A New Realm for Video Games...

Here’s a new one. Greenpeace has been working with a Netherlands-based video game developer to create Ship Simulator Extremes! The game allows people to take over Greenpeace ships and run or re-enact anti-whaling campaigns on the high seas, especially those targeted against Japanese whaling vessels.

Among other things, the game lets the player take the helm in many of Greenpeace’s more famous past campaigns, for example the player can simulate a 2008 campaign in which they would steer a Greenpeace inflatable over hundreds of kilometers of rough Southern Ocean waters to pursue the Japanese ship the Nisshin Maru, to stop it from refueling.

According to Greenpeace the game highlights the strict use of peaceful force as the player’s game is over, for example, if they should ram into a whaling vessel. If nothing else this is a clever and exciting way to bring attention to the issue of whaling that may have been largely ignored by the game’s target niche.

Maybe they could make a sequel where one can also play as a Sea Shepherd boat. Or there could be a mission where one must successfully steal a pallet of whale meat. Then the game could help simulate a successful court defense after getting arrested.

Kidding aside, in a way this is revolutionary as it is one of the first (if not the first) video games to feature a political message from an environmental Non Governmental Organization. Hopefully it won't be the last.