British MP Keeps Amateur Suicide Bombing Game in Perspective

British MP Keeps Amateur Suicide Bombing Game in Perspective

November 4, 2008

British tabloid the Daily Star gets itself worked into a tizzy over an amateur online offering, The Suicide Bomber Game.

The free online game, which can easily be accessed by children, shows graphic images of body parts being splattered across the town. Yesterday, it was branded “sick, callous and upsetting” by the Bali Bombing Victims Group, who want it removed from the internet.

One member, Susanna Miller, who lost her brother Dan in the 2002 attacks which killed 202 people, said: “It’s callous, inappropriate, irresponsible and deeply offensive. I find it disturbing... I appeal to any sites featuring this game to remove it. It’s completely sick."

While Ms. Miller's sentiments are completely understandable, it's cheap journalism to call up someone who lost a relative to a suicide bomb and then ask them how they feel about a suicide bombing game. Apparently, that's how the Daily Star rolls.

Kudos to Conservative MP John Whitting­dale (left) who keeps things in perspective. It would have been very easy for Whittingdale to turn the Daily Sun's question about this obscure little title into a highly-publicized whinge encompassing video games in general. Whittingdale told the tabloid:

I find this game tasteless but I don’t think it will necessarily start turning people into suicide bombers. But those whose lives have been affected by suicide bombings I imagine would find it upsetting.

Comments

Re: British MP Keeps Amateur Suicide Bombing Game in Perspective

How dare he say something so close minded as... wait what?!
*rereads*
Wow. I'm actually quite impressed.

Re: British MP Keeps Amateur Suicide Bombing Game in Perspective

“...sick, callous and upsetting” by the Bali Bombing Victims Group, who want it removed from the internet."

Yeah. Just remove it from the internet. That's not a big deal, right? While you're at it, you should sue the internet. You might be able to get the Church of Scientology to help you with that one.

Re: British MP Keeps Amateur Suicide Bombing Game in Perspective
...and, of course, the game's been there since 2002.
Re: British MP Keeps Amateur Suicide Bombing Game in Perspective
Another thing: The button at the bottom of the article reads:

More "news" here

That's right, even the Daily Star doesn't think the Daily Star is a newspaper.
Re: British MP Keeps Amateur Suicide Bombing Game in Perspective

Oh wow haha this game is OLD. I remember playing this game years ago.

Re: British MP Keeps Amateur Suicide Bombing Game in Perspective

There are many offensive videos on YouTube which are also made by amateurs, but they don't receive any press (even though it is from the soft-porn paper the Daily Star). It irks me when the press try to make these games sound like that they were made by a big games company in an attempt to pervert a child's mind. Anti-games campaigners will use this as an example of why computer games should be banned and it would be akin to me saying that an offensive video on YouTube means that all movies should be banned.

Re: British MP Keeps Amateur Suicide Bombing Game in Perspective

The reason they pull shit like that is because they can't find anything on the legitimate market to top GTA. Which just goes to show how strong our position truly is.

Re: British MP Keeps Amateur Suicide Bombing Game in Perspective

At least the politician is keeping things in perspective. If governments started censoring all the Internet content that someone found offensive, the Internet would cease to exist. Everything offends somebody.

Re: British MP Keeps Amateur Suicide Bombing Game in Perspective

Agreed. Hell, I bet Chrono Trigger had someone saying that time travel is offensive b/c it's possible these guys just want to change their own histories without any regard to the histories of others. If that actually happened, all I can say is "FacePalm"

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"Game on, brothers and sisters." -Leet Gamer Jargon

Re: British MP Keeps Amateur Suicide Bombing Game in Perspective

Slow news day for the Star?

Re: British MP Keeps Amateur Suicide Bombing Game in Perspective

No, the young ladies tits were a little too small, and the guy who normally does the photoshopping was on holiday.

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