http://www.wired.com/gaming/gamingreviews/commentary/games/2007/11/gamesfrontiers_1119"Chickenshit politicians and doctors," replies an angry soldier. "They try to cover it all up."
And this, my friends, makes Blacksite a weirdly unusual game. Many videogames include fantasy and sci-fi politics -- but Blacksite directly tackles the most divisive political issues of our real-life world. Onscreen soldiers gripe about the wisdom of the Iraq war, the ethics of torture, the hypocrisy of politicians and, perhaps most incendiary, the way Pentagon and White House cover-ups leave rank-and-file fighters to be imprisoned or die for mistakes made by guys in suits and ties.
It's rather amazing to watch a game designer -- specifically Harvey Smith, studio creative director for Midway Games -- run into this minefield. In his game, the soldiers are persistently cynical about their commanding officers, and wearily accept the grim ironies of modern statecraft. They learn, for example, that the gibbering alien enemies we're fighting in the game were armed, trained and basically created by the United States -- a straightforward allusion to how America, by sponsoring Afghan mujahedeen to fight the Soviets in the '80s, essentially trained the same people who attack us today.
At one point, after finishing off an opponent, one of my teammates cocks his gun and shouts, "Kick-ass American engineering, baby!" -- at which point another soldier replies, "I hate to break it to you, but those are mass-produced in China." Then we're sent into a U.S. town to quell an uprising of insurgents, but run into aliens instead. "Anyone mention this creepy-crawly shit to you?" asks my squad member. "Nah," replies another sardonically. "Army never knows what's going on." (Later, we plead for a departing helicopter to come back and save us, only to be told, "Negative -- I have ranking political staff onboard.")
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