BBC, AP and Gamepolitics report that Hugo Chavez is taking aim at the upcoming game Mercenaries 2: World in Flames, produced by Pandemic.
Pandemic's site for the game describes its premise thusly:
Mercenaries 2: World in Flames™ is an explosive open-world action game set in a massive, highly reactive, war-torn world. A power-hungry tyrant messes with Venezuela's oil supply, sparking an invasion that turns the country into a warzone.But for you, international crisis is all upside: You are a mercenary, and you profit from chaos. Mercenaries 2™ features a slew of potential clients, all willing to pay you to do their dirty work. Dirty deeds, done for exorbitant fees. These are world powers with deep pockets, deep grudges, and enough arms and ammo to start World War III. This is your kind of environment.
Chavez and his supporters say it's stealth propaganda on behalf of the US government. From the Beeb:
Venezuelan congressman Ismael Garcia, a supporter of Mr Chavez, said the computer game was preparation work for a real invasion."I think the US government knows how to prepare campaigns of psychological terror so they can make things happen later," he said.
and AP:
Lawmaker Gabriela Ramirez said Mercenaries 2 gives a false vision of Chavez as a tyrant and Venezuela as being on the verge of chaos. She said the game could be banned under a proposed law aimed at protecting Venezuelan children from violent video games.In the U.S., "it sends a message to Americans: You have a danger next door, here in Latin America, and action must be taken," she said. "It's a justification for an imperialist aggression."
However, Pandemic denies. Company publicist Chris Norris tells AP that Pandemic "always want to have a rip from the headlines" and "although a conflict doesn't necessarily have to be happening, it's realistic enough to believe that it could eventually happen."
And Pandemic VP states to the BBC that "Pandemic has no ties to the US government...[we're] a private company, focusing solely on the development of interactive entertainment."
Ah yes, so it must be a kooky paranoid fantasy on the part of...wait a second. Pandemic? That name sounds kind of familiar...
Oh yeah, they were that company that worked with the Army to produce Full Spectrum Warrior with the Institute for Creative Technologies at USC. The game was supposed to function as a training aid for the Army.
A rather interesting definition of "no ties to the US government."
A chunk of From Sun Tzu to Xbox discusses the work at ICT, where I interviewed among others James Korris, a former television producer, who oversaw the Full Specrum Warrior project.
And a nice bit of context from Gamepolitics:
Pandemic's decision to base Mercs 2 in Venezuela is a bit edgy, to be sure. On the other hand, game publishers are increasingly seeking to make players feel like they are living the news. EA's Battlefield 2, of course, features U.S. forces conducting combat missions in Iraq and China. NovaLogic's Blackhawk Down, simulated the late-90's U.S. intervention in Somalia. And GP notes that the original Mercenaries, released in 2005, was a highly-rated, over-the-top action game which posited a fictitious invasion of North Korea. In the original, players could choose to work for the U.S., South Korea, or the Russian Mafia.
To which one could add Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Island Thunder, set in near-future Cuba after the fall of Castro.
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