Escapist article : Westernization by Zombification

I just read last week's Escapist article "Westernization by Zombification"

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/issue/96/09

The article talks about the game Dead Rising and how the developpers see the western "civilisation".

The article starts by explaining the history of monsters and why we invent them ..."Fiction is a mirror. As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, it reveals the truth that reality obscures. Horror fiction in particular, for through its fictional terrors, we begin to see glimpses of what truly frightens us, the fears we'd prefer to hide."

The analysis goes really deep into sharing with us how japanese people see Americans and what they fear about them.

The game focuses on their fears : The danger of the American scientist who tries to change the environment and it results in a catastrophe that could destroy all of humanity, they see American's gluttony as one of the main problems of globalization, the menace of the guns that Americans carry everywhere they go and etc...

They created the main bosses in the game from American stereotypes gone mad... the clown with no children to entertain, the cop with no one to arrest, the hunters with nothing to hunt, ... they turn against the player and society at the same time.

"By fighting zombies, in other words, we're actually fighting ourselves."

"If the apocalypse is a revelation, Dead Rising's apocalypse reveals an America
immediately identifiable, but through a distorted mirror."

Interesting Article, I might say, in which we get a glimpse of how other culture see "us".

I think the article is kinda right in a lot of respect. I understand the fear that people can have towards guns being carried everywhere, I am too! There is so much violence out there, but I guess it's in the Constitution ... so it must be right ;)

(there's another interesting article in the Escapist : "Vision Doesn't sell copies, The short life of Clover Studio")