Everyone Can Riot in `State of Emergency'

0 Comments | Insight on the News, July 2, 2001 | by John Elvin

In the event that circumstances prohibited your participation in the vandalism, looting and punch-outs with cops that were highlights of the 1999 Seattle anti-World Trade Organization riots, balm is at hand. Reuters news agency reports that Rockstar Games has issued the "State of Emergency" video game, which encourages participants to "smash up everything and everyone in order to destabilize the ATO (American Treaty Organization)."

Eager to play, we visited www.Rockstargames.com but, alas, the site is not suited to the Neanderthal level of technological expertise that exists here in the Briefs Bunker. We were ordered to obtain something called "Shockwave," download it, install it and then get back in touch. Well, maybe never.

We can imagine. Reuters said the game urges the use of "pipes, bricks and benches, even dismembered body parts" to keep the action going. Did we miss something? Dismembered body parts? But that's not all we missed. Prominent among the ranks of the rioters in the video version, we are told, are "leggy, skimpily dressed young women striking martial-arts poses." Oh? Well, perhaps further research is in order. What was that gizmo called? Shockwave?