To commemorate the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, a 24-year-old university student in Karlsruhe Jens Stober has created 1378 km, a Half-Life 2: Deathmatch mod. In the modified game the player takes the role of an East German guard and provides the player with the opportunity to "kill" people attempting to escape to the West. The name of the game is after the length of the now-gone Berlin wall. The game was considered controversial and the release date was postponed from October 3rd, the anniversary of German reunification, to the early December.
It’s not the first time a reconstruction of a historic event in a videogame has been questioned for its credibility. It’s ok to write books and make films about these stories but it’s controversial to make an interactive videogame about them. Previous examples have also been accused of sensationalism and cruelty against the victims as Waco Resurrection (2004) by Eddo Stern, Peter Brinson and Brody Condon, a videogame about the siege of David Koresh's ranch in Texas. Other notable examples include 9-11 Survivor (2003) by Brody Condon re-enacted the Sept 11 2001 terrorist attack on the Twin Towers and Super Columbine Massacre RPG by Danny Ledonne about the Columbine High School massacre which took place in 1999.
Link: Jens Stober's "1378 km"
Submitted by Mathias Jansson
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