Political Games

An exercise put forward to us was to pick a game and talk about how it could be political, including the objective, the gameplay itself, rules it has to abide by and the situations the games put you through.

I decided to choose a couple of games and compare and contrast them. Firstly, Grand Theft Auto. If you've played this game you'll know it has quite a large political influence within it, not directly but it is there in the form of billboards, radio broadcasts and television shows. It's put there to be satirical, not as a serious political broadcast.

The gameplay itself can be quite unpleasant at times. One of the situations where this comes across is during a torture scene which you have to under go. Now GTA is not known for being a family friendly game, being freely able to gun down innocent civilians for no particular reason. But this torture scene is different. You can see the mans expression as you torture him, it's not quick. He begs and pleads for his life, its a very unpleasant experience to go through.

Mirrors Edge is a game I did not realise was political at first. It's to do, loosely, with the idea of free thinkers trying to rebel against 'the system'. Free running across roof tops to convey messages that will assist in making people 'aware' of the system. 

You're also put into situations where you may need to fight/defend yourself. You can choose not to kill or maneuver the enemies completely. I feel like this is quite an important message, the game is saying there are peaceful ways to force change.

Both these games promote 'rebellion' of some kind but in hugely different capacities. GTA takes a very head on and critical approach. Almost saying that its hopeless to try and its simply easier to sit back and make fun of the current system. Whereas I believe Mirrors Edge conveys a totally different message which is that although the odds may be against someone trying to enforce change, it can still happen in a non violent way.