It's more than likely that you've never thought to yourself, "I wonder what anANTIFA Rome Total War would look like," but you're definitely thinking of it now!Thanks to the developers at Merge Games, in collaboration with IV Productions,you can now somewhat live that out in their 2017 title RIOT: Civil Unrest. ----Described as a "real-time riot simulator," RIOT: Civil Unrest puts you directlyin the driver's seat of real-life uprisings in Italy, Spain, Greece and Egypt.You can choose your unit: rioters or police. Each unit comes equipped withweapons. For the rioters, you get to choose an assortment of items such as laserpointers, firecrackers, homemade paper bombs and of course, Molotov cocktails.For the police, you can choose typical police equipment like stun and tear gasgrenades, batons, and so forth.The game gives you specific missions based on your unit. Rioters' missionsinclude occupying public squares, forcibly expelling cops from encampments, andpushing past barricades. Police, of course, are given the task to deflect theresistance and hold the line. There are also time limits, so every single actionyou take, every decision you make, must count. The mechanics of the game aresomewhat difficult to master, but we'll discuss those a little later.As stated before, RIOT: Civil Unrest is based on real-life events. In order tofully understand this game, we need to dive deeper into what pushed thesecitizens to their breaking point, to where guerilla resistance was their lastresort after peaceful protests fell on deaf ears...Indignados (Spain)Also known as the 15-M movement, it should be no surprise the citizens of Spainorganized to fight their oppressors. From May 2011 to March 2015, protestserupted in several major cities to oppose austerity measures which were broughtup during the 2011 national election. Austerity measures are economic policiesenforced by governments to raise taxes in order to reduce budget deficits. Thesetaxes include gas, healthcare, even veteran benefits, and more. Policies such asthis directly target working-class people and such policies have been the subjectof uprisings around the world, such as France's Yellow Vest movement andanti-austerity movements in Athens, Greece.Sporting the slogan, "We are not goods in the hands of politicians and bankers,"an estimated 6-8.5 million citizens got involved, organized almost entirely byway of social media. In the months leading up to the protests, many of Spain'strade unions, including anarcho-syndicalist unions, began calling for generalstrikes to protest the proposed policies. In May 2011, protests began as mostlypeaceful occupations and sit-ins, that is, until Spain's National Police startedattacking and arresting peaceful protestors, an all-too-common scenario. Thissubsequently caused the more radical and riotouselements of the movement tomaterialize.Closely mirroring the tactics of the anarcho-syndicalist trade union NationalConfederation of Labor (CNT) and militant anarchists in the Iberian AnarchistFederation (FAI) occupations of buildings in and around Catalonia during theoutbreak of the Spanish Civil War, citizens in Portugal began occupyinghospitals, creating police-free zones, and creating various worker cooperatives.Although many political reforms were won, the people of Spain also proved oncemore that a horizontally-organized society, one that is beyond the clutches ofthe State, is entirely possible. Just like in 1936.Arab Spring (various nations)At roughly the same time the Indignados movement began gaining popularity inSpain, another revolution was brewing in the Arab world. And it all began with afamiliar sight: a lone wolf who became so fed up with economic stagnation andauthoritarian rule that they took measures to address these issues that were soextreme the whole world collectively gasped in horror. That citizen was26-year-old Tunisian street vendor Tarek el-Tayeb Mohamed Bouazizi. When localgovernment officials claimed he had no vendor permit, his wares were confiscated.In late December 2010, after many failed appeals and, according to familymembers, even harassment by local politicians, Bouazizi stood in the middle oftraffic, doused himself in gasoline, and dropped a lit match. He barely survived;90% of his body was burnt to a near crisp.While on life support, then-Tunisian president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali visitedBouazizi in the hospital and promised his family he would fly him out to Franceto receive medical treatment. This promise never materialized, much to the dismayof critics and eventual protestors. Bouazizi died on January 4th, 2011.Immediately following Bouazizi's death, tens of thousands of mostly working-classcitizens hit the streets in protests in and around Tunisia, and eventually spreadto Libya, Yemen, Syria, Bahrain and countless other Arab nations. The State, asper usual, attempted to silence the growing movement, predictably resulting inprotests going from peaceful demonstrations to full-blown violent revolutionsthat eventually saw the reformation or overthrow of governments and exile of manynations' top politicians. Less than two weeks after the Tunisian protests began,President Ben Ali stepped down. But the ensuing revolutions, which became knownas the Arab Spring, continued.The growing violent repression by governments and law enforcement slowly began toforce the revolutions into submission by roughly mid-2012. Come December of thatyear, the Arab Spring was over. Many Arab nations saw different results: Moroccoand Jordan saw constitutional reforms. In Libya, rebel fighters captured,tortured and executed Muammar Gaddafi, ending his 32-year rule. In Syria, civilunrest against Bashar al-Assad eventually exploded into a civil war that sawintervention from the United States and other world powers. And the list goes on.The Arab world was never the same.No TAV (Italy)Beginning in the 1990s, a movement sprung up in the metropolitan Susa Valley inItaly which sought resistance against the construction of high-speed railways.The movement became known as No TAV (Treno Alta Velocità) and is ongoing to thisday. The purpose of this project was part of a larger European Union plan todirectly connect to Ukraine along with various other countries and territories.Italian citizens had long-expressed concerns about construction displacingresidents, damaging the environment, economic issues, etc. Despite this, theirpleas were ignored, to no one's surprise.No TAV participants utilized many methods of resistance, including occupyingand/or squatting government and construction company buildings, hunger strikes,sit-ins and other forms of civil disobedience. Many have even taken the libertyof supporting local agriculture over big industry, forcing production shipping toa near-stand-still by way of changing up distribution and schedules, organizingwith students, and more.To repeat, this movement is still ongoing. Hopefully, time will soon tell if theresistance can achieve more and more victories for the struggle.Keratea (Greece)Last, but certainly not least, we have the Keratea struggle in Greece. There havebeen too many radical movements to count coming out of Greece, most notably theanti-austerity uprisings primarily in Athens. Working-class Greeks have been atwar with the State for years, so when the Greek government in 2010 decided togreenlight a landfill construction project in and around Keratea-that is, amidsta historic economic crisis-and send countless dozens of cops to preemptivelystamp out an inevitable uprising, the Greeks did exactly what the Greeks havealways done best in the face of tyranny: they fought back.Practically overnight, everyone from the young to even the old became guerillafighters. The townsfolk made it crystal clear that anyone who stands for theState shall fall for the State. In fact, this isn't the first time something likethis has happened. Similar protests were held in 2008 and 2009, in which a43-year-old woman tragically died in the skirmishes. As you can probably tell,they weren't down for a repeat.Although the government decided to delay construction, the resistance didn't letup, despite multiple citizens being arrested. Police were outnumbered andoverwhelmed every single night. From the anti-austerity movement in Athens, tovarious construction protests, resistance against the Greek government continuesto this day, and will likely never die out.And now, I have a fun little theory I'd like to share: the police you can chooseto play as are actually members of the Greek Communist Party (KKE), a Stalinistorganization who are known collaborators with fascists and the State, who wouldmuch rather get into skirmishes with the anarchists and other political rivalsthan do anything worthwhile.Final ThoughtsRiot: Civil Unrest is a pretty interesting educational tool. It gives players asense of how chaotic the aforementioned uprisings were, while allowing them tochoose how things play out. Sadly, the game is plagued with somewhat buggy andunresponsive AI, which is the game's near-fatal flaw. What's the most importantaspect about any game? Control. If you feel like you have no control, any game isvirtually unplayable. There were times when my AI units simply didn't do what Iwanted them to, didn't move to where I wanted them to. During the rioters'gameplay, my units occasionally retreated off screen and I had no choice orcontrol over their actions, despite abusing the option to constantly call forreinforcements. It's as if they just...gave up. It's a feeling of powerlessness(and frustration) to be a gamer and feel like you have no control over yourcharacter(s).Earlier I mentioned that the game's mechanics are difficult to get used to, butit goes a bit further than that. There doesn't seem to be an actual tutorial onhow to control your rioters/police units. Even after watching a let's-play onYouTube, I still had not much of a clue. You get to choose your equipment, andafter a little bit of much-needed backstory about the events you're reenacting,you're dropped into the game and have less than a minute to figure out thecontrols before you're overwhelmed by the opposing units. I still have absolutelyno idea how I secured the few victories I did. It must have been pure luck. Whileplaying as the rioters, I found myself desperately hurling Molotov cocktails androcks every single chance I got, because I simply couldn't keep my unit defenselines from falling apart or retreating. I found it was a lot easier to play asthe police. All I had to do was form strategic riot control lines and throwflashbangs and tear gas to disperse crowds. Nothing much else to say about that.In fact, playing as the police was quite boring.Last but not least, the game has an option where you get to create your own riotscenarios. It's like Create-a-Park from the Tony Hawk's Pro Skater franchise butmore politically radical. The difference is that Create-a-Park, which was firstintroduced all the way back in 2000, was courteous enough to give you tips andtricks on how to customize your park. RIOT: Civil Unrest once again is lacking acoherent tutorial on how to customize your units and landscape, which isinexcusable for any modern title. As gamers, we aren't asking game developers tohold our hands when we play. They also shouldn't be damn-near cryptic about theirgames, either.This game, while a very unique concept, is unavoidably flawed. I believe you'llhave a much more fun time watching actual riot footage on the internet. I giveRIOT: Civil Unrest a 4/10.Vincent Parsonshttps://organisemagazine.org.uk/2022/07/26/riot-civil-unrest-red-black-gamers/_________________________________________A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C EBy, For, and About AnarchistsSend news reports to A-infos-en mailing listA-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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