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Sunday Comics: Dead Island With the election proper only a day away, gamers’ thoughts naturally turn to one thing – video games featuring Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin. Comedy Central has us covered with Air Milf, an action-filled shooter in which the Governor of Alaska takes out wolves from a helicopter with a high-powered rifle. The key to success lies in stringing together headshots, with the point value rising with each successful kill. While the creators earn points for the dramatic musical score, they lose said points immediately after due to not having the actual Airwolf theme.
With just 42 days left until the United States chooses its 44th President, it is vital that the electorate is well versed in the key issues affecting the country.
Although many cultural commentators bemoan the lack of political engagement in the general population, and both the Democrat and Republican campaigns have condemned video games as a negative influence on the young, the fact is that gamers have a significant advantage in understanding the complexities of the Presidency. By playing games across a wide spectrum of genres, a gamer can experience first hand the tough decisions and burning questions that will test the leader of the free world.
Can the same be said for the candidates themselves? Far from condemning video gaming, McCain and Obama would do well to embrace gaming culture in the hope that some of our collective wisdom will rub off.
This will not be easy. Obama will have to flipflop on numerous anti-games speeches, while McCain must contend with long hours of advisors patiently re-explaining that a ‘computy-game’ is a sort of electric coconut shy or bagatelle.
The Houston Chronicle wants to know why none of the US Presidential candidates (by which I mean the two that could possibly win – sorry, independents, maybe next time) aren’t using Second Life in their campaigns.
If the computing media — not to mention Linden Labs themselves — were to be believed, we should be deeply immersed in our Second Lives by now. Companies are using it for press conferences, people are having sex inside it — Sweden even has an embassy in it, for goodness’ sake. Although early in the primaries there was a flurry of SL activity, things seem to have quietened down.
The author believes that this is largely due to the difficulty in raising funds from within SL — it is difficult to check where donors are based, and many are from outside the US.
