Iria

SEOUL - With their digital population starving, North Korea's civilian leaders cut military spending, triggering a military coup by a General "Jung." The renegade general then threatens the South with conventional and nuclear weapons.

Ghost Recon 2, designed for Xbox players, is one of several new video games in which the virtual bad guys are North Koreans. But if the Korea Media Rating Board has its way, its boxes will be stamped "Banned in Korea."

While U.S. game designers see North Koreans as diabolical enemies, South Korean game censors say they see North Koreans as wayward cousins. Unhappy that North Koreans are replacing Nazis and Soviets as all-purpose bad guys in electronic battle games, the Korea Media Rating Board is putting out the word to foreign game makers: Check with us before you pay for a translation.

So far, South Korea's official game censors here have blocked the sale here of three games that feature diabolical North Koreans: Ghost Recon 2, Mercenaries: Playgrounds of Destruction and Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory.

What game players in living rooms around the world may see as exotic battlefields, Koreans call home.
__________
Read More / Source: International Herald Tribune