited. I'd have to have a much broader debate with you to get a sense of this.

 

[CptStern]

This is just genius.

You can't choose to ignore the factors that contributed to the massacre at Columbine. Ignoring the roots of this massacre and all of its subordinate and subsequent results is like ignoring the history of the shooters, altogether.

This was weeks after a Gun and Knife show were friends of Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold purchased the two shooters guns. Seen here in the video is Eric Harris, Dylan Klebold, and several of they're friends discharging they're newly purchased firearms.

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=47e_1180200377
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=61b_1180201670

Michael Moore explains the rest on ease to purchase weapons. Or have you not seen, "Bowling for Columbine?"

Bullying as a contributing and motivating factor, alongside a myriad of confused pro/anti-social behavior the result of social rejection. (judged by the content of they're school and home videos):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nH82TdWBfGg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0W8euM95Ww
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBFo3AGV1YA

Excerpts from several of they're journals:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VqqjQlSR5HE

After these factors, they're environment acted as an initiator to further they're agendas. The massacre reflected this:
http://64.233.169.104/search?q=cach...c+Columbine+and+DOOM&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=6&gl=us

It's possible that what you know is very limited. I'd have to have a much broader debate with you to get a sense of this.

so .....where exactly in your post do you link the Columbine massacre with video games?

 

[Rapstah]

They used guns, and guns are in video games. See? :hmph: