"Those who forget their past are destined to repeat it."
Robert A. Heinlein
A lot of criticism has been heaped on the creator by people claiming that it trivialises the recent "troubles" in Northern Ireland.
I feel many people are missing the point. It's a game, it's make believe and it's no different to the many games with WW2, Vietnam themes etc.
It's only a game.
I attended a meeting with a community group a while back, the speaker told me that in parts of Belfast some young people when asked what they aspire to be when they grow up replied "an ex-prisoner". It was lost on them that this actually required them to be a prisoner in the first place. This is something they hadn't actually understood. To many of them "ex-prisoners" were people in the community who had respect. They might as well have been called "ex-miners" or "ex-nurses". They didn't grow up during the troubles, so the bit about being killed or blown-up by a bomb was incomprehensible. To them some people were just "ex-prisoners" and nothing else.
If games like this help people to remember the horrors then maybe we will have a informed future.
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