Gaming conflict without the guns

Everyone loves bit of senseless violence, when they themselves can be behind the gun and shoot digital crooks before dinner. And you might actually learn some tactical skills as well. At least, several armed forces are using the first-person shooter as a training tool. But admittedly, talking is harder than shooting, so where do we look when we need to simulate civil society in a crisis?

Until recently it wasn't really possible. OK, you could have Godzilla come and smash your SimCity creation and simulate a disaster that way. But otherwise enacting violence has taken the lead as the main storyline in computergames. Now, however, it seems as if you get a chance to simulate the more elusive sides of war, crisis and conflict.

The Danish company Serious Games has just released their new title Global Conflict: Palestine, where you will play a journalist, taking the hard decisions when deciding what side of the story you should cover. It features 3D graphics and runs on both Mac and PC.

An even more interesting'ish game is
A Force More Powerful, where you get the chance to orchestrate a non-violent campaign against a dictator. You can't help but think that this is the perfect edu-tainment for democracy movements around the world.

Apart from these two, there are a number of games that dabble in the same areas. I wrote on a competition to develop games that would further Public Diplomacy a while ago, and I would be surprised if we didn't hear more from that side.