The game - freely available to download - comes in a neat little package initally consisting of a just cause, righteous anger and a jutisified need to protest. Many of the gamers, however, seem to have ripped the packaging off the product without a second thought and are now playing the game for their own ends without actually working their way through the appropriate levels.
For many of the game's low profile users, the original game story of peaceful and justified protest is being seen as laughable when the open style nature of the game clearly allows the gamer to go on the rampage and set and achieve their own not-so-hidden agenda.
For many behoodied gamers the agenda seems to simply be: acquire an iPad / iPhone / iPrisonsentence, cause as much damage to their own community as humanly possible and cause the game's "end of level" boss, the Prime Minister, to cut short his annual break to Butlins and come back to Downing Street to best discuss how to ship these avaricious little thugs out to Afghanistan where they can play war games for real.
A report that a version of this game is soon to be available for the Wii is as yet unconfirmed but a curled fist waved up and down in a yo-yo motion is already being seen as a possible iconic game move.
36 comments:
I dread to ask "All quiet in the Spa?"
Marginalia: yes. But only because we're too backward here to bother with apps. We prefer boardgames; Snakes and Ladders being a current personal favourite.
It is just horrifying.
I hope that sanity soon becomes the most played game in Britain.
My females would sort them out.
Kakka: sadly you need a mental age of 18+ and an IQ level in at least double figures to play Sanity and most of the rioters don't qualify...
Gorilla Bananas: now that's television I'd like to see.
Sadly it is so true. For the vast majority it is an excuse to relieve the boredom and live out their fantasy of being Gangsta's. Up until now they were only able to do such things in a virtual environment of "Grand Theft Auto" or its copy-cat games, and we are surprised when given half a chance these kids try it out for real. Lets make no bones about it, if you are immersed in a culture of violent games, violent music, violent gangs and saddest of all, violent home life, then what can we expect....Violent kids? These kids are being trained to react in a certain way and then when a situation presents itself they make the most of it.
Mark Duggen, inoccent victim of police over-reaction? No, I don't carry a gun around, do you?
As a favourite tattoo of these "Thugz" declares, Live By The Sword... Die By The Sword.
Joe: yep, have to agree. I don't carry a gun or a knife or any kind of weapon. Except my mind, of course, and most days that is blunt. Reality shock goes way but ultimately violence begets violence. What is so ineffably stupid about the whole thing is that these people are torching their own communities and while there are people with real basic needs here in the UK these twats are nicking TVs and PlayStations.
I think this is my favourite blog post about the riots. Horrifying stuff.
Heard a commentator yesterday saying:
There's a section of society that believe (has perhaps been encouraged to believe) that they are owed a huge amount without any requirement to give back. They resent the implication that they are subject to the same rules, laws and responsibilities as others.
Lot of truth in that I suspect.
I'm hoping for the arrival of water cannons. Half of them look like they could do with a good wash. How you fight social justice by burning down people's homes and looting Curry's is beyond me, but then of course, that's not what it's all about is it.
Vix: this has been my favourite comment on this post so far. ;-)
Mark: there is and I wholeheartedly agree.
Wylye Girl: yes, if I was hardpressed to but bread on the table I'd be out lifting a couple of nice baps from the bakery not the latest laptop...
Oh you are clever, Steve. Fabulous post.
RB: ta muchly.
A post right on the nail.
Apparently a loot-in has been called for the town where mother lives....unfortunately she's in hospital otherwise the looters might have something to contend with...wheelchair with scythes on the hubs and molotov cocktails stacked in the shopping basket.
She reckons she didn't fight a war to have her country taken over by hooligans and her motto, just as when a German invasion was feared, is
'Take one with you!'
The fly in the web: it may be the only way - suicide duffers. Colostomy bags filled with petrol and walking sticks with poisoned points. Almost worth getting old for...
;-)
Cannot agree with you more that the lot of these twats should be bundled up and shipped off to Afghanistan or Somalia, where their talents could be gainfully employed fighting terrorists. The Taliban wouldn't stand a chance against a riled up horde of these barbarians...
In theory the sum total of the positive effects of human education, culture, and civilisation should be increasing as time goes by, but I fear in fact the reverse is happening. We have sadly allowed a generation of savages to be raised in our very midst.
And the gall of them to interrupt anyone's vacation with their shenanigans !
Owen: sadly I fear this lot would never make it passed the duty free shop where they would expend all their pent up energies and miniscule intelligence attempting to halfinch the latest bluetooth device from beneath the eyes of the bristling arab security guards.
What is the answer to it all though? that is the worrying question...violent tv/games/home life will produce violent kids and I cannot see how we can go back in time and start again....
Libby: better discipline at home and schools, kids having their expectations better managed by society as a whole (especially the media) and as level a playing field as possible in terms of opportunity and upward mobility.
I’m pretty much with Joe Bloggs, and that petrol filled colostomy bag defence weapon idea of yours. I just gotta get me one of those.
I’ve been sensing something like this would happen for years. Just surprised it hasn’t kicked off before now. Mindless, ignorant thugs they clearly are, but they’re an unfortunate bye product of my generation and many of our parental failings nevertheless, and whether I like it or not, I can’t help feeling a sense of shared blame for some of the cause and effect issues that have permitted this kind of subversive thug culture to fester in our shadows.
We live in all too deceivingly dangerous and uncomfortable times right now, and for an almost overwhelming number of serious reasons and social challenges that are affecting most of us in one way or another. While all the ‘blame game’ debates and pontificating will inevitably occupy the pages of the media sites and the bloggasphere, for many weeks to come, we should be wary and alert for any signs at all, of the emergence of a far more sinister, organised and well funded culture of right wing opportunists and divisive nihilists, as well as similar deranged idealists and politically deviant insurgents, in our midst.
With the help of mobile phones, social media sites and the WWW at large, they could potentially fan the embers of all this, from one corner of Europe to the other, and whilst god forbid that should be allowed to happen, we won’t be deporting these Twitter thugs and thuglet’s off to Afghanistan, cos we’ll be far more seriously engaged in the business of mobilising most of our armed forces personnel, all the way back home here, to come to our rescue.
Apt and incisive post here Steve. All we need now is a bit of timely help from mother nature, and a week or two of widespread rain. Dampen things down a bit. A hot spell now, could become very costly, and we’re up to our necks in debt and deficit, as it is.
Brilliant. Mind you, disappointed you can find some humour in this...I never would...
Bish Bosh Bash: agreed. What concerns me is the response this behaviour will garner. As if our freedoms haven't been compromised enough! I agree there is a wider issue here. It's easy to make disparaging comments about people nicking iPads whilst claiming they can't afford to eat but at the end of the day we've bred a highly acquisitive society whose reach cannot do anything but exceed its grasp. More disturbing is how this spreading and the age of the looters: 13 to 45 a news item has quoted tonight. 13? What are the parents doing? Do they know where there kids are? I'm thankful my boys are tucked up in bed dreaming of a day at the cinema tomorrow. The riots are bad and I doubt we've seen the last of them. What concerns me more is the political aftermath.
Nota Bene: my sense of humour has always been very black.
It's gob-smacking, it really is! Oddly, this is the sort of thing the man was expecting over here after the Feb quakes (why else did they move the army into town?? We're too lazy it would seem.)
Great post on the situation Steve.
So those protesting aren't really protesting an injustice but grabbing what they can get for themselves without working for it? Sorry to hear about this happening in the "civilised" part of the world. :-(
But, who's baps would you be lifting... Tesco's, Morrison's or Keeley's?!
When the thugs find the computers they've nicked break down in the first week, they won't have a receipt with which to return them!
Seriously though, years ago my brother used to work at the Sony depot, now burnt out, when it was owned by CBS. And an old pal of mine lives in Shirley, Croydon.
Amanda: I think it's more of a case that you guys are facing real, genuine adversity... and that tends to bind people together rather than set them against each other.
Femminismo: it started off as a genuine protest against a youth being shot dead by the police but got railroaded by "known" criminal types. Since then there has been a copycat element that has been intent on escalating and spreading the rioting. It's an appalling situation.
TimeWarden: I doubt the yobs care much for service agreements and guarantees! They already consider the stuff throw-away and only good for the moment... they'll be bleating after next year's model before it's even reached the shops. As for the baps.... Keeley's every time, of course.
Riot News Update: “MacDonald’s & Burger King, are today counting the cost of extensive looting damage, to a number of their establishments throughout London and other UK cities. Initial reports suggest that while, much of their seating furniture and frying equipment has been removed, there is as yet, no reported evidence of any looting from their respective food store rooms and chiller units, which are not in fact bolted firmly to the units structure. This morning, a spokesperson from each franchise was unavailable for comment on this particular issue.”
Sorry Steve. Couldn’t resist that one.
Bish Bosh Bash: reminds me of Jimmy McGovern's joke in The Lakes - the school AV dept. gets broken into. Everything gets taken except for a boxed collection of Brookside episodes... police are looking for a thief with taste.
You want the old legal funny?
In the days of British Rail two stewards were being done for fraud...making their own sandwiches and selling them instead of the BR variety, takings siphoned into back pocket.
Judge, obviously a seasoned long distance commuter said that nothing could persuade him to direct the jury that anyone could mistake the fresh offerings from the stewards as a true product of BR catering.
The fly in the web: boom tish!
like it! so clever!
MMM: thank you, madam. ;-)
Steve - poignant and, as always, very funny. By far (like Vix) my favourite post on the topic to date.
Your way with words has no match elsewhere.
LCM x
p.s. cheque to usual account please or I'll be round with the heavies, okay?
LCM: you sure you wouldn't like a brand new plasma screen TV? Fresh off the shelf...?
Sublime Steve!
As a free extra to the game, those whose flats went up in flames are being forced to continue paying their mortgages for flats which no longer exist!
Illegal, surely?
No trouble in Lemmers I hope. Oxford got away with a petrol bomb thrown through a McDonalds window on the Headington roundabout I believe. Talk about cr*pping on your own doorstep!
Laura: not sure which is crazier - the "kids" or the laws which attempt to control them. Apparently a small youth army gathered itself in the local park but then it started raining and they all headed home... this despite them all wearing hoods...!
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