Iranians developing game about developing nukes

While games have historically had few, if any, geopolitical implications, a number of games have added to international tensions in recent years.

In June of 2004, French developer Ubisoft ruffled North Korean feathers with the plotline of Ghost Recon 2, which featured a fictional general from the country staging an invasion of China. Then there was the announcement of China's own Anti-Japan War Online, which caused a stir for obvious reasons. And just last week the Venezuelan government expressed its outrage at Los Angeles-based Pandemic Studios' Mercenaries 2, in which the player takes on a power hungry tyrant running the country.

It appears games are once again getting caught up in an international dispute, as Reuters reports that an Iranian game under development will deal with the current nuclear stand-off from that country's point of view. It seems the Union of Islamic Student Societies is designing a PC game chronicling the exploits of the fictional Commander Bahman as he attempts to rescue a nuclear scientist from US troops. The Iranian scientist was kidnapped while on a pilgrimage to the Iraqi city of Kerbala. The game is expected to be available by March 2007.

This is not the first time Iranian-American tensions have been used as the basis for a game. Last September, Kuma Reality Games released a mission for its Kuma/War squad-based shooter that puts players in control of a Special Forces soldier infiltrating an Iranian nuclear facility and destroying its centrifuges.

The Reuters report cites the Iranian Fars News Agency as the source for its story. The original report could not be found on the English-language edition of the Fars News Agency Web site.