Ian Bogost - Water Cooler Games - Americas (Conquistadors) Army

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Water Cooler Games

Water Cooler Games served as the web's primary forum for "videogames with an agenda" — coverage of the uses of video games in advertising, politics, education, and other everyday activities, outside the sphere of entertainment.

The site was maintained at watercoolergames.org from 2003-2009, where it was edited by myself and Gonzalo Frasca. It is now archived here in full.

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Americas (Conquistadors) Army

by Gonzalo Frasca August 10, 2004

categories: Political Games

We all know the Spanish Army. Bunch of cowards. They cowardly joined the invasion of Iraq. But they were redeemed when politicians heroically withdrew them and took them back to were they belonged (that is home, aka the land of chorizo and manchego cheese. They do taste much better than crude oil).

So, the cowards-turned-heroes (well, hero is too much of a word for any member of the military forces, anyway) are know doing what they should have done in the first place: playing videogames rather than going invading other places just in case some day they decided to attack them. Welcome to Misión de Paz (Peace Mission, click on the armored car pic to launch the game) a game where you have to make soldiers work rather than just playing FPS with real bullets. Its a turn-based, isometric strategy game, where you have to allocate resources and help a country under the command of the United Nations (it seems that W and Tony did not get the memo on the existence of this group of people. Anyway, whats wrong today with you Gonzalo? Where does all this anger come from? You should embrace war. War is good. War is the first three letters in Warioware, so it has to be good).

But lets leave the cruel reality behind for a sec (or maybe for a few years) and lets concentrate on the game. First main design flaw: its in Spanish, so that means that only a few dozen of million people can play it. Too bad. Now seriously (well, not very much really) I think that the game follows the right strategy: the tasks of the peace force is pretty much well modeled through a, hem, strategy game. You dont see many Flash-based strategy games, so its good for a change (and the production values are quite good, too, which of course show that the military are willing to spend more money on advergaming that your average corporation; and thats a thought that you should play around with). I havent played too much with the game in order to provide a final verdict, but I dare to say that it is a good example of propa-gaming. That, and that the game does not seem to be a hell of fun to play with. But we all know that when it comes to serious games, we all believe that games should be boring as hell, right?. And now, you Spanish soldiers, share with us some of that Rioja wine. And some lomo embuchado, too. (via Elastico.net)

Comments (5)

"We all know the Spanish Army. Bunch of cowards. They cowardly joined the invasion of Iraq. But they were redeemed when politicians heroically withdrew them and took them back to were they belonged"

As Spaniard, I disagree. They were there following orders, not by their own initiative.

Politicians send them there (Actually ex-president Aznar sent them there, and yes, it was his personal decision, criticized by most of the people in his party, though not in public) and politicians (Not the same politicians who sent them in the first place) took them back after the electoral results.

Don Juan on August 11, 2004 7:52 PM

Maybe it got lost in translation. I am well aware of Spanish politics. I was trying to be funny, that's it. I know the military follow orders (that is why, for example, it is hard to believe that the US tortures in Irak happened because of individuals). But since we are talking politics, I am not sure if I would say, as you do, that "took them back after the electoral results". Zapatero had announced his decision to withdrew the troops (if he was elected) well before the elections.

Anyway, I was just trying to make fun of some Americans who accused the Spaniards of being cowards for not following their murderous oil quests. That's it.

Frasca on August 12, 2004 8:05 AM

I say that they "took them back after the electoral results" because before them they were not able to take them back, since they were not in charge. I'm talking about the act of taking them back, not the decision of doing so, which, as you have mentioned, was previous to the elections.

"Anyway, I was just trying to make fun of some Americans who accused the Spaniards of being cowards for not following their murderous oil quests. That's it."

I've read people saying things many times dumber than what you wrote and they were serious about them, so you never know. I think the parody component was not clear enough. I guess in our "modern" world the parody component is never clear enough. Whenever George W. Bush talks, I always feel like watching some kind of parody. I guess my sense of reality is falling into pieces.

Juan el esquizofrénico on August 12, 2004 5:29 PM

hrahuhbe

ukptf - ukptf on October 24, 2004 12:21 PM

I fully agree, not kidding, with your comment about the spanish army are a bunch of cowards. Unfortunately, this is not derived from the elections, it was a consequence of the terrorist attack. It was the way they withdraw from Irak and Afterwards the President of these cowards Zapatero who asked other countries to leave alone the allies in Irak.

Another Juan on July 21, 2005 6:44 PM