Battling For Souls, Fetching Water & Suing Parents

Since I found three interesting gaming stories, I decided to put them in a short "round-up" post. The New York Times, reg. required, discovers the Christian video game phenomenon and focuses on the game version of the apocalyptic Left Behind book series where "they [non-Christians] are recruited to join the side of God or be judged following the rapture." Yikes.

Trend blog PSFK wrote about "mtvU, Reebok and the International Crisis Group - who are offering $50,000 to the winning design for a game to raise youth consciousness about the crisis in Darfur." Hmmm…It creeped out this Village Voice writer who wrote:

"I've seen some sick and twisted video games in my day, but I hereby award the cake to a dark little perversion of the human imagination entitled Fetching Water, a finalist in the MTV/Reebok Darfur Digital Activist contest for games designed to 'raise aware-ness and stop the genocide' in Sudan's Darfur region. Currently playable in demo form at MTV's new college-targeted broadband site, mtvU, Fetching Water casts the player as a cute Darfuri child dodging heavily armed militia gangs through the five kilometers of desert between home and the nearest well. Fail to outrun the militiamen and the game ends, with 'kidnap, rape, and murder' listed as your likeliest fates; make it to the well and back, and maybe your family survives another day of drought. Is there even a rating for something this f$%^@#d-up?"

And finally, Ypulse reader Eric send in his own post about legislation that recently passed the Utah House of Representatives that would imprison adults (including parents!) who provide violent video games to children. What about the Army's video game?

P.S. Check out this MySpace promotion for Scarface the game where MySpace musicians can enter for a chance to provide music for the score…Thanks Paul!

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