Bjorn Against
Bjorn Against's JournalGame of the Year nominated computer game surprises players with strong progressive message
The PC game "Gone Home" was released this past summer to rave reviews and as we reach the end of the year it is racking up award nominations from numerous gaming publications. While the game has received a great deal of critical acclaim, if you read most of the reviews you will probably never actually learn what the game is about. All the gaming publications have been very quiet about the actual theme of the game which means a lot of people who play it have no clue what they are getting when they start playing it, but what they will end up getting is a very powerful progressive message.
Most of the reviews that I have seen do not tell you what I am about to say so if you want to play the game and go in not knowing what they are getting they should stop reading right now and go download the game which is currently on sale here.
For those who are still reading I am still not going to give away too much because this is a game that is purposely shrouded in mystery and I don't want to spoil the experience. What I will tell you however is that gay rights play a very important part in the game, much of the plot focuses on the struggles faced by a lesbian character to find acceptance. While none of the critics are talking about the gay rights angle of the game, make no mistake about it that it is the gay rights theme and how that theme was presented artistically that earned this game so much acclaim.
There is no way a homophobe could possibly like this game because gay rights are such a key focus, but no doubt many homophobes will play it because so few people in the press are talking about what the game is about. In a sense I am glad they are not talking about it because there is way too much homophobia among certain segments of the gaming community who would never even consider playing a game like this if they knew what it was about. I am sure thousands of homophobes have played this game already expecting to get a creepy adventure/horror game and ended up experiencing a story of the struggles faced by those they have been discriminating against.
I struggled to decide whether or not to even post this because the gay themes of this game have been kept so secret and I did not want to feel like I was publishing a major spoiler, but don't fear because there are tons of details I have not told you so there are still plenty of surprises in the game for you. I felt that there are a lot of people who would benefit from knowing what this game was about however as I am sure there are many people who don't usually play games and would not otherwise think of checking something like this out for themselves if they did not know about the message the game contains. It is a short game that only takes about two hours to complete and is meant to be played in a single sitting. It does not require fast reflexes, there is no shooting guns or blowing things up or anything of that sort, it is entirely story based and can easily be played by anyone with even basic keyboard and mouse skills. Don't worry if you are not good at computer games because this is more a piece of art than it is a game and there is really no way you can lose as you can't die in the game.
I think it is great to see games being used as an artistic medium to make a progressive statement, hopefully the acclaim this game has received will inspire more like it.
On this horrific anniversary let us speak out against the horrors the NRA agenda has brought us
It has been one year since Sandy Hook and a lot has happened in that year. Day after day, week after week we all read stories right here on DU about countless tragedies involving guns.
We read about the grave injustice that was commited against Trayvon Martin.
We read about children accidently shooting themselves with their father's gun.
We read about the gun nuts who open carried their weapons around our schools and terrified their communities.
We read about gun nuts threatening to take up arms against our nation because of their warped perception of "tyranny".
We read about the toxic influence the NRA has on our political system.
We learned a lot in the last year from many of the hundreds of posts that have been made on this site about the topic of guns, many of the things we learned are things that certain people would prefer that we did not know about because the facts don't reflect well on their position.
The reality is however that if we want to prevent more Newtowns from happening we need to be able to discuss the reality of guns in our society because this a real issue that effects a lot of people. Sometimes the discussions can get heated no doubt and sometimes people on both sides including myself could do a better job of keeping it civil, but healthy debate is needed if we are ever to move forward as a nation on this issue.
Thank you to everyone who is speaking out on this horrific anniversary, change is slow to come but if enough people speak out we can reduce the influence of the NRA Nutcases.
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Member since: Mon May 22, 2006, 07:07 PMNumber of posts: 12,041
