In the battle for hearts and minds, videogames are definitely one way to spread your message. I remember some folks were concerned about the U.S. government offering up America’s Army as a recruiting tool, but I found an interesting article on ArsTechnica about “terrorist propaganda videogames, such as this one called “Night of Bush Capturing” or “Quest For Bush” (both of which sound like great titles for the next Apatow movie!)…
Of course, if you want to compare what the gameplay between the best of what Al-Qaeda can offer and what a Western videogame company can do, just check out this video of an upcoming game for the Playstation 3….
I still haven’t made it through “Army of Two” so I’m not sure I can handle “SOCOM: Confrontation”… But I do have “Resistance 2” pre-ordered!
…because it introduced me to some good music and wonderful artists I’d never heard before. Or to be more precise, I’d heard them, but didn’t know who they were… like David Axelrod and the song “Holy Thursday“, which I originally found on “The Music of Grand Theft Auto IV”
I’ve committed over 140 car-jackings, and yet this song never fails to take the edge off. Apparently, it has a similar effect on other gamers.
For Mr. Hollick, Niko has still been the role of a lifetime. A native of the eastern shores of Maryland, Mr. Hollick developed a talent for dialects as a theater student at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, he said. In the game Niko is a war-scarred Serbian who has worked as a human trafficker before landing in New York (known in the game as Liberty City). Mr. Hollick’s masterly performance as the voice and body of Niko appears to stem both from Mr. Hollick’s rich conception of the character as well as from a stellar script.
Of course, because this is a video game, in addition to thousands of lines of dialogue, there were the more, shall we say, atmospheric effects.
“So we would have the 50 pages of screaming, 10 pages of being shot, 10 pages of being thrown off a roof, 20 pages of being burnt alive, just screaming,†he said. “The ones being burnt alive were the best. And I’d just be like: ‘Bring me more hot tea and honey and lemon. Earl Grey.’ “