Reality is Real

               The biggest of the downloadable titles this summer has clearly been Shadow Complex, and along with the hype, has been controversy. I picked the game up, and I was somewhat feeling it. It’s a dope side scrolling shooter. I’ve been told basically if you’ve played the Metroid games, it’s somewhat a mix between those, and the side scrolling Castlevania games. The graphics are great, it’s been built with the Unreal 3 Engine which was used in both Gears of War games. While the game is 2d, there are often situations when enemies are on another plane than you. When this happens, if you aim at the direction of the enemies, (up, down, whatever) the game automatically targets the enemy on the different plane. Occasionally, when multiple enemies are on different planes, your auto-aiming doesn’t exaclty work properly.

Aiming isn’t the only problem

               So, the above listed problem caused a couple of my deaths. That mixed in with me getting a copy of Batman early, and already having Madden, have made it extremely hard to play the game. Then came the bigger problem. Shadow Complex is based on the writings of Orson Scott Card.

You may know Orson Scott Card if your an avid reader of Sci-Fi novels. He’s the author of the Ender stories. If you don’t know him, I’ll give you the info I came across. Orson Scott Card is a conservative Morman, who’s been extremely vocal on his stance against homosexuality. Shadow Complex is based of Orson’s novel “The Empire”. When I was originally informed of this, I thought that in “The Empire” Orson expressed his feelings about homosexuals. If so, I’d be  completely against Shadow Complex. With Shadow Complex being rated T (Teen:13 and up), giving kids access to a game, that’s tied to a book, that’s clearly homophobic is wrong. You know some kids are gonna go looking for that book, so basically your leading them towards it. This alone made me NOT want to play the game. (even more than I already didn’t care to).

               Upon further research, I found “The Empire” isn’t full of homophobic babbling. Instead, it’s just anti-liberal. I’ve even heard at a couple points in the book, Bill O’ Reilly is used as a voice of reason. (Ha! Orson Scott Card is a comedian). Truthfully, I don’t care about dude’s political stance. He can believe Obama is a socialist all he wants (this is not stated in the book), that doesn’t matter to me. My main concern was that Microsoft, Epic (the publisher of the game), and Chair (the developer of the game) were allowing Card to spread his stance against homosexuals to children. Since this is not the case (not directly at least), I don’t too much care. Other’s disagree. They feel like supporting this game, is in turn, supporting Card, and in turn, supporting his stance against gays. I can understand that, however, on a daily basis I support several causes I don’t agree with. Shit, let the hood tell it, I support the Klu Klux Klan everytime I buy a Snapple. I won’t necessarily talk down against those who refuse to support the game for that reason, that’s just not how I feel. I’ll get back to playing the game…eventually…maybe.