Exploiting The First Amendment

(FAIRFAX) At today’s Virginia Entertainment Expo, Gaming giant Electronic Action announced that it has opted to go in a “new direction” with its famed World War II videogame franchise, Medal of Warfare: Duty Beckons. Bill Windsor, president of the company, offered a summary of the impending changes, saying that “with cutting-edge graphics becoming almost life-like, it was time for gameplay to follow suit.”

“In this game”, he said, “if you get shot, your character dies. That’s it. If you want to play again, you have to buy a new game.”

According to industry sources, this is meant to be an homage to actual events that occurred during World War II, in which soldiers were not allowed to continue fighting after they’d been killed, but were instead forced to remain dead. These changes would eliminate the standard “respawn” of combat videogames in favor of a screenshot of Arlington Cemetery and the text “Game Over.”

“Of course”, he went on to admit, “you don’t always die when you’re shot – that wouldn’t be fair. Sometimes you bleed to death over the course of five or six hours. Once in a while you just lose a limb, in which case you can play as long as you want. But then you’re limited to the ‘Ultra Busy Hospital’ and ‘VFW’ levels.”

The Virginia Entertainment Expo was started in 1983 when programming legend Ricky Gunders and design guru Steve Henderson were simultaneously kicked out of their parents’ houses and could find nothing better to do. The Expo is named for their clientele, and not, as is often assumed, because the Expo takes place in Virginia. The event has grown to accommodate over five thousand attendees every year, showcasing new installments of famous titles like Vehicular Felony and Strangely Entertaining Plumber as well as the occasional Medal of Warfare game.

As historically accurate as these changes might be, some gamers are rallying against the new system, labeling it as ‘harsh’ and ‘unfair’. They claim that the ‘one life, one game’ policy is simply a ploy to get gamers to spend more on software. Electronic Action CEO said in response, “Yeah, that’s pretty much it”, but also pointed out that since the Army has already started using videogames as recruiting tools, this will leave less to explain, and will cut down on troops running through enemy barracks looking for flags or shouting “they’re using hacks” when overwhelmed by enemy combatants.

The Expo is no stranger to controversy. Two years ago the game Spiky Blue Running Rodent was protested by members of PETA as a ‘representation of animal violence’ and an ‘exploitation of a defenseless species’. The conflict was only heightened when Spiky Blue Running Rodent: The Bunny Slaughter Suck It PETA Now Let’s See You Protest was released the next year. At the same event, Vehicular Felony was widely protested by Fundamentalist groups, which led to a counter-release of the titles Isn’t It Fun to Drive Safely and And Oops, I’d Better Write Down My Information and Put It In The Windshield Wiper, both of which failed to sell to national standards.

To help users adapt to changes, new game restrictions will be offset by a new set of sub-levels and features. In the new title, you can pay off high-ranking officials to get a military desk job, defect to Canada, and even inadvertently father a child in another country. EA also plans on offering a Shell Shock expansion pack to the franchise, which will allow game controllers to vibrate, often uncontrollably, and  screens to go black for short periods of time, adding to the challenge of the game for more experienced players.

The new gameplay system is not without its supporters. According its advocates, the game is only unfair if there’s no way to win. And as Bill Windsor tells us, “Of course you can win. If you’re able to play the game for roughly four years without getting shot, Japan surrenders and you win the game. Unless you play as France, in which case, no, there’s no way you can win.”

(Update 11/10/09: The Onion just featured a similar-but-different video article, which is quite funny, and can be found here)

Tagged: satire, videogames, war, World War II