The Irish Question
The Irish Question
Warning: contains slang…
Continued…
That Q & A made it seem all very silly and old hat (and it is – it is hundreds-of-years old hat – LET IT GO) but the amount of people still sore about it boggles the mind. It boggles the mind fast and hard against the wall.
I think at least some people would like to see more thoughtful games set in political conflict zones like the Balkans, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka. But the danger for developers is that they get caught up in polemic or end up ‘picking a side.’ Worse still, they’ll get lambasted with accusations of exploiting real-life tragedies in “disrespectful” ways, like Six Days in Fallujah developer Atomic Games. Or ministers make ignorant reactionary
comments about it. But even when Liam Fox got all in a tizzy about playing as the Taliban in Medal of Honor it was nice to see EA’s response to these baffling remarks:
“Most of us have been doing this since we were seven: someone plays the cop, someone must be robber. In Medal of Honor multiplayer, someone’s got to be the Taliban.”
Simply put: in most conflicts, you expect to find more than one side.
But there is another response to the Foxist school of thought. It is something that can be accepted in any other art form. The following maxim: There are no tasteless games, just games that are not to your taste.
Even if we do need to show a bit of sensitivity to people still undergoing the hardships of the world’s conflicts, that shouldn’t stop developers setting their game in Troubled Ireland; even if you don’t agree with the above maxim on ‘taste’, hasn’t the time come to say “Fuck the sensitivities, it’s history. There are some things other people want to know, probably some things they ought to know.” There are plenty of movies about ‘the Troubles’ (watch Five Minutes of Heaven for one of the best) and dramatisations on telly have been going strong for a while now. So why haven’t any games developer realised that there are dirty, gritty, emotional, difficult and rewarding stories to be told about Ireland? We don’t necessarily need to throw an FPS of stupidly destructive proportions in there. Why not a clever Hitmanesque game playing as a Brit or ‘Ra operative and slowly realising how fucking swampy grey the whole horrid thing is? Why are there only Irish characters, but no Irish stories? That’s the real Irish Question.
Minor geographical quibble – Rockstar are Edinburgh (or Dundee originally), not Glasgow.
Couldn’t stop laughing. I’ll refrain from reading your articles until I’m alone in the office so as not to seem like a dick.
Why has no one else but me figured out that all pirates have thick Irish accents?
@ Fraser
Whoops!
I’ve also just realised that I’ve mentioned 2K Marin instead of Irrational. Which makes me a simpering invalid.
Brendan continues on his quest for games journalism domination.
For “Why haven’t you died of Thatcher yet?” you are forgiven such minor clerical mistakes :)
Between this and Brenda Brathwaite’s “The Irish Game” I’m now psyched to make some sort of game set in some sort of historical situation, preferably with many shades of grey.
>OPEN FILE Napoleon Total War
>Load Save “Lord Harris’ Gentlemanly British Empire”
>Click on “Main Invading Force” Army
>Click on Ireland
>Click Invade Ireland
> Message “Invading an Ally will loose respect and trust from other nations”
>Click Invade Ireland
@Harris
I say, well played sir. A hearty laugh from me.
Up the ‘Ra!
A certain sleep deprived editor pressed the wrong button and deleted the last comment on this article. My humblest apologies to that commenter if they see this!