New York Offender: WTC Game Still Bothers Some

For the past few years, the French game and humor site called Uzinagaz.com has been featuring an online video game which challenges players to prevent jetliners from flying into the Twin Towers. As the game progresses, the planes arrive with increasing frequency and eventually each tower collapses in a plume of digital dust. The tagline for the game, called New York Defender, says "Go beyond your powerlessness and use your mouse to fight back."

Many people, including survivors of the 9/11 attacks find the trivialization of an occasion of mass murder offensive. The Staten Island Advance quotes one man who escaped from the 81st Floor of one of the towers. "My brother -- Scott -- found the game and called me. I frequently play videogames and do a lot of online gaming, so I normally have a thick skin, but this game really struck a nerve. To hear planes hit, the crunching noise when the buildings fall. It's just tasteless."

Back in 2002, Clive Thompson, writing for Slate, found the game to be "a grim message about the hopelessness of anti-terrorism: Try as you might to knock every enemy out of the sky, one will always slip past." One of the game's designers said, ""There are no ways to actually win. The winner becomes the last one to lose."

There is a followup game called New York Defender 2, which shows a map of area airports and commercial airliners, which players are supposed to determine as hijacked or not and shoot them down accordingly. Uzinagaz.com also hosts a game called Baghdad Defender, where people have the ability to unsuccessfully defend the Iraq capital from cruise missiles.

Contact the author of this article or email tips@gothamist.com with further questions, comments or tips.

By Dave Hogarty in News on January 2, 2008 3:37 PM

Comments [rss]

SP

boo-frikin-hoo

JacqueMehoff

as long as they put in the sound effects of midway Defender, It's all gud.

intruder alert, destroy the humanoid.

if the game was on-line for the past few years, why all the hubbub now?

str1cken

I know this is a cop out, but, as has been said, there are things going on that are way more tasteless and awful than this dumb little flash game (read: the situation in Iraq, global homelessness, hunger, etc.).

We, as Americans, have the unique and perverse luxury about complaining about absolute non-problems like this, cultural items that make people sneer and get offended.

Like I said, this is a bit of a cop-out argument, but if an off-color video game is really the thing to get your asshole all clenched today, you should consider yourself very, very lucky.

And then you should pick up a newspaper and find something worthwhile to fret about.

Anarcyssie

I can't believe it, but it appears that no one has said the obvious yet: If you don't like the *&^%$

game, don't play it.

I witnessed the attack on the WTC, and I will never play it, but I don't care it someone else does. Maybe it's their way of dealing with the horror and the sorrow, one more part of the big circus many people have been making out of it for the last six years. If baseball caps and cheesy figurines, why not video games?

rikomatic

I don't find it tasteless. I find it a poignant demonstration of the futility of using weapons to fight terrorism.

And I find it somewhat cathartic to shoot down the planes, at least until they start coming in like a swarm of bees.

eyekantspel

According to Politburo, "The only reason it seems to be tasteless is that it involves the US... and that always seems to be the standard."

There's a big difference in a war game that involves fighting a generic enemy and one that portrays a real victim. A WWII game fighting the Nazis doesn't use identifiable figures, with the exception perhaps of historical figures like Hitler.

The World Trade Center, however, does not represent a participant in a battle, but is instead the readily-identifiable victim of an attack.

The appeal here isn't the game being pitched- protecting a target from inevitably being blown up. That game exists in many forms, such as Missle Command, or Asteroids or Space Invaders. This game is just using an ugly and tasteless gimmick to be sensationalistic. The makers know what they are doing- sensationalism generates free attention, and the free advertising inevitably generates sales.

It's true that tastelessness abounds, and undoubtedly far worse things do exist. But when confronted with things that are indecent, the civilized thing to do- the right thing to do- is to speak out against it, not simply shrug it off as part of the inevitable death of decency.

JMH

Remember, one of the first truly violent video games was accepted in large part because you were killing Nazis.
Castle Wolfenstein was AWESOME.

RatherBeBiking

eyekantspel,

The target isn't over the towers in this screenshot.

Bizzle

Tasteless? Sure. What can you do about it? Cry? It's the French for crying out loud. I hope no one asks to have the game pulled because of it being considered tasteless. There are far worse things on the Internet.

eyekantspel

Tasteless.

Makes me wonder, does gothamist receive a direct commission for this advertisement? Or is the free ad for the game an unfortunate side effect of trying to blog about something that will get the comments going? Do we really need a screenshot of the towers with a target over it? C'mon gothamist, surely you are above this.

ed_Extinct

Q: Why did the French plant trees along the Champs Elysees?

A: So the Germans could march in the shade.

Politburo

This game looks like it is exactly the same as a Gulf War game, where you had to stop scuds from dropping on Israel.

The only reason it seems to be tasteless is that it involves the US... and that always seems to be the standard. Remember, one of the first truly violent video games was accepted in large part because you were killing Nazis.

S.D.

Any way you look at it, These sort of games are tasteless...

RatherBeBiking

I would be somewhat disgusted if you played as terrorists flying the planes into towers.

emilydickinson

I don't find this video game half as tasteless as the nonsense in Iraq. Real people are dying over there, not a bunch of pixels.

Noah Jenda

Probably the most tasteless video game since the Columbine massacre game:

http://www.columbinegame.com/

RatherBeBiking

Not really. There are literally dozens of games about World War 2, and plenty straight out of modern day Iraq. I was 11, I saw the towers fall and one of my friend's mom was killed. I'm not complaining. In fact, it looks like a somewhat fun game and I will know make a point of playing it. Good day.