Darksiders is pretty damn gory, but is it bad enough to deserve a ban? According to the United Arab Emirates, it is. No reason has been given, but the UAE's stock reply is always that it will anything that "contradicts with UAE’s customs and traditions."
I'm guessing the Heaven/Hell focus might have something to do with it, but who knows? When games are banned, logical reasons and sensible explanations aren't usually in abundance, so Darksiders will just be joining God of War and Grand Theft Auto IV as games that Arabs aren't allowed to play, but will just pirate anyway if they really want to.
Fun times had by all!
UAE Bans Darksiders [GamePolitics]
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Contest:
12:00 PM on 01.07.2010
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Stupid as HELL indeed.
Good one, sir.
Someone actually got that even though I didn't emphasize any words. Consider me impressed.
Run everybody, for this game has representations of horsemen, that will curse your soul if you play or buy them.
I have to say, Darksiders actually looks pretty cool.
but it's not such huge news to be honest... almost everything gets banned over there, even skype is blocked...
Not like it's a secret what fantaticsare out there in the Middle East. Hell, I'm suprised any American videogames are for sale out there.
Still, this was as obvious as bringing fried chicken and cake to a Weight Watchers graduation party. THQ only offered it up to that region to get banned and spur some headlines where it is on shelves. They knew it wasn't going through.
Those fools will cut your hands off for pickpocketing while screaming "Allah be praised!", it sure wasn't the violence. There's nothing to ponder on the reason, it's the Heaven and Hell thing why they banned.
The character War is engaging on a religious JIHAD on the preposterous notion of Heaven/Hell/fiction.
Problem solved. Damn I'm brilliant.
Yeah, as a Muslim, all I can say is I love my religion, but sometimes hate the people who claim to be followers of it.
One of my uncles lives in the UAE. I'm fairly sure he isn't Arab.
Let's not forget how many games have been banned in Australia and Germany. UAE and Saudi Arabia are the only Middle Eastern countries who have banned videogames and really have each only banned a handful.
Others like Venezuela banned all videogames which include shooting and China bans games which undermine the country or recognize Tibet as an independent country.
I would doubt it's the religion - God of War wasn't banned over that, obviously. Darksiders has angels and demons, and common mythological big names (Uriel, Sammael, etc.) but that's about as close as it ever gets to being religious.
Anyway, halfway through it. Dungeons remind me of the ones in Twilight Princess, and the combat is fairly fluid, although basically a 1 (occasional 2) button mash.
Theism is pretty funny.
It uses some biblical protagonists, but that's as far it goes. It's also not only Christian figures. Tiamat (Babylonian), Samael (Judaism), Stygian (Greek), etc. The story is more a mish-mash from Joe Mad's mind and its team using various mythological figures, and he's always been bent on epic scale conflicts. War is a great protagonist to use, I think Jim said somewhere that a game based on someone whose power is to make people hungry would have been harder to pull off.
It's entirely possible the game was banned without someone actually playing it too, and they could have drawn any conclusion.
"Why is everyone saying Arabs ffs. UAE is only one country. It's like calling a french guy britfag."
UAE is like 7 countries for ffs so give it a rest would you.
Fuck the Arabs.
While Anifanatics short answer sums it up perfectly, I'll stoop to your level.
Lol at your ignorance, you must be American are you? Don't worry people from your countries ignorance to anything outwith your borders is world famous, I don't hold it against you.
"While the terms country, state, and nation are often used interchangeably, there is a difference.
A State (note the capital "S") is a self-governing political entity. The term State can be used interchangeably with country."
I have been there and my sister lives there, I know how things work and the political structure of it. Also I'm not an idiot but good try at being clever.