If a video game about colonization offends you then you might be better off sticking with Hello Kitty: Island Adventure. Some hyper-sensitive douche at Variety wrote an article yesterday about how morally outraged he was that Sid Meier dare make a game about colonial powers plundering the utopia that was the pre-columbian Western Hemisphere. Are you ready for a bombshell? This game was originally released fourteen years ago, and it wasn't even that good. The game in question is Sid Meier's Civilization IV: Colonization and it's fundamentally the same game as the '94 version but updated to run in the Civ IV engine. Personally, I'm outraged that this game is not just a mod/map pack for Civ IV. I don't want to buy/illegally download a whole new game just to rape and pillage the Native Americans.
Cry babies always ruin it for the rest of us
I never agreed with all of the protests against Columbus day. I mean, would the natives really be better off if they went undiscovered? Sure there was plenty of brutality on the part of the colonial nations but what about all the slavery and human sacrifice the Aztecs took part in? You'll never be able to convince one party that the other is right which is why I'll leave it at that. Both sides can argue that they're right to a certain degree but there is plenty of hypocrisy and cherry picking of facts to make it impossible to have a real intellectual discussion.
Complaints like this are retarded and make you look like a bitch. Take the recent charge of racism against Resident Evil 5. Early scenes from the game made it look as if all of the zombies were going to be black. Everyone seemed to thing that you should never ever kill a black zombie because somehow that's morally different than killing a white or Asian zombie. Or, in the case of the previous Resident Evil, Latino zombies. The argument doesn't hold up when you learn where this game was set... Africa. It just so happens that most of the folks in Africa happen to be black, should this game have been made with white zombies? What if Call of Duty was remade so that all of the Nazis were given Mexican player models because killing white Nazis is too offensive. It wouldn't make any sense and no one would buy that game. So should you avoid making any game that is location specific to dodge these issues? That's lame. I find games with historical and social backing to be more interesting. For instance, I never play Civilization on a random map because there is no real world relation. It just isn't interesting.
Variety discriminates against readers with a brain
Ben Fritz, the retard who's panties were all twisted about Colonization, makes some pretty ignorant statements in his article. Here are a couple that were pretty inexcusable:- "I agreed with N'Gai on that issue, but in my opinion, a game about colonization is about 100 times more messed up."
- "A game about colonization that's entirely about controlling the settlers can either force the player to do horrific things or let him avoid doing it and whitewash some of the worst events of human history. Either option is offensive."
- " 'conquer[ing] and rul[ing] the New World' is inherently about engaging in the racist practice of exploiting and abusing native people. (And I'm not even getting into the offensiveness of using uncritically using the phrase "New World" in the marketing material.)"
- "Of course 2K has the right to release it. Nobody should stop them from doing so. But I think personally think they shouldn't release it, if it's at all what it appears to be based on the early marketing. And I'm hoping a lot of people agree with me and will say so publicly."
And another thing...
This guy obviously has a hard-on for hating on colonial nations. It sounds like there shouldn't be any games in which goal oriented and historically accurate game play is used. He clearly doesn't like the history of the conquest of the "New World" (or the Non-Europeanized Stone Age land ruled by tribes of technologically inferior natives) but it's an important story that should still be told. The most effective way to learn a subject is to make it interesting to people. Interactive games can get people involved in stories that they otherwise wouldn't have followed. These games allow you to make your own choices to impact the outcome so you aren't locked in to the historical follies and miscalculation of the British or Napoleon or Patton. If companies stray from topics that could be misconstrued because an asshole could call them racist, there would be very few engaging games. Not every game can be Boom Blox, although I'm sure there are PETA folks that've written angry letters to EA because it's possible to throw baseballs at cows and sheep in the game...
Just look at those pixels, so racist in their disdain for the red man.
Update: Here is 2k and Firaxis' reply to Variety:
For seventeen years the Civilization series has given people the opportunity to create their own history of the world. Colonization deals with a specific time in global history, and treats the events of that time with respect and care. As with all previous versions of Civilization, the game does not endorse any particular position or strategy - players can and should make their own moral judgments. Firaxis keeps the player at the center of the game providing them with interesting choices and decisions to make, which has proven to be a fun experience for millions of people around the world.
I just posted the following to that idiots article comments:
"
As a high school Language Arts teacher, you disgust me. You get PAID as a journalist? You don't even know what ironic means, idiot.
Also, quit being so sensitive. I myself am a Native American, but what is done is done. It didn't happen to me, and it didn't happen to you. It didn't even happen to any of my living relatives. It is very sad, and should be remembered, but if it weren't for COLONIZATION (as you seem to have to capitalize it), you wouldn't be writing this article right now.
Idiot. Do yourself a favor and look up "ironic."
Why don't you research the game a bit more, as well? You do realize you can play the entire game without fighting the natives, but instead trading with them and creating a peaceful, mutually-beneficial relationship? It's not whitewashing, it is creating an alternate, if fictional, history. Do you even understand the educational value of Sid Meier's games? While there is war in them, there is war in human history. Any study of human history (which this and Sid's Civilization games are) must involve war and atrocities to some degree. Civilization has slavery in it. It has religion. The number one cause of war in Civilization (the game and real life) is religion. It's unavoidable, and it is in the game, and it is all the more informative and thought-provoking because of it.
These games are meant to be fun and educational. They meet both criteria. Sure, there are questionable things that happen in them; however, just as in games such as Grand Theft Auto, we are not expected to enjoy them. I play this game as well, and while some horrible things happen, these events cause me to think about our society and the implications of certain actions within them.
You haven't even played the original Colonization. You couldn't even spend ten seconds googling it to see there is a free version of it online you could play to research. Writing an inflammatory story calling for action against a game/subject you have zero experience with is the worst lack of journalistic responsibility one could possibly show.
Good job."
Halle-freakin-luyah!!
I'm not "proud" of what happened, but I don't see this guy lining up to give his land and possessions back to the people he thinks it was stolen from. That, in my mind, is the only way to not be hypocritical when getting so inflamed about things that happened 500 years ago.
Re. "Their first edition allowed you to play through the history of the Egyptian and Roman empires which basically colonized the whole of Europe and the Middle East. Sorry dude, people just like playing games like this." I wasn't aware that Rome or Egypt colonized - for example - England, or Scandinavia. Learn some history! Still, I do agree with the basic premise of your argument.
...but it's like I said, BASICALLY all of Europe, as in not literally all of Europe.
This map shows Roman control at its greatest. Notice England and what I'd consider "most of Europe," all the important parts at least. Scandinavia and Germany not withstanding
I wasn't aware that Rome or Egypt colonized - for example - England....
Learn some history!
Rome most certainly did colonize England. After messing around half-heartedly for a hundred years or so, they invaded in earnest in AD 43, and ruled pretty much everything south of Scotland for nearly 400 years. They built roads, established towns and cities (Londinium, for instance; you know it as London), introduced Roman technology, religion, culture, and style, and, well, colonized the place. They remained there until the Roman Empire began its final collapse.
The Romans DID colonize ENGLAND you moron!
In fact, the reason why England is culturally a separate land from Scotland is because Scotland was never under direct Roman control, hence it did not lose it's Celtic heritage unlike England proper.
Of course, the later Anglo-saxon and Norman invasions contributed in the creation of a separate English "people" but hell, talk about the pot calling the kettle black.
"Learn some history!"
That's from 2003 Freecol Linux-java game, I think. Original 1994 pixels are just as racist, mind. :)
The Planet has more serious Problems than Computer Games. Damn Moralists. Look for a Hobby an let other People do what they wanna do. I Play Colonization for Years and i think not for a Second Boah i must kill all indians. Real world is Real World an Games are Fictionary. Go to Africa there you can help People.
See, first this is a strategy game, and it does never force you to do any actions against the natives - you can, but you don't need to.
If you now look at actual history, what have the spanish (dspecially under Hernando Cortez) done? Do you think they did pet the Natives to death? Or sweettalked theyr brains out till they died? What have the English done?
History was quite brutal with the natives, and it is exactly this setting this game plays in.
I think this is a good game to be released, because it makes people remember what has been done to the native american people, and memory prevents repetition.
This is kind of silly. Does that guy also claim that Civil War reenactors are racist if they pretend to fight for the Confederate side? Give me a break.
Games like these are the reason why our nation's youth are always off enslaving everyone they meet!