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"Hooligan: Nazi Entertainment.?"

Finding out about a game that has been released in a couple of European Countries has brought me out from my enforced hiatus to post my feelings about this:

Usually I’m the first person to defend “freedom of choice” and will stand up for a game/movie like GTA3/State of Emergency by saying “It’s a game, it allows you to do things for fun with no consequence”.
Except I’ve become aware of a game that has me genuinely concerned as to who would play it and why.
“Hooligans – Storm Over Europe”. A PC game about football hooligans.
Now it’s not cartoony, it’s very realistic and real-world like in appearance. The aim of the game? According to the website:

The object is to become the most notorious group of Hooligans in Europe. You must kill, maim and destroy the opposing Hooligan teams. You muster and control your faithful troops by administering drugs, alcohol and of course a good dose of violence every now and then. They must become true followers of your faction, for better or worse.
Not only good strategic skills are required but also a good political mindset and managing capabilities to keep your troops happy and violent.
Whoever is victorious and catches the publics attention in the media, will end up the most notorious Hooligans in Europe and the world! A title that every Hooligan with his heart in the right place loves to fight for!

You get bonus points for “attacking civilians to increase your wanted rating and bonuses for targeting minority groups”.
If you go to the website, you are greeted with a nice black and red image of a skinhead glaring out at you.
The forums are filled with racial hatred and “Firms” organising meetings and the most viscious racial abuse directed at other countries.
Some of the avatars you can choose are swastikas and other nazi symbols.
Game Ltd have refused to carry this game, and HMV and Virgin are coming under serious complaint from watchdog groups for stocking it.
It’s also not being released in Germany or America and Trading Standards are investigating the game to see if it contravenes the “Incitement to Racial Hatred” act passed since Sept 11th.
In Germany, it is illegal to have games displaying any symbolism of fascist iconography, and it is also illegal to use Nazi ideology as a basis for entertainment – rightly so but the UK has no such restrictions, we rely on public decency and morals.

Now I know this is just a game and all that, but what makes me unhappy is the reasoning behind the game. It’s one thing to play an undercover/ex cop trying to bring down a crime syndicate (GTA3), but it’s another thing entirely when the idea of a game is to commit racial murder and acts of hooliganism for the sole purpose of “Being the number 1 firm in Europe”.
And if I had any doubt about the intention or morality behind this game, then a visit to the forums for this game (I wont give out the URL as I object to Nazi propaganda) will indicate just where the game developer’s feelings lay. Several moderators have joined in the boasts about “the good old days” and making continued racial slurs and abuse towards people.

A game is a game, I understand that. And I’m not suggesting that by playing this game you will instantly become a nazi thug.
But seeing as we are in the 21st century, and especially since Sept 11th, I find it abhorrent that somebody still thinks it’s a good idea to bring out a game that rewards murder and racial hatred as if it were a noble thing.
If there was a game to be released called “Auschwitz Death Camp 2002: The Revenge” then there would be international outcry and, hopefully, condemnation from the world. But having investigated this game as best I can and as best as I can tolerate, I can see no difference between this game and tattooing a swastika on your head and “bashing p***s” as one poster proudly boasted.

The main game that caused contention last time was “GTA3”, but that had a strict moral guideline in it.
You could attack pedestrians if you wanted to, but you were working to bring down a criminal organisation. The wholesale slaughter was just there if you felt inclined to do so, and you would be arrested or shot after a few moments mayhem. You were working towards a goal that was pro-legal, you fought gangs etc to bring order and calm to Liberty City.
However, Hooligans exists solely to murder and cause violence for the sake of it.
You could say the same about State of Emergency, but they use the “Globol Corps” plot and you get penalised for attacking civilians, and if you look, all of your opponents are faceless white-people, there is no mission that involves attacking minority groups.
I’m not going to demand that Hooligans be banned, or that stores shouldn’t stock this game, I stand by personal choice and, unfortunately, that extends to allowing right-wing Nazis their say as well.
But I am extremely offended and unhappy about the notion that a game exists that promotes and actively encourages murderous, racist, thuggish behaviour for the sake of it.
The reward in commanding loyalty and devotions amongst your skinhead followers suggests that the feelings and emotions of the games developers involved in this game are not being ironic or making a comment about society.

This is bigoted, Nazi behaviour under the banner of “entertainment” and that is what I object to, not the game, but the ideology behind it.

Armatige Shanks wrote:
> Goatboy wrote:

You could
> attack pedestrians if you wanted to, but you
> were working to bring down a
> criminal organisation.

I dunno, I find it hard to see any moral justification there...

---

Personally, a game like
Hooligans, I've always felt, calls for the words the late Mr Bill Hicks, if we could set our VCR's to play 'Bill's Encasulated review of Basic Instinct' I think that all will become clear.

Ok, put it this way.

Game called "Kill the Gingers!". Kill everyone who has Ginger hair.

Or: "Kill everyone!". Exactly that. Kill everyone.

Kill everyone is better, because it does not inflict a view, which is obviously personal. It doesn't matter that we can see the difference, for the "kids that don't know any better", as Snuggly put it, or the "blank paged idiots waiting for someone to draw on their face", as I would put it, they will then believe that ginger people are horrible.

Come on. If I ask you to take class C drugs [less harmful than alcohol, I've never taken drugs, so I can't speak too much on it], I bet you'll all say no. Some of you will rightly speak from experience, and may have very good reasons to not do so. But the rest of us have been bought up on the motion that drugs are bad. Err... they are? Why?

"They just are."

You see. Even now we're still controlled by what we learned as kids. I can't go past a magpie without saluting it thanks to my mum. I don't particularly care, but it proves my point.

Another one is "don't go out in the rain". Why? You'll get a little wet, you can dry off after... oh, you might get a cold. Sorry, why's that bad again? Blocked nose? Oh right, sorry. Don't punch down the walls if you don't want to hurt your fists.

It's this sort of mentality that keeps people from getting jobs because they didn't get a A-Level in maths. Of course, the people that revised for two hours before they went in, got an E, and promptly forgot everything they learned, are a thousand times better.

The mentality of this world is disgusting, because we refuse to challenge beliefs. This IS not about religion, although it could easily be. I will say no more, because I don't want to start that sort of war in here.

But basically... what if everyone is wrong but you? Don't trust anything anyone says. Experience it for yourself, make up your own mind. Life and experience is a better teacher than any person alone. That's the beauty of nature.

So when kids come along and say "i can't help my spelling i was born that way". That's completely untrue. Apart from actually learning to spell after you were born, practise does make perfect. I would pop the first topic I ever made to prove this point, but it's been deleted.

Stop blaming things, stop being so fearful of your own judgement, and start learning. It's not hard.

Goatboy wrote:
> As for GTA3, your main goal was to bring down criminals,
> the pedestrians were there if you wanted
> to go mental on them, but you got penalised.

Well... I know what you're saying, but it's not *strictly* true. You could cause carnage, kill innocent people and the police would come after you; but get to a Pay & Spray and you get clean away - no consequences.

And you can target specific groups if you wish - there are Asian taxi drivers, black men and women, gay men, etc.

To be really picky, you could say that in Hooligans you *have* to target minorities - but in GTA3, the individual can choose to target them.

Which is worse - doing it because the game says you have to, or doing it because you choose to? Which makes you more/less of a racist?

Hope I got that point across properly! :-)

The thing I don't like about this post is how to make it a more valid point, you're trying to say how nice Grand Theft Auto 3 is. Yeah, you get penalties for it, but you are also allowed to do it. Ok, that's a game and everything in the game is fiction. The cars, the characters, the city. That makes it less realistic.

The only reason I see what's wrong with this game is because of the racial side of it. You can't stick something in a game about Nazis and say it's fine. Cos it's not.

I can't remember the exact wording and who said it, but some bloke once mentioned how to forget the past, is to see it happen again. This happened 60 years ago. This isn't some form of MediEvil game that lets you cause chaos to rebel against the king. This is modern life that has changed everything.

Did our grandads fight for a pointless cause? Did they see that in 60 years time, after they've seen their friends and family murdered, expect to see children playing on a game that involves Nazis? I hope not.

You could then say games like Command and Conquer are wrong. You're causing war. You control the Soviets and you're invading, you control the Allies and you're defending, which ain't so bad. I know what you're gonna say, about how it's different. How, this game is showing racism ect. and I've already said, that ain't acceptable. But, if you took away this concept of the game, then would you still have the same feelings that you do have now, towards it then?

True, hooliganism doesnt necessarily mean racist.
But this game is.
If you read the forums and read the posts on the site, it's worryingly nasty.
And you get bonus points for "targetting minority groups"

As for GTA3, your main goal was to bring down criminals, the pedestrians were there if you wanted to go mental on them, but you got penalised.
It's realism, you could attack someone outside right now but you'd get busted for it, it wasn't the point of the game.

Whereas this game, the whole purpose and intention is to cause violence and attack people just to gain notoriety.

I think there's a world of difference

Going back to the original post...

> The main game that caused contention last time was “GTA3”,
> but that had a strict moral guideline in it.You could
> attack pedestrians if you wanted to, but you were working to bring down a
> criminal organisation.

Doesn't that in some way imply that it is okay to harm innocent people for money, as long as that money is ultimately used for "a good purpose"? Is that really acceptable?

Don't get me wrong, I'm not taking any sides - just playing Devil's Advocate and asking the question.

Same with State of Emergency - okay, you may be fighting an 'evil corporation', but does that make it right to kill law enforcement officers who are just following orders and doing their job.

I haven't read about the game, because - like you - I find it distasteful; so I don't know exactly how it's being marketed. However, not all football hooligans are Nazi's or racists - many of them will happily knock the stuffing out of someone else just for the 'fun' of it. Whether they're black, white, asian, oriental, English, German, French, whatever... makes no difference. Sure there is a Nazi element among them, but many are just morons.

Incidentally, I notice that SR have this game in their list. I wonder if, given the strength of feeling demonstrated in this thread, they will be removing it?

Thats a matter of intellect though. It's probably fair to say that most of the "respected" posters on here are pretty intelligent. I read Lord of the Rings at 7. I've always had a reading age of 8 years ahead of me, apparently. But thats not what it's all about. You don't even need to be of average intellect to see that what you're saying is rubbish.

So they say it for attention. Get into a big fight with someone and you'll get known! Pathetic.

Mr.Snuggly wrote:
> Please don't forget a lot of the people who post on here are young, and don't
> really know any better.
---

But they should, that's the point.
Being young is no excuse for being stupid, borderline retard.
Christ, I was reading Animal Farm by the time I was 8 and could read and write by the time I went to primary school.

It's not an excuse, or if they don't know better, then dont join in conversations with grown-ups.
I know when people do long posts they get ignored by all but a few, because that takes effort and after 2 mins most people's lips hurt so they stop reading.

You can't say "Well I'm only 12" because that means you've already had 8yrs of schooling and opportunity to drag yourself out of the pack.

Goatboy wrote:

You could
> attack pedestrians if you wanted to, but you were working to bring down a
> criminal organisation.

I dunno, I find it hard to see any moral justification there...

---

Personally, a game like Hooligans, I've always felt, calls for the words the late Mr Bill Hicks, if we could set our VCR's to play 'Bill's Encasulated review of Basic Instinct' I think that all will become clear.

Mr.Snuggly wrote:
> Please don't forget a lot of the people who post on here are young, and don't
> really know any better.

--

Yeah, OK, but what they do is come on topics like this and post rubbish, thinking they'll get more respect if a notable talks to them.