Here’s a great piece of weekend reading that sure beats picking up (and subsequently throwing away in disgust) that weekend newspaper. Gamasutra have taken the time to interview Craig Allen, CEO of Spark Unlimited who developed Turning Point.

It’s an FPS set in WWII, but is miles away from being a WWII FPS. Instead of trailblazing your way through Europe, the game is set in an alternate path of history where the Nazi’s have invaded America and other allied nations. You’re not a playing as a soldier, army officer, or anyone in control of heavy firepower. You’re Regular John, simply struggling for survival, rather than glory or honor.

The game provides the most important perspective of war alone - that of the citizen. Sure, soldiers are under barrage with strategic decisions all the time, but the types of decisions made by a citizen under occuptation are laden with moral and ethical consequences. Citizens are forced to make sense of the war, much more so than soldiers who simply have waypoints and objectives to meet.

If we accept that today we are living in a war climate on a global scale, war videogames are as relevant as ever. This is a game which I desperately hope will reach as many as possible, as it breaks away from the mould of how we typically represent (and perhaps glorify) war. But the disappointing thing about such games is that without the stunning graphics and brilliant combat/gameplay mechanics, they’ll be snubbed off as ‘games as art wank’ and ignored by a gaming populous who could definately appreciate an alternative to WWII replications and alien shoot-em-ups.

Check out the beautifully written piece here , at Gamasutra

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This entry was posted by Justin Arulnathan on Saturday, January 26th, 2008 at 5:40 am and is filed under Culture. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.