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    Sep 11, 2006 6:00 AM 221
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    Islamogaming in the Muslim World

    1UP has a truly fascinating feature up called Islamogaming: Looking for Videogames in the Muslim World. It's an absolute must read.

    In what reads more often like an excellent piece for The Economist than a feature for Luke Smith's latest sanatorium, Ed Halter starts by examining a game involving the fictious Iranian Commander Bahman, who must break through Iraq to battle U.S. Special Forces and rescue a kidnapped Iranian nuclear scientist. This triggered an announced sequel by Kuma, who vowed an unofficial sequel in which American soldiers whould take on Commander Bahman.

    From there, Halter expertly examines the video game industry of the Arab world as a whole, specifically examining political and religious influences on the games.

    Spiked with the tensions surrounding U.S.-Iran relations, the untitled Commander Bahman project is not the first Islamic videogame to appear in the Middle East. In fact, in the past half decade a number of projects have emerged from the Muslim world, all sharing a similar goal: to subvert the typical gaming stereotype of Arabs as bad guys by replacing the typical American or European action hero with a recognizably Muslim protagonist. Like many of their American counterparts, these games often base their narratives on real-life wars and battles: While Westerners replay WWII and Vietnam, they twitch through virtual recreations of the Palestinian intifada and the 1982 Israel-Lebanon war. Though relatively small, Islamogaming is also a diverse field, ranging from amateur projects by students, unabashed anti-Zionist propaganda produced by an internationally recognized terrorist organization, religious games produced to teach Islam to kids, and a set of more sober games designed to explore the complex realities of Middle Eastern history.

    This is just a fascinating read, the most fascinating feature I've read in a while. This, gentlemen, is actual gaming journalism. Florian Eckhardt

    Islamogaming: Looking for Videogames in the Muslim World [1UP]


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