Under Siege is the sequel to Under Ash. Under Siege is a pro-Palestinian FPS shooter developed by Afkar Media. The original game got its share of media attention, since it portrayed a first person shooter game from the perspective of Palestinian (you had to kill Israeli soldiers). It was an interesting case of study for serious games, since in the Western World we usually brand as propaganda all games where you have to kill Israelis but we call "entertainment" games where you have to kill Arabs. Certainly, the fact that the Palestinians want to kill their own real-life enemies on the computer screen is a very interesting fact, despite of what your or my position may be on the Israeli-Palestininan conflict.

Under Siege is now available as a demo that runs on PCs (note: there was an issue with the files I downloaded. I had to create a new directory named "Files" under the root directory and place the data file within it, otherwise the game would not run). I have played with it for about an hour and I must warn that this version still has some visual bugs. The AI of the enemy soldiers is really bad but, as I have argued before, we should not judge serious games just like AAA console games. This single-player demo may not be the next Counter Strike, but it is playable enough to make its point. Formally, it doesn't differ from your usual FPS: grenades, rocket launcher, sniper rifle and automatic weapons, they are all there, as well as your usual med kit and ammo. Click here for more information about the game including videos and screenshots.

The most interesting part of the game is how it is framed. There is a tagline that shows at the end of the demo: "A real life story or a political propaganda? You have the right to decide". Here's a game that is self-aware of its perception as propaganda and tries to use it for its own benefit. Other games, say, America's Army, do not include such disclaimer. The website also adds more information, saying that the game only depicts military fights, without involving civilians or any form of terrorism (no suicide bombers). It also brands itself as a docugame (without using that term), since it says all the missions are based on real conflicts documented by the UN Nations (they do not, however, point out to any UN documents. Michael Moore used the web quite effectively as a way to document the claims that he made on Farenheit 9/11, so I guess that if you are creating a docugame, that may be a good strategy, too).

So, here's the link to download this demo. As a political sidenote that is quite unrelated to the game itself, I must warn you that according to the laws (or lack of them) in certain countries, you may be accused, just by the fact of downloading this file or viewing this website, as being involved with terrorist activities. Click on the link if you do not care about having your government spying on you or being visited by men in black. If you doubted just for a second before clicking, congratulations! You just had a first-hand experience of what it is like to live under fascism! Maybe we should make a game about everyday fear in fascist-ruled countries. Here's the link to download the demo version of Under Siege.

I must add that the demo states that the full game was scheduled to launch on April 2005 but, as far as I know, there is no place online where you can buy it yet.