Global Conflicts: Latin America

Double Z

A video game designed to teach you about the world you live in?

From the site:

You arrive in Mexico at the US border with a bag full of journalistic ambitions. Latin America is one of the most turbulent, violent and poverty-stricken places on the planet.

Yet it is only when Western interests in the region are threatened that we hear anything about the nations that struggle with paramilitary rule, extreme poverty and exploitation of the population.
In a region where politicians and police are feared rather than respected, people try desperately to grab a piece of the land and call it their own. All too often, however, it ends badly. Can you make a difference by writing investigative stories?

So what do you think? Is this really a game designed to teach reality? Are we in Latin America as fucked up as this looks to be? Or is this just another way of Western countries saying 'Oh look at this poor countries, we should go and save them since they won't save themselves"?

Would you actually play this?

MrRoboto

I just loled, its really ridiculous actually, real life over here is not THAT bad, it is in some countries, I really don't know what to say, its just dumb.

I am kinda scared that this is supposed to be educational.

Erwin

I concur it is not that bad. I will say that most of Central and South America was kind of like that back in the 80s and early 90s (most parts of my country was like that). Some parts of Colombia are like that. I cannot say for other countries but mine. But I think what Perú really lacks is a proper high school and college level education. Only knowledge can free humanity.

Double Z

I'll play devil's advocate here, and say that we are the few that are privilege enough not to live that reality in our countries. I do feel conflicted, is it a way to open everyone's eyes to reality, even people in Latin America? Or is it the other way around, creating a bad image for our countries?

jcc

One thing that many non-US types don't understand is that the average American's understanding of the outside world is almost entirely based on stereotypes from TV, movies, and probably also video games. No joke. This is why we think that Frenchmen dress like mimes and love Woody Allen, Japan consists entirely of schoolgirls, yakuza, and salarymen, the Brits chug tea & sherry and dress in tweeds (unless they are rock stars), all Aussies are like Crocodile Dundee and everyone from Eastern Europe or the former Soviet Republics is exactly like Borat. With Americans that don't travel much, this is also how they get their impressions of other Americans from outside their region. This is why all Southerners are rednecks and all Californians are hippies.

Double Z

That is my question, is this just fueling the stereotype?

jcc

I've never been to Mexico, so I don't know. If it's any good, most people will probably accept the game without thinking about it (unless they live in one of the states near the border or otherwise have regular contact with Mexicans and Mexico), although if you challenged them to think it through they'd probably realize how unlikely it is that a country could exist where everybody was either poor or corrupt.

Kilarney

One thing that many non-US types don't understand is that the average American's understanding of the outside world is almost entirely based on stereotypes from TV, movies, and probably also video games

You do understand that this game is made by a German company, no?

jcc

So it is. Well I can't speak for Europe. If the game gets US distribution though, my guesses still stand. For instance, most of the media that forms the American stereotypes about Japan was produced in Japan, so country of origin shouldn't make much difference.

Besides, being an American I divide the world into four main groups: Americans, which everything is always about, those who want to be Americans, those damn Commie Muslim Nazi terrorists that have the bomb and want to rape apple pie and freedom, and people that don't matter from places that may in fact be imaginary, like France, Micronesia, and most countries that end in -stan. :P

Erwin

I'll play devil's advocate here, and say that we are the few that are privilege enough not to live that reality in our countries. I do feel conflicted, is it a way to open everyone's eyes to reality, even people in Latin America? Or is it the other way around, creating a bad image for our countries?

Some people is South American and Central America do not want to see their own reality. I will give my country for example (Perú). Thanks to terrorism people flee their houses and culture to find a new life in the capital because it was the "safest place". Yeah, there were car bombs but at least we had water and unlike the rest of the provinces terrorist did not execute people in the middle of the day.

Eventually the terrorism "dissapeared from my country ", Lima (which is the capital of Perú) got over populated. And all the people that fled their homes stayed in the capital. Most of them did not have a proper education and they had children. They strived to survive in their new home. Many live in what we call "young towns" most of them are located just on the edge of Lima city. The "young towns" that have being since 40s are doing relatively well now but the real new ones do not have neither water nor electricity.


Sometimes I wonder if my goverment care about this people that live literaly on the edge of civilization. Does it care if they get proper education?

Recently, Perú has become the new golden child of South America because his economy grew. However, it most of its economy comes from the capital while the people on the other 24 provinces live in really deplorable conditions. For many of them the scars of terrorism are yet to be heal.

During the week I saw on the news that 200 children in the highlands in Puno were finally able to go to school because 3 busses were donated by Hollywood stars (Iam glad they did not give their names because these proves that there are still humble people in the world). I bet you are saying, can they walk to their schools. Well not if you live on the top of the mountain and the closest school is in another mountain.

What really angers me is that the Peruvian goverment does nothing for them. Last year we got an earthquake in Ica. You know what the goverment did? They build a wall around all the buldings that were destroyed. People are living behind those walls because they have no place to go. They live in pre fabricated houses that the goverment gave them. It is call "The Wall of Shame".

And that is just the tip of the iceberg

MrRoboto

I live in Costa Rica (central america), we don't have an army, so no paramilitary or military terrorists here, there is extreme poverty and high violent crime rates though (some say its in part due to the rising illegal immigration, but most of them come looking for jobs and opportunity, some turn criminals, some contribute to society, the same is to be said about born costarricans.), but pretty much every country has those problems, but still I wouldn't say its a "no mans land", school, high school and college here is almost, if not free, literacy is high, as well as the access to basic services like water and electricity (there are still some rural areas with no government provided services), cell phone services and internet services are cheaper than in the US. The economy is not really good though, we are dollar dependent and produce exportation is on a low right now. Our government doesn't really care about our people either but since our country is so small (about 19000 square miles) we don't really have remote locations where basic services are not viable.