Treading well into the territory of what most would consider “bad taste”, French website Uzinagaz.com’s game New York Defender has recently received some media attention. The purpose of this web-based game is to shoot down passenger jets that have gone all hijacky before they have a chance to explode all over New York City landmarks.

NBC’s Roseanne Colletti recently did a story on the game and its sequel, even though they were released back in 2002. Not surprisingly, a lot of New Yorkers don’t really appreciate what New York Defender has to offer gamers.

The game has you attempting to shoot planes out of the sky as they careen towards the twin towers, first-person shooter style.

Part II is planted in a top-down view with airplanes taking off and landing constantly. Most of the planes are “friendly” and aren’t scheduled to terrorize anybody (hooray!), but occasionally a plane will radically change direction and identify itself as “hijacked” with a red circle.

The planes then race towards a landmark, such as the United Nations building, the Statue of Liberty, Empire State Building, Wall Street and the Brooklyn Bridge, and give you a very limited amount of time to suppress your respect for human life and blow those mothers out of the sky.

A lot of people who lost loved ones in the attacks refused to comment on the games, stating they didn’t want to give the site any publicity. Good job, NBC. You really messed up that plan… and I guess we did, too. Sorry!

If you’re not the type of sick bastard that thinks you are actually defending America with your patriotic eradication of other people, Uzinagaz offers other games separated into the following categories: Chaos, Savage, Action, Sport, and Wild Freedom.

In addition to New York Defender II and its prequel, you can choose between other winners like Mini Nuke, Kick Ass, Santa Sniper, Nude Runner, and Spermattack.

While I admit I’ve enjoyed a game or two of Taliban Barbers (that theme song rocks!), I can’t in good conscience recommend something like New York Defender II to anyone but the most disturbed of individuals (no offense – please don’t kill me!).

How any of this was deemed newsworthy by NBC is beyond me. Then again, I recently saw a news story on television about how snow makes roads slippery. I guess common sense has no place in the press these days.

Tags: bad_taste, french_website, media_attention, new_york_city, new_york_city_landmarks, new_york_defender, passenger_jets, Sequel, uzinagaz

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4 Comments » Dennis on January 5, 2008 12:31 am Um, whats so bad about those games? I’d like to shoot those planes down. Maybe if you were the pilot, and your goal was to wreck into stuff…then I’d understand. ann on January 5, 2008 7:08 pm The game may be in poor taste, but the message is provocative: You can’t win the war on terror. Jonathan Zungre on March 7, 2008 5:14 pm Is the message really that? Can you not “beat” the game? does it just keep going like pacman? Dan Landis on March 7, 2008 9:25 pm Yes, it just keeps going. Like ann said, you can never win the war on terror. RSS feed for comments on this post. Comment Now Note: Commenting on Ripten does not currently require registration, however to be eligible for contests on the site, you must be a registered user. Name (required) Mail (will not be published) (required) Website Commenting Rules: No hate speech allowed. If you must argue, please debate intelligently. Comments containing selected keywords or outbound links will be put into moderation to help prevent spam. Ripten reserves the right to delete comments and ban anyone who doesn't follow the rules. Thanks. Notify me of followup comments Tired of the Goomba? Upload your own custom comment avatar.