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Those nice fellows from the Jedi Order...

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...are slaughtering children again. In "Galactic Battlegrounds: Clone Campaigns" game by LucasArts.

Is that a Jedi trademark, LOL? At least the evil Galactic Empire does it in a more painless way, by blowing up a whole planet in a second...

The 3rd mission of the Galactic Republic campaign features Tatooine and its local problems. In order to defend the city you have to fight the Tuskens (Sand People). So far so good. But when you are destroying their camp, females and children appear. There is no way not to kill them.

And remember: all the time we're playing the good guys. The noble Jedi Knights and the just Republic. I would close my eye on such act if we were to play the ruthless, mercilles Sith or totalitarian Galactic Empire.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not one of those people screaming about violence in computer games etc. I'm not so innocent: I cut things in a half with my chainsaw in Doom, blast people's brains with my sniper rifle in Fallout, set people on fire in Blood, bomb cities in flight simulators and I explode my opponents into gibs in Quake. And it gives me some twisted pleasure & relief from stress. So I'm not that easily shocked (at least when compared to some oversensitive people).

But what the heck were the game authors/developers thinking when they added this? I'll bet it wasn't "we have to show that even the good guys sometimes commit bad deeds, especially during the war and while trying to achieve higher goals - we need to show that the world is not white&black and that morality is more like in shades of gray". I'm quite convinced that it was "hey, let's put some Tusken(TM) Children and Tusken(TM) Females, as shown in Attack of The Clones(TM)(C) simply because we can! After all, the box cover says that the game features content from this movie, so let's squeeze as much as we can to make our customers happy-happy-happy!".

Couldn't they simply skip children (and females?) altogether? We would simply obliterate warriors' camp. Just like every other enemy camp in the game (i.e.: I don't recall killing Gungan kids).

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I saw the original theatrical release of the Old Trilogy on the big screen and I'm proud of it...
How did I accomplish that (considering my age) is my secret...
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I think this is a great way to teach people the truth about the results of war in a game format . When the guns fire, bombs fall, missiles fly, and the tanks roll, they don't always spare innocent men, woman or children. Battle is not clean, no matter if you think you are the good guys or not. If you are going to play war games, why not see what battle is all about? It's about death, not much more. If you don't like the message this game is sending, don't buy it. If you don't like the truth about battle, don't fight in one.

FF

“First feel fear, then get angry. Then go with your life into the fight.” - Bill Mollison

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I'm afraid you're overinterpreting facts. This is not some fairly serious game about World War 2. It's Star Wars, with somewhat comic like characters, sometimes quite two-dimensional.

Heck, I could expect moral dilemmas in, say, KOTOR, but this is just some RTS game aimed for teens.

Originally posted by: FanFiltration
If you are going to play war games, why not see what battle is all about? It's about death, not much more. If you don't like the message this game is sending, don't buy it. If you don't like the truth about battle, don't fight in one.


Umm... the game got "Teen" rating, so "mild fantasy violence". As I said, it's not a game for older gamers, such as "Vampire - Masquerade: Redemption" where you make moral choices.

And even if it was, I'd expect some comment from "senior Master Jedi Samuel Mofo Jackson" about Master Achoo-Whatever pushing a bit too far this time. Instead we get some generic ramblings about dark side (which is probably more about the Master falling in love with his padawan).

What I'm saying: this is not the case of a game touching serious subjects, like war atrocities. I think this is an example of "wanton game designing".
I saw the original theatrical release of the Old Trilogy on the big screen and I'm proud of it...
How did I accomplish that (considering my age) is my secret...
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Well it's Star WARS, and could be that some game makers feel WARS should not be comic at all.

You should contact Lucas Arts and see if they give an answer to why this game shows this stuff.

Anyway, I say "Let there be blood"!

I don't remember, but did they not suggest kids got killed in Episode II and III of "Star Wars"?
Lot's of kids went to see that PG movie. Most kids that would play this game would have seen the films too.

FF



“First feel fear, then get angry. Then go with your life into the fight.” - Bill Mollison

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In EP 2 and 3, you had a person who was CLEARLY falling to the dark side killing women and children. No other Jedi did any of that. So unless you're playing Anakin in this game, which I don't think you are, then I don't see it as necessary.

I seriously doubt LucasArts was trying to make a statement about war in general. It's much more likely that since Anakin did it in the movie that they felt the need to include it in the game. But as RRS-1980 said, since you're playing the good guys, the women and children shouldn't be there or you should be able to avoid them.

The last Star Wars RTS I played had you playing on the side of the Empire when you killed Ewoks during an initial scouting mission to Endor. Even that game showed the character having remorse for killing animals that were only protecting their territory. The same character later defects and joins the Rebellion.

If you really want to teach people about the results of war, have them play a game like Brothers in Arms on Realistic mode. No saving during missions. You die, you start over (which isn't realistic, but it keeps you from picking up where you left off). Or even better, play something like America's Army. You die, you do not respawn. You wait until the round ends because YOU'RE DEAD. In other words, if you really want to teach people about the realities of war, pick a game that isn't based in a fantasy universe. Star Wars is suppose to be fun and having a Star Wars game where the good guy is pretty much required to kill children is really lame.

Hell an even better way to teach people about the results of war is to actually teach them about real wars. Show them photos of what has happened in the past. Kids need to be old enough to understand everything involved though, otherwise you're just going to scare the crap out of them with gross pictures.
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Pissing off Rob since August 2007.
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This game features in-mission dialogue. It would be enough if they'd added the following exchange:

Padawan Blonde: Master Achoo, wasn't there any other alternative? No matter how savage Sand People may be, I feel sorry for their little offsprings...
Master Old-Fart: Now, now, young Jedi. What we did was OK... from a certain point of view...
Padawan Blonde: Reaching your goal no matter the cost - isn't that a way of the Sith, Master?
Master Old-Fart: You're asking too many questions today. I must rest... yeeesss... rest... want some rootling soup? I cooked!

...assuming that they had put this scene on real purpose - to show the fall of a Jedi Master avenging his former apprentice.
I saw the original theatrical release of the Old Trilogy on the big screen and I'm proud of it...
How did I accomplish that (considering my age) is my secret...
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These are games, not historical documentaries. I don't think we really need to be traumatising game players by trying to make statements about the ills of war. Generally, people can separate intertainment from reality. People who play Metal of Honor, or even some of the more violent World War II games don't come out of it saying they know what it is like to be a WWII veteran. Just like people who watch Saving Private Ryan or read All Quiet on the Western Front don't come out feeling like they know what it was like to experience D-Day or to be a conscript in the German army during WWI. These stories may tell us something about an event, or make us see an event in a different and possibly even more realistic light, but they will never tell us what it was really like. Entertainment is not real life, once it becomes real life, it is no longer entertainment.

Even the more violent videogames are not violent for the sake of realism, they are not even realistic depictions of violence.

I agree with RSS about the Tusken kids, it wasn't an attempt at realism, it was just wanton game designing. Bad taste and not very well thought out. But then again, Sandpeople are just animals. Even when Anakin tells Padme he murdered women and children Sandpeople, she tell him not to take it so hard because we all have our bad days, as if the guy were feeling quilty for accidently killing a family of mice while backing his truck into the driveway. Later when Obi-Wan tells her that Anakin has just killed some real[/r] children, she doesn't say "Oh come on Ben, don't tell me you have never had a bad and went about hacking up little kids?" Rather she reacts with great shock and disbelief and says that it could not possibly be true (what the hell was George thinking having the former hero killing little kids? Damn that is sick, just thinking of it now urks me greatly...).

So my theory is that Sandpeople are treated as a subhuman, "under evolved" sort of race, and are not at all regarded on a scale with other aliens, but are treated on the same level as animals. Very dangerous animals that come at night and still your brand new wife you just purchased from from the hovering insect man, and they steal your chicken too. In other words, Sandpeople are very much like Coyotes. Err, actually I was aiming more for humans of different "races" throughout the last 100 year of world history who have been considered more animal than human. Black slaves in America, Aboriginals in Australia, Jews in Deutschland, and so on. Perhaps to LFL and the SW Universe, killing a Sandpeople child is much like killing a black slave child was an unforunate short time ago. I don't even know what I am talking now. But yeah, it was a dumb idea to include this in the game. It is pretty disturbing when it happens off screen in Eps II and III, but to actually have your Jedi required to do this to complete a mission that they are sent on by the forces of good... bad idea.

This kind of reminds me of an article in the Reader's Digest circa 1997 about violence in videogames, oddly it gave Goldeneye a lot of backlash for being a T rated game that had your character gunning down unarmed scientists. I found it funny that out of all the violent games that existed at that time, Goldeneye was the one to get the most flak in that article, just because of the scientists. Obviously the idiot who wrote the article failed to realize that you are NOT suppose to shoot the scientist, you are suppose to rescue them and you'll fail the mission if too many of them die. I'd be like someone saying Rainbow Six was a horrible game because it had you shooting hostages...

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