Video game of Spain's civil war causes outrage

A computing machine game that lets participants to take sides in the Spanish civil warfare have caused indignation at a clip when the state is still struggling to come up to footing with the bequest of the conflict.

Shadows of War: The Spanish Civil War is the first game dedicated to the 1936-39 conflict, which be the lives of an estimated 500,000 people and resulted in General Franco's 36-year dictatorship. It have been designed to enable participants to take on the function of Franco's winning military units or the defeated republicans.

The release day of the month is particularly disputatious as it falls on November 20, the day of remembrance of the decease of Franco, when fascistic groupings garner to mark the late dictator. It also come ups hebdomads after the Spanish parliament passed the historical memory law, which for the first clip recognises Franco's victims, and was one of the most hotly disputed pieces of statute law in 30 old age of democracy.

Gaming websites have got been full of unfavorable judgment for the game, with some screening the thought of playing the portion of a fascistic soldier as repellent. Others, however, welcome the opportunity to rewrite history and emerge winning as a Republican soldier.

The game's shapers have got defended the determination to utilize existent events. "As well as being entertaining, it could function to remind people that they necessitate to be witting of past events to make certain they are not repeated," said Paco Pérez, the project's director.

But some relations of those killed in the warfare do not see it that way. Carlota Leret, the girl of Commanding Officer Virgilio Leret Ruiz, Franco's first victim, executed on July 18 1936 and whose name is mentioned in the game, said: "It is not a historical event buried in the past, but is very fresh in the memory of Spaniards. There is no justification for trivialising the violent deaths and the agony and hurting of the victims when we still haven't reconciled ourselves with the past."

Though much of the game is historically accurate, in one subdivision participants take on the function of a immature female Republican guerrilla, with a missionary post to inform her companions of the place of Franco's elite Condor Legion. Her tight-fitting trousers and telling top are more than reminiscent of Lara Croft from Grave Plunderer than Spanish guerilla fighters.

But perhaps one fact more than any other volition affect the game's popularity: it is reported not to be very good. A reappraisal in the day-to-day Elevation País described it as "far from being a ace production".