Iranian and American Military Shooters Spark Video Game Cold War

As armed conflict in the Middle East rages on, and the threat of nuclear proliferation increases tension throughout the world, a new cold war has erupted in an unlikely place: the video game industry. The Union of Students Islamic Association of Iran has created a PC 3D shooter which has players infiltrating Israel to rescue an Iranian nuclear scientist who was captured by American forces. In the game--titled "Rescue the Nuke Scientist"--players fill the role of an Iranian security combatant, and must kill both US and Israeli troops as they carry out tasks such as stealing laptops with secret information. The students claim they undertook the project in response to an American shooter called Assault on Iran, an episode of Kuma Reality Games' ongoing series titled Kuma War (PC). The series is described by the company as a "playable recreation of real events in the War on Terror," although many scenarios, such as the Iranian mission, are fictional. Similar to the Iranian game, Assault on Iran tasks players with infiltrating an Iranian nuclear facility, rescuing a captured US soldier, and destroying centrifuges which can be used to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons. "This is our defense against the enemy's cultural onslaught," said Islamic Association leader Mohammad Taqi Fakhrian, according to CBS News. The Union of Students was responsible for the "World Without Zionism" conference in 2005--the same gathering where Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad famously called for Israel to be "wiped off the map." "We tried to promote the idea of defense, sacrifice and martyrdom in this game," Fakhrian added, while saying that his group plans to not only market the game in Iran and other Muslim countries, but also in the West. Gameplay footage of the project can now be found on Youtube. GamesPolitics notes that a Washington Post article last year examined the issue of a video game war between Islam and the West. Head of Kuma Games Keither Halper responded to the Iranian students' project at the time, saying, "It's propaganda, but it's also a form of debate. We have made a point, they have responded." Halper then noted that his company would produce a sequel to "Rescue the Nuke Scientist," but played from the American point of view. "There's a very interesting tit-for-tat going on here, a weird kind of dialogue," said Ed Halter, author of From Sun Tzu to Xbox: War and Video Games. "What's disconcerting about it is that the conversation is often reduced to the lowest common denominator of violent action in games, which is in a way very reflective of the overall way things are going right now in real life."