War, it’d seem, we cannot live with or without. An unfathomable aspect of humanity, a scale of drama unavoidably alluring to a long list of mediamakers, who these days tend to be stacked with gamers, comic makers and bloggers:
Peacemaker
A video game still under development, which simulates the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, being promoted as a tool that can be used to promote a peaceful resoultion among Israelis, Palestinians and young adults worldwide. Found via selectparks.net.
Virtual Palestine
With similar intentions, this site tried to provide a virtual community for Palestinians living in exile around the world. Although not currently active, there’s still plenty to explore here in site built by VJ Headcleaner and a group of young Palestinians in Sydney( English & Arabic versions available ), including a “Stonethrower” animation in an attempt to redefine what has become a negative media image of Palestinians into a positive icon.
September 12th
Made by Gonzalo Frasca and a team of independent games developers, Newsgaming plans to publish several games each year in response to world events. September 12th effectively reminds how killing civilians ( collateral damage ) inevitably ends up creating more ‘terrorists’. They’ve also released “Madrid”, a newsgame about the 3/11 terrorist attacks in Spain
Kumawar.com
A library of 74 missions that can be played in single and multiplayer, built as playable re-creations of real war events. Play Mission 75: The Death of al-Zarqawi, or Mission 7 – Iran Hostage Rescue Mission, or visit South Korea as it is invaded by Northern Spies in 1996 – Mission 21 – Korea: The Enemy Within?
Dead In Iraq
Online gaming performance/protest, where an artist is logging into the America’s Army online game to input all of the names of each of the over 2000 American service persons who have been killed in the Iraq conflict, utilizing the game’s instant texting feature. America’s Army is the free, downloadable first person shooter game that serves as a primary recruiting mechanism for the United States Army.