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Videogame adds mad scientists and actual detainee to Guantanamo Bay
I'm all for videogames tackling serious issues. Especially political issues. If movies, television, and songs can do it, why not videogames?
The problem is doing it well. One game that seems well on its way to not doing it well is Rendition: Guantanamo, in development at a Scottish studio called T-Enterprise. Their take on the prison at Guantanamo Bay is that it's a place for mad scientists to do experiments on human subjects. And since the developers are worried about an action game in which US soldiers are the enemies the player has to kill, the game will take place after the current day Guantanamo has been somehow turned over to indeterminate mercenaries. It all sounds rather goofy and about as politically relevant as Resident Evil.
So it's a bit surprising that former detainee Moazzam Begg is lending the project his name. Mr. Begg was a British national living in Afghanistan with his family during the 9/11 attacks. When US forces moved into Afghanistan, he fled to Pakistan where he was seized by the CIA. A year later, he was transferred to Guantanamo, where he remained for three years. In 2005, he was returned to England and released without charges. He has since been an outspoken critic of US and British policy towards detainees. And now he's essentially shilling a videogame about mad scientists. He's also lending the game his likeness, some voicework, and even a little level design. T-Enterprise director Zarrar Chishti told the blog Deadline Scotland:We approached Moazzam because it's very hard for us to know how to design the layout of the prison and he helped.
Begg himself told Deadline Scotland the game "will not demean the reality of Guantanamo but it could bring those issues to people who would not usually think about it". But given that it's set in some fictional Guantanamo run by mercenaries on behalf of mad scientists, I'm not convinced it'll make anyone think anything about Guantanamo that's even the least bit relevant to the actual political issues.
In other words, move over Blacksite: Area 51 and Six Days in Fallujah. You're about to get some company.
(Thanks Game Politics.)
By Blue Guyute at 12:58 PM ON 05/28/09
Are you trying to suggest that somehow Resident Evil 5 is not politically relevant?
By Marty B. at 1:13 AM ON 05/29/09
Not to turn this into a debate on Gitmo, but while Guantanamo Bay is a Navy base, and the detention facility was secured and largely administrated by the military, there were contractors there, psychologist -> scientists. Arguably the authorized so-called "enhanced" interrogation techniques were experimental in that they had never been used to gather intelligence within by the U.S. before (and if you go by what the SERE program was allegedly trying to prevent, it wasn't used by the Soviets or China for intelligence purposes insofar as information gathering goes). Just saying, while it certainly sounds like an exaggerated "leap", a mad scientist running experiments among detainees rendered to Guantanamo isn't exactly a leap without some grounding in reality, though that grounding would be like basing a game invovling a CIA created zombie horde is justified by the CIA's research into various mind altering drugs in the MK Ultra program including various concoctions used in voodoo zombie rituals.
As far as a detainee putting his name on the product. Why not? I suppose there's a journalistic disservice done if he's opted to tie his story up here as opposed to a tell-all biography or what have you (and who's to say he ain't). At the very least, he gets name recognition among a population who largely may never had heard of him. Not saying he's a media genius himself, but he's got a darn good agent.
Anyone read the weirdass.net comics which evolved into a Cthulhu inflected war on terror, including Guantanamo interrogations "enhanced" by things derived from looking too far into the nature of the Elder Gods. It was a bit heavy handed, but still kinda cool. Thinking of that makes me rethink my initial and general agreement with Tom about "too close to home" gaming.
Marty B.:
Not to turn this into a debate on Gitmo, but while Guantanamo Bay is a Navy base, and the detention facility was se...More »