what do we learn in today's video games? How to survive in a postapocolyptic nightmare, or to use a shotgun in close quarters combat perhaps, but here is a game that truly sets out with a different purpose. The game peacemaker allows you to step into the shoes of either the leaders of Israeli or Palestine. Each has there own different agendas and are completely different experiences. The game runs in a simple manner from your overview you can choose a variety of actions for your country to take, these could be in response to the special events that take place say a suicide bombing in Gaza, from here you can decide either to increase police patrols or ask the world for support in the fight on terror but choose wisely for every action has its own consequences and repercussions. Now being a traditional straight forward kind of player when confronted with the suicide bombing i sent in the military in order to bring order and kill the militants, what actually happened was far from what i expected. What i thought would restore peace actually incited more violence as my soldiers raided a thought militant camp although they succeeded in killing some terrorists more civilians were killed in the crossfire and there was public outcry at my repeat in the cycle of violence. This is not your typical strategy game each move in this turn by turn game requires serious thought. it is up to the balancing act choices that you make to determine whether your country falls into chaos or rises from the ashes into a peaceful cohabitation. You are shown your progress by the score, the goal of which is to get to 100 you lose when you get to negative 50. Your actions results in either a more positive score or more negative whether its for your faction or the other. The centers on this balancing act, this is were the game gets difficult because there is no direction, no one tells you what to do although you have advisers ( a dove who advocates peace and a hawk which favors war) but they don't tell you which course to take. This point is where the challenge arrives because you have no direction and most rely on your own intuition which can be frustrating. Often finding yourself with absolutely no idea what step to take next can lead the player to feeling lost, but it is in this confusion that the main message of the game is driven home. Who really knows what to do with the middle east, who really knows what steps should be taken? It is not so easy and straightforward as we would like it to be, but in fact is many variables all trying to play out at the same time despite many times disagreeing with the others. The whole experience of Peacemaker is to teach, to teach the world about the volatile situation in the middle east, perhaps in stepping into the same shoes even if it is only in a digital realm, just how complex a situation the middle east is. if there is anything i learned while playing Peacemaker its that those in charge are better than me and find a peaceful way to deal with one another, instead of war like i ended up doing.
in summation this is a great game for the classroom and a valuable tool to help the world better understand the complex situation in the middle east overall i give this visionary game a 92 out of 100
