Yeah, Mafia 2.. For some, the original Mafia had left a bad taste and an even worse after taste with its bad driving and lack of a free roaming option like GTA; but for the rest of us who loved the missions and the whole story behind the game and who have been waiting to see what comes out of the second installment of the mob underworld action thriller, here it is; the official trailer from Illusion Softworks..

Watch it here

More updates as they are warranted.

I don’t know why, but what seemed uninteresting yesterday seemed different when I woke up this morning. So without giving it a second thought, I went to the Youtube link and watched a video on the upcoming tactical Real Time Strategy (RTS) game from Massive entertainment and Sierra, called World In Conflict. It was extremely good! The detail, the game play, the plot, the new innovative multiplayer, everything looked and felt good. It seemed that Massive was set for really nice hit of a game!!

Link to video - http://youtube.com/watch?v=IromEM2CkBQ

Maybe it was indigestion or maybe it was the absence of my morning tea, but something kept on bothering me, an itch inside my head. I went back and watched the video again. A credit system where you can buy your units and jump into combat, calling air-strikes, tank busters, napalm showers, paratroopers and tactical nukes.

No, the itch was not just the video, as I watched buildings and humans disintegrate under the wave of destruction from the nuke, I actually felt a bit sad. Then my mind did a back flip and there it was, part of the itch, Manhunt2 banned in the UK.

Official manhunt website, containing video and teaser trailers - http://www.rockstargames.com/manhunt2/

What difference did this RTS game have from Manhunt2? The amount of gore or violence? But, isn’t the underlying point the same then, to kill? Manhunt2 gets banned? The plot for Manhunt2 seems saner to me than the first. But what kills more? Tactical nukes? Or a single man out on a rampage?

We have to agree that the whole of human society is based on dominance. The stratification of society, the unnatural bounds and rules that we believe to be given than created by our self, suppress and dominate the ones trying to get out or who go against it. There are those things we are blind to; the legal illegalities that are so common in life that we fail to notice. Have you asked yourself, ever, why we are blind to them? Our every move is measured with the moral yardstick that is embedded in everyone of us. Isn’t that evident when looking at Manhunt2 and World In Conflict?

In war, you have an enemy and it is legal to kill him. In real life, this fictional construct of the “enemy” and its killer is easily justified, because its socially acceptable, Whereas in a totally virtual world, killing the enemy is not? Oh! I get it! Its how you kill the enemy that matters!! So I can nuke them along with a thousand others and not to mention the after effects, but I can’t poison them eh!?

Manhunt is a minute still frame when compared to the portrait that is war. Ask any person who has been touched by this and you will know how horrible it is!

The whole society shuns topics and labels them evil and it becomes just that!! It is the nature of the collective. But when you legitimize something like war, and call it necessary, even when the whole of the nation becomes a James Earl Cash going against a gang member in a violent showdown in a snuff film, we cheer it on! Cheering the structure that protects us.

Art is a reflection of life, what you see here is a reflection of yourself. Your pain, your anguish, your frustrations..  It is not without plausible exits, this so called structure and these real exits from this virtual structure lead to a revolution and with a bit of irony into new structures, but made by you.

Nature is neither good nor bad. It is nature. whatever happens, happens as part of the cycle. The strong and adaptable dominate and the weak perish. Evey other order we know was put in place by us to adapt and dominate. Sadly to live in that structure, you need to adapt and dominate. where good or evil is what the structure has in place for us, not what is real. In nature, everything has an immanent desire to break free or escape from its suppression, no matter how hard it may be. This desire for escape in us is what leads to those creative outbreaks, where the so called “artist” in you escapes and reaches an ethical plane where nothing seems impossible. Living this escape leads to revolution, living this escape leads to change.

Games like manhunt should make you think, they go beyond what you see on the screen. If you look hard enough, you might find yourself somewhere inside! In a moralistic society that has its roots on cruelty, sadism and domination; banning a game and saying that it is for the grater good is simply wrong. When you cant curb your own perversions and hunger for power, which can be very hard when trapped inside the same system you are trying to break out of, then what can you do? Educate the masses, give them choices, show them the doors.