These, it just feels wrong making a game out of this.

That unfortunately is the problem that is preventing the evolution of our medium. Personally I have no problem with a game like that.

It Happened to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0c2XfcpPQ8&feature=related though..
And all your female companions got in all sorts of trouble. Some of them even died.

Anyway, a game about the Rwandan Genocide would be interesting if done right. Most of you guys seem to be thinking the game would be "AWESOME MEGA ACTION FPS! YEAH!" which I can see would not work. What happened to good old fashioned "point n clickers".

I'm also going to add that there was documented killing of a pregnant woman and chopping of hr fetus like it was salami, with machetes

now, anyone who again puts word 'fun' in their post in this thread better re-read the sentence I just wrote above

this idea disgusts me, this thread disgusts me, murderers of Rwanda disgust me, end of story

Games aim to entertain. This is why 'war games' steer away from some of the 'gritty' realism aspects of war. When my army in 'Rome: Total War' beached an enemy faction's city walls in a siege, the soldiers didn't start pillaging, [censored], and looting the city, as they would if this was 'real.' They went straight to some weird coloured squre in the middle of the city and 'won' the battle just by standing there for 2 minutes. Civilian casulties were completely evacuated from the battle and handled in a sanitized fashion post-battle with a little selection box. It's a game. It aims to entertain, not to disturb, the audience.

Of course, anyone who has played CoD Modern Warfare can tell you that 'war games' are becoming increasingly "real" and "gritty", because it is appealing to an entirely new generation of gamers that have growup in a culture where the sight and participation of violence is actually entertaining and pleasurable. Video games is not the only thing responsible for this. Think film and sports.

I assume you have no immediate plans to actually design this game (engine?), but that it's an "idea" that you will submit in the form of an assignment for your English class, which means that there is, somewhere in your assignment submission, something that conveys a thesis. Is that thesis trying to argue or make claims about how we should be entertained by stories about the Rwandan Genocide? If not, then I'd have to wonder, as many already have, why this history and these stories must be articulated through the medium of video games....

Why not? At the moment few non-gamers truly respect our medium. The majority still have an idea of the advlt gamer as a 30-something year old living in his mother's basemant, ie. a failure. How is our medium ever going to be respected like movies or television if we're too scared to handle stuff like this?

Indeed.

That's just a generational gap. When television came out, literary purists scoffed at its stupefying powers. Socrates scorned the communication technology of writing as inferior to orality. Benjamin moured the loss of an 'aura' associated with traditional authorship eroded by the printing press and technologies of mass (re)production. Avatar had an unoriginal story that Hollywood has recycled countless times since Lawrence of Arabia, but few people noticed under the bombardment of CGI and videogame aesthetics. Videogame is already a communications medium, as a vehicle of storytelling. It's just doesn't conform to the same narrative structure as other communications medium like books or films -- and in fact, it's not even about the narrative anymore.

The military 'respects' video-games. They use it to train infantry soldiers in urban combat, pilots in flight simulators, and officers in naval or battlefield tactics. If people who wage war are using video-games to enable the waging of war, you can't really claim it's not being "taken seriously"....

What so your saying because some idiot thinks gamer = middle aged gy in basemant we need games like this ? Sorry but we shouldnt decide "This is a good game because it changes an ignorant guys opinion", games should be made to entertain this is not an entertaining idea, and there is a difference between a game and a movie, a movie you watch, anything happens you an observer, in a game you control what happens to a degree.

I'll say this:

There was a game saying the bible was a lie and humanity was made by aliens, it went on to be very popular. (Assassin's Creed 2)

There was a game about inciting rebellion and commiting acts of terrorism (either grand theft auto, just cause, or red faction guerilla...all of which are popular)

there was a game where you pitted caught animals to fight for money (pokemon, one of the most famous games of all time.)

And ?

if anyone says this is a bad idea, and if you think for a few seconds...it is not different from anything done before.

Thats just [censored] idiotic, you cant compafre games like pokemon, assassins creed and GTA to this. GTA isnt real, AC we all know is bull [censored] so it dosent mater and pokemon is fictonal, this is based of a real thing. You cannot compare them.

I'm not sure it would be a good game even in the right hands.

This is true, things have definitely changed since we were children, but there is still a good portion of people who still think videogames are solely for children.




I generally don't think of videogames of this kind as "entertainment" as in , but rather as an interactive learning experience, a story just like any other. You guys are acting as if I'm suggesting that we actually play as the Hutu's who commited those atrocities.

You also have to take into account that we live in a society where the "six scene" from Mass Effect took up the leading headlines of major news corporations for weeks. Think about for a moment. Those who have seen the said "six scene" knows that worse can be seen in a prime-time sitcom. Anyone who plays video games knows how powerful the medium can be for telling a story, or fleshing out their point of view on a "hot topic," but for those outside of the gaming community, most still hold the belief that games are for children, and "how dare" they discuss or show mature themes to our impressionable youth. The funny thing is, that most of these same people will "screen" an R-rated film, then decide whether or not to let their 13 yr old son or daughter see it. But for some reason, they can't wrap their heads around the fact that most of the gaming generation is doing the same thing with games for their kids.

now you arent making sense..theyre video games, and they have controversy, just like any other game, halo has you kill hundreds, thousands of aliens for the safety of yourself and your country, now theres genocide for ya.



exactly, a game about genocide really wouldnt be too controversial...heck maybe even call of duty 7 will attract more red flags..

War and genocide are absolutely two different things.

Last time I checked halo wasnt copying a real thing ? And there is a difference between killing an invading army and playing a game where one side just massacres others in violent brutal ways. I cant beleive you actually compare halo with genocide, God alive I didnt think my generation was so [censored] up.

Halo doesn't have a real world influence (not directly at least).

Most, probably all, realistic "war" games are based off of a conflict in which two relatively equal power sides fought. Sure, one won in the end, but the losing side, at some point, had a chance. With a genocide, that's not the case. It one group going and killing another just because they damn well please. There's really no way to tastefully make a game based on that.

Indeed.
Just because video games can cause controversy shouldn't mean that can be exploited to the point where you portray a country massacred in 3 months just for the sake of causing some "controversy". It's just not right.

come on, in halo i killed more aliens than cancer's killed people...

halo may not have real world influences, but you still kill hundreds of thousands of aliens....without dying....stupid stuff...

In Halo, you play the Master Chief who's purpose is to defend humanity against an invading army.
In this "Rwandan Genocide" game you will either play as a Hutu slaughtering innocent Tutsis, or you play a Tutsi being killed/hiding in a bathroom hoping not to die.

You just don't get it do you?

Aliens aren't real, people are. Halo never happened, the genocide did.

And even if Halo suddenly became real, it was a war. Both sides agreed to fight because they both thought the could win. That's not how genocide works. In genocide, only one side wants to fight, the other just wants to get away. Not very fair, is it?

Thats war, war is not always genocide sometimes it can be, but halo nah dont think so.

I made it easy and copy pasted the definition of genocide

* systematic killing of a racial or cultural group

Now war

# the waging of armed conflict against an enemy; "thousands of people were killed in the war"
# a legal state created by a declaration of war and ended by official declaration during which the international rules of war apply; "war was declared in November but actual fighting did not begin until the following spring"
# an active struggle between competing entities; "a price war"; "a war of wits"; "diplomatic warfare"
# make or wage war
# a concerted campaign to end something that is injurious; "the war on poverty"; "the war against crime"