Mmmmm... nectar
It must seem odd to anyone who was there at the time that the hell of the D-Day beaches are now treated with contemptuous familiarity by gamers around the world.
The thing is, video games have always had a uneasily cosy relationship with the real business of war: some of the most horrific events in human history have been turned into 12+ rated shoot 'em ups.
So it's refreshing to find Ubisoft and Free Radical Design's Haze is one of the few games ever to try to make you feel bad about killing people.
Read the full preview of Haze for the PS3
Admittedly, it can be difficult to feel bad about shooting space aliens but even so, it's not a route many other games developers seem keen to follow.
Back in 1994, Cannon Fodder was one of the few games to actually acknowledge the senseless waste of war, with characters that didn't have lives or health bars but stayed dead - and even got their own little grave maker at the end of a level as new recruits queued up nearby.
Unfortunately, the developer Sensible Software got a little carried away and their decision to put a corn poppy on the front cover earned the ire of the Daily Star.
Things have become more serious since then - see Ghost Recon 2, whose South Korean invasion plot earned direct criticism from the North Korean government.
The Advanced Warfighter sub-series was even more of a neo-con fantasy, with its tale of invading Mexican rebels leading to complaints from various local officials.
The king of political insensitivity, though, is Mercenaries 2, whose virtual invasion of Venezuela was accused by their government of being an attempt to drum up support in the U.S. for a real war.
All of which makes Haze's use of satire and attempts at genuine pathos appear all the more refreshing...
11th June 2007
