Rekka

[quzar]

It's not like you have to agree with the political standpoint to enjoy an afterburner clone... I don't agree with the vietnam war but love metal slug.

[Christuserloeser]

Metal Slug is a good example of a game with a political standpoint but at the very least it's using parody and not pure propaganda.

Also I agree much more with the political setting there as I completly fail to see where it has anything to do with Vietnam - it's set in a pseudo-Nazi enviroment where you shoot General Morden's soldiers - and allied Arabs (not to forget allied zombies and aliens ^^).

Btw, 'Morden' is German and means 'Killing' in English.

My main problem with Rekka is just that it is an independent Dreamcast game that promotes Killing Americans and Jews. While killing itself is a bad thing, killing someone without any other reason than the victim beeing Jew or American is something that is even more disgusting.

Personally I am not happy with a release like this beeing part of the scene. It's almost like your beloved sister decided to marry a known local Nazi and KKK member. =P

[Darksaviour69]

desert strike was kind of political, but C&C generals found to be full of Propaganda borderline racist

[SiZiOUS]

My main problem with Rekka is just that it is an independent Dreamcast game that promotes Killing Americans and Jews.

Yes you right this game is promoting horribles things but since the source's available, i think we can keep it with the source and cleaning it one day.

[BudFern]

Is anyone attempting a non-political version of this game?

[Christuserloeser]

Good question.

[Sweater Fish Deluxe]

I'm really curious what you see as being so pro-terrorism in this game, Christuserloeser.

I assume you're referring to the pictures shown during the attract mode. The first set of pictures is of the Taliban, the second set of pictures is of Palestinians, the third set of pictures is of US politicians and the fourth set is of casualties of war. I don't see anything pro-terrorist in any of those.

The Taliban pictures are maybe a little misguided in that they seem to be sympathizing with and even lionizing them, but many people on the left have tended to sympathize with the Taliban not because we agree with their fundamentalist policies but because they were the victims of an unjust war. It's the old "my enemy's enemy is my friend" thing, which doesn't make it right, but certainly also doesn't amount to pro-terrorist.

The pictures of Palestinians show them being occupied and repressed by the Israeli military. There's no argument there.

The pictures of Bush and Rumsfeld show them being war-mongering power hungry assholes. Certainly no argument there.

The photos of bodies are indeed disturbing, but that's the idea. War is disturbing if anyone can think of war and not be disturbed, there's a problme with that person. I assume that these pictures are what Darksaviour was referring to when he mentioned pictures of dead American soldiers, but I actually don't see any dead Americans in there. The pictures flash by very quickly, so it's hard to make much out, but mostly the pictures look like civilian casualties of war.

So, what exactly in all this "pro-terrorist"? It seems far more anti-war to me. The name of the game is Rekka (which means "Destruction"): Summer Carnival 2003 afterall. Summer Carnival is a reference to a shooter on the Genesis, but also I would say something of a reference to the way the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were viewed by too much of the public outside of the Middle East.

There's no connection to al-Qaeda or Osama bin Laden in this game, by the way. No pictures of them or references that I have seen.

As for the claim that it's "very very anti-American," all I can say is that I'm an American and I don't feel that this game is against me in any way. It's against the leaders of my country and policies they've pursued in the world, which is a very different thing than "anti-American" no matter what Fox News says. It's also worth pointing out that the majority of enemies in the game are actually Japanese politicians, not American ones anyway. Does that make the game anti-Japanese? No.

The people (or people's heads) you're killing in the game are Americans in some cases (Bush and Rumsfeld that I've seen), Israeli in one case that I've seen (Ariel Sharon) and mostly Japanese (I don't know much about Japanese politics, so the only head I recognized was of Japan's former Prime Minister from the time the game was written). I suppose the game promotes killing them, but it's obviously in a cartoonish way and most obviously not just because they're American or Jewish or Japanese as you suggested, but because of the policies and agendas they represent.

Is the game propaganda? Yes, it is. But propaganda of a very valid and necessary kind. Propaganda against the hatred, repression and killing of Muslims which has been going on in occupied Palestine for 60 years and throughout the rest of Middle East especially since 2001. It's saying that the war on Afghanstan, war on Iraq (which was obviously not very much in the authors mind as he was writing the game mostly in 2002, I guess, since there's only the one picture of Saddam Hussein on the Options screen) and really the whole war on terrorism is nothing but a war of agression and hatred, the victims of which are always mostly innocent civilians.

The game really makes no reference to the Islamic terrorism at all, either for or against. Despite what Darksaviour said, there's not a single picture of al-Qaeda or Osama bin Laden in the game. Maybe that's a fault since what the terrorists do is just as wrong as what the Bush administration or the Israelis have done and has lead to just as much suffering in the general population. But simply not being anti-terrorism doesn't make the game pro-terrorism. At worst, it makes it one-sided.

This is how I understand the game. If you think there's something I've missed or misundertood, by all means correct me. But now that I've played the game, I have the same opinion of your comments about the game as I had just from looking at screenshots and the author's page. I hope that your comments only stem from a wrong-headed defense of America and Israel on this matter, not the opinion that all Muslims are terrorists.


...word is bondage...

[Sweater Fish Deluxe]

It's a great game, by the way. I'd say it's one of the best original homebrews on the Dreamcast and that's not even because I sympathize with its politics. The graphics are simple and could certainly have been improved at least to the level of the original Afterburner, but the engine is very solid, controls are tight, there's a good variety of enemies who all have different behavior and difficulty is way up there. Actually maybe too way up there if anything, but that just keeps me coming back for more. The only disappointment really is that there's no high-score saving.

I couldn't support a sanitized version of the game with all the political references taken out because I think political statements should never just be brushed away and ignored, they need to be made, seen and discussed whenever and wherever possible. Censorship can only be justified in the most extreme situations and nothing in this game rises even close to that level. On the other hand, though, it's a shame if people are passing over a great game because they don't understand, don't agree with or even just don't want to think about its overt politics.


...word is bondage...