Re-Mission
Not all serious games deal with cultural phenomena or class warfare. Some deal with terminal diseases in children. Re-Mission, created by HopeLab, is designed to help educate kids with cancer about what exactly is going on in their bodies, as well as how various medications treat the problem.
Running on an impressive-looking 3-D shoot-em-up engine, you take on the persona of Roxxi, a personified "nanobot," who, with the help of a holographic, R2D2-like helper, attacks different types of cancer cells within patients' bodies. Roxxi also deals with the effects her weapons (chemotherapy, radiation and antibiotics) have on her patients, sending signals to them to help them deal with the nausea and pain brought on by real-life cancer treatments. As she battles her way through 20 different levels and multiple patients, Roxxi conveys the sense that there's always a chance to beat the disease. And to a scared kid sitting in a hospital bed 24 hours a day, Roxxi is a friend who never stops thinking positively.
Hopelab distributes Re-Mission to hospitals for free.
America's Army
Arguably the granddaddy of them all, at least from a publicity standpoint, America's Army is both a shining example of how good serious games can be and a shining example of how dangerous they are in capable hands. While many aspects of the game are accurate, America's Army is dripping with propaganda by omission.
For instance, the game takes you through basic arms and specialist training, and the combat engine is top-notch, but at no point in the gameplay are you ordered to scrub toilets because the skinny kid in your platoon fell out on a run. You're a hero out killing terrorists and making the world safe, but you're never the guy in Kansas dodging tornados while monitoring arms shipments. On top of that, the brutality of the combat scenes is glossed over, as cartoonish as Counter-Strike.
When you look at this as a recruitment tool (and it seems to be working - as part of an aggressive, $2.2 billion investment in changing recruitment methods, the Armed Forces are no longer missing their enlistment quotas, like they were before America's Army released in 2002), you're forced to wonder just what serious games can do when the wrong person is controlling the message. That alone makes America's Army worth a play.
Oh, and it's pretty fun, too.
But Seriously, Folks
While these games should jumpstart you into the power circle at game industry cocktail parties, they're just jumping-off points. As development tools drop in cost, activists around the world (including the Third World) are turning to games to get their message out. They're making points by inserting the audience into a reality they normally wouldn't be a party to, and the effect is profound. It's plain to see, big things are coming.
Just make sure you know who's behind the curtain.
Joe Blancato is an Associate Editor for The Escapist. He quotes Wayne's World and Dr. Strangelove more often than what can be considered normal.
