5 Patriotic Video Game Moments
I’m glad to see you made
your way back to Sore Thumbs! To help celebrate our country’s freedom this
month, I’m going to talk about video games. There are plenty of games that are
bursting at their star-spangled seams with patriotism, but I wanted to look at
specific moments that are more subtle, and maybe somewhat unexpected. Oh yeah, spoilers ahead!
Freedom Fighters – Xbox,
PS2, Gamecube, PC
Staged in Brooklyn
with Russians invading the city, Freedom
Fighters is patriotism in its most raw form: fighting for your country.
Your character and his brother are both plumbers (not those plumber brothers) making a house call when you realize what’s
happening. You recruit common folk just like yourself and lead them in the
fight to take back the city.
After the initial tutorial missions, you’ll be faced with
taking back an enemy-occupied post office. While it’s strategically
advantageous that you now have the post office back, the real patriotic glory
kicks in when you have to lower the Soviet flag and unfurl the red, white, and
blue to complete the mission. While not quite as epic as the moon landing or Iwo Jima, you still might feel some kind of emotional
response. The camera pans up as the Stars and Stripes rise into the sky and
then…“MISSION
COMPLETED”!
Animal Crossing series
– Gamecube, DS, Wii
Anyone who’s been even
slightly addicted to Animal Crossing
can tell you how great it is anytime something unexpected comes along. If you
happen to play the first Animal Crossing
game on July 4th, everyone in town will be caught up in the
excitement of the “Fireworks Festival”. They don’t call it “Independence Day”,
but we know what’s going on. As you go around and talk to your neighbors,
you’ll see just how excited everyone is about the celebration. The mayor of
your town will even risk his own term by giving you several kinds of fireworks
you can shoot off yourself!
The first Animal
Crossing has the festivities when you would expect, but the later DS and
Wii versions opt for a weird schedule in August. If it isn’t fireworks season
in your Animal Crossing town, you can
always outsmart the machine and change your system clock to whatever you want.
Try some other holidays to see what happens!
Fallout 3 – Xbox 360, PS3, PC
In Fallout 3, you’ll find yourself wandering the post-nuclear
wastelands of Washington D.C. The survivors of a war’s aftermath
cling to whatever they can find that isn’t ruined. You’ll eventually come
across one scavenger named Abraham Washington that would love to add the
Declaration of Independence to his collection of iconic American items.
You’ll face plenty of enemies and even trivia questions
about America
on your quest to bring him the Declaration. Your final obstacle is a robot with
an undying allegiance to its country. It even makes sure you understand just
what the Declaration of Independence represents before you try to take it.
While not the most noble method for doing so, you become the person who
rediscovers the Declaration of Independence and you just might feel some sort
of twisted patriotism for doing so.
Super Off-Road – NES,
SNES, PC
In this fixed-perspective
racer, you drive your truck around a dirt track using jumps and nitrous to your
advantage. While that seems pretty American, the patriotic moment I want to
bring up happens whenever you finish first in a race.
When you start the game, you enter your name and choose a
country. Race just right to get first place and be rewarded during the victory
ceremony. Sure, every one of the racers looks exactly the same, but so do the
women clinging to their sides. Heck, even the trophies all look the same, but
first place gets… their nation’s anthem played in the background! Worth it!
Bad Dudes – NES, Arcade
When the president gets
captured by ninjas (this was before the Department of Homeland Security),
apparently the good guys aren’t good enough to save him. That’s where the “Bad
Dudes” come in. Fight through a city infested with ninjas wearing a multitude
of colors to get to the captured George Bush look-a-like.
After
rescuing the prez, he says the most American thing the developers could think
of: “Hey dudes, thanks for rescuing me. Let’s go for a burger…Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!”
You’re then treated to a scene with the president eating a burger in front of
the White House. Apparently it was decided to beef up security after the ninja
incident, since there is a wall of Secret Service agents behind both of you as
well. Oh, and of course Old Glory is showing her colors the whole time the
credits roll.
The
thing that’s interesting about this game is that the arcade and Japanese
versions cast a Ronald Reagan clone named “Ronnie” as the president, since it
came out earlier than the US NES version. Also, there is no burger, White
House, American flag, or Secret Service in the Japanese ending. The developers
apparently thought they needed to turn the “America”
knob up as high as it would go for the US ending.
