iraq
News
US Army Trains With “SimCity Bagdad”
12:30PM Owen Good | Army officers are practising counterinsurgency strategies for Iraq with using a video game plainly inspired by SimCity. In fact, a frustrated officer unprepared for the fall of Baghdad asked for such a thing by name years ago. More »
Features
Weekend Reader: Questions Asked By A Virtual Jihadi
4:00AM Owen Good | Typically, the controversy over “Virtual Jihadi”—a mod of a skin of 2003’s budget-bin jingoist shooter Quest for Saddam—deals more with free speech and abuse of authority rather than what the game asks its players to consider. More »
Culture
Virtual Jihad Game Sparks New York Civil Liberties Union Lawsuit
10:20AM AJ Glasser | The New York Civil Liberties Union is suing the city of Troy, New York and its Public Works Commissioner, Robert Mirch, over shutting down controversial video game exhibition, Virtual Jihadi. More »
Games For Heroes Collects Games For Heroes
2:00AM Mike Fahey | It’s no secret at this point that there are a ton of gamers in the armed forces over in Iraq and Afghanistan. Handheld video games are among the most requested items from our troops stationed in the Middle East, right up there with a home cooked meal and possibly going home sometime soon. There have been games for troops movements in the past, notably Fun For Our Troops and Cheap Arse Gamer’s efforts, but this one’s from the kids. Peter Gallagher and Jack Wilson created Games For Heroes after organising a letter writing game to help cheer up the troops. Realizing that letters are nice, but video games are better, the two teens created Games For Heroes, now working in conjunction with MarineParents.com to gather 10,000 new and used handheld systems and games and ship them to the fighting men and women abroad. It’s amazing what teens can do when they aren’t busy playing video games all day, isn’t it? Hit the link below for details on how you can help! Games For Heroes [Official Site] More »
Major General Hammond Invokes Pac-Man
3:20AM Mike Fahey | U.S. Major General Jeffery Hammond, delivering a press briefing on the progress of the 4th Infantry’s efforts in Iraq, revealed the inspiration behind their current strategy for dealing with Al Qaeda operatives and Shiite extremists. “I believe they have been degraded, we continue to PacMan, like the video game, away at their efforts, at their different levels,” Major General Hammond said. While it’s nice to see a video game reference made by high-ranking military officers, I have to wonder exactly what this means. I get this bizarre mental image of an overhead view of the streets of Baghdad, fruit carts spilling into the streets and the military struggling to pick up the produce for extra points. Are we the ghosts, or are we Pac-Man himself? Are power pellets sanctioned under the Geneva Conventions? With so many questions, one thing remains quite clear – we need to air drop Billy Mitchell into the war zone immediately, hot sauce and all. More »
Fake Pikachu Brings Iraqi Children Happiness
5:00PM Brian Ashcraft | This one is for a good cause. For the kids. Blog A Geek By Any Other Name was watching a fluff CNN piece about an Iraqi kids TV show. The clip showed how the show was a refuge from the war and let kids be, well, kids. Fair enough! Then guess who appeared? PHONEY FREAKAZOID PIKACHU! Yay!! A reporter interviewed one of the Iraqi kids who said that she really loved Pokémon. We bet she’d love the real ones even more. Even Iraqi Kids Love Pokémon [a geek by any other name via Japanator] More »
