You’ve probably not heard of Tony Maniaty. A pioneering Australian journalist, he has turned his hand to the world of game development with an interesting new title: Warco. While most FPS games see you armed with a variety of guns, Warco’s protagonist’s sole weapon is a video camera. Rather than kill, you must shoot footage and edit it together to make a story.
Designed to illustrate the dangers of reporting from war zones, Warco (which stands for War Correspondent if you hadn’t already worked it out) attempts to show prospective journalists how to balance chasing the story with keeping themselves alive.
“There’s no way of replacing the ultimate experience of actually going into the ‘hot zone’, watching soldiers at war and even being shot at yourself,” says Maniaty. “It’s more than just staying alive. If you wanted that all you’d have to do is move further back to safety, but that isn’t going to help you get the story on film.”
Designed by Brisbane based studio Defiant Development, Maniaty insists that Warco is more than just another war game. “If people want fantasy, they won’t find it in Warco,” he insists. “This is about war in the real world, which is terrifying.” The game is not yet available but plans to release it are in motion. In the meantime, check out the footage.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQlkYY88wLM&w=460&h=264]
Sure, it’s no Crysis or MW3, but as a game it really takes things in a different direction. We’ll be keeping an eye on this one.