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Outrage over internet terrorist game inspired by the Troubles
A WEB-based computer game inspired by the activities of paramilitary
groups in the North of Ireland has outraged victims’ organisations.
The Hooded Gunman a virtual game where players register as Republicans
or Loyalists is attracting thousands of hits a day from as far afield
as Australia and America.
The aim of the game is to collect as much money as possible by creating
a paramilitary empire built on drug dealing, prostitution, counterfeiting
and killing your enemies.
Players also have to avoid police officers who can offer them bonuses
for becoming informers.
But Alan McBride who lost his wife and father-in-law in an IRA bomb
in 1993 is furious. He said: “It does attempt to glorify violence
in some senses and it is absolutely appalling. Given all the good things
that have happened recently in Northern Ireland, and we were moving away
from that, I think this game is just silly.”
Derek Hussey, the Ulster Unionist Party’s spokesman on victims’
issues, said it was “tasteless and insensitive”.
He said: “There is nothing glamorous or playful about paramilitarism
in Northern Ireland. At a time when many victims are coming to terms with
the new dispensation and politicians are trying to draw a line under the
past, this type of nonsense does not help.”
But the game’s creator, Newtownabbey-born Warren Dowey, said the
intention was to bring about awareness of the plight of people in the
North, not to cause offence.
He said: “I don’t want to take away from the fact that many
people lost their lives to violence but I just wanted to highlight what
I felt was the ridiculousness of it.
“The game does not glorify the paramilitaries by any sense, in fact
it portrays them as drug dealers and peddlers of alcohol and prostitution.
There are no civilians within the game.”
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