Marksmanship vs Censorship

Now this is an interesting example of Eurogamer's new features-heavy direction. Simon Parkin examines the controversy around Night of Bush Capturing, the Global Islamic Media Front reskinned version of Quest for Sadaam. As Simon puts it "This straightforward re-skin turned what was intended to be a rallying, pro-Iraq war game into a diametrically-opposed (but curiously symmetrical) attack on George Bush, his foreign policy and the nation behind his presidency." He talks to Wafaa Bilaal, professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, who in turn hacked Night of Bush Capturing to add his own layer of commentary... and had the art exhibit it was part of closed down within an hour. Go read the full thing here, but a relevant quote to get you chatting - and you're going to want to chat about this one, yes? - beneath the cut...

"The original game, Quest for Saddam, did not get any attention from the media and the state department because the ideas it promoted (that all Arabs/Muslims are terrorists) was the norm. Then when the game was modified to become the Night of Bush Capturing, the State Department labelled it as a terrorist propaganda and a recruiting tool. I thought that was strange because the only thing Al-Qaeda did is to replace the Iraqi skins with American soldiers' skins and Saddam's skin with Bush's skin. What exactly made it propaganda where it wasn't before?"

Of course, you can always make your own mind up by downloading Night of Bush Capturing yourself. It's linked herein.

(It really is very, very crude.)