It's more than likely that you've never thought to yourself, "I wonder what an
ANTIFA 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 directly
in 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 with
weapons. For the rioters, you get to choose an assortment of items such as laser
pointers, firecrackers, homemade paper bombs and of course, Molotov cocktails.
For the police, you can choose typical police equipment like stun and tear gas
grenades, batons, and so forth.
The game gives you specific missions based on your unit. Rioters' missions
include occupying public squares, forcibly expelling cops from encampments, and
pushing past barricades. Police, of course, are given the task to deflect the
resistance and hold the line. There are also time limits, so every single action
you take, every decision you make, must count. The mechanics of the game are
somewhat 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 to
fully understand this game, we need to dive deeper into what pushed these
citizens to their breaking point, to where guerilla resistance was their last
resort after peaceful protests fell on deaf ears...
Indignados (Spain)
Also known as the 15-M movement, it should be no surprise the citizens of Spain
organized to fight their oppressors. From May 2011 to March 2015, protests
erupted in several major cities to oppose austerity measures which were brought
up during the 2011 national election. Austerity measures are economic policies
enforced by governments to raise taxes in order to reduce budget deficits. These
taxes include gas, healthcare, even veteran benefits, and more. Policies such as
this directly target working-class people and such policies have been the subject
of uprisings around the world, such as France's Yellow Vest movement and
anti-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 by
way of social media. In the months leading up to the protests, many of Spain's
trade unions, including anarcho-syndicalist unions, began calling for general
strikes to protest the proposed policies. In May 2011, protests began as mostly
peaceful occupations and sit-ins, that is, until Spain's National Police started
attacking and arresting peaceful protestors, an all-too-common scenario. This
subsequently caused the more radical and riotouselements of the movement to
materialize.
Closely mirroring the tactics of the anarcho-syndicalist trade union National
Confederation of Labor (CNT) and militant anarchists in the Iberian Anarchist
Federation (FAI) occupations of buildings in and around Catalonia during the
outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, citizens in Portugal began occupying
hospitals, creating police-free zones, and creating various worker cooperatives.
Although many political reforms were won, the people of Spain also proved once
more that a horizontally-organized society, one that is beyond the clutches of
the State, is entirely possible. Just like in 1936.
Arab Spring (various nations)
At roughly the same time the Indignados movement began gaining popularity in
Spain, another revolution was brewing in the Arab world. And it all began with a
familiar sight: a lone wolf who became so fed up with economic stagnation and
authoritarian rule that they took measures to address these issues that were so
extreme the whole world collectively gasped in horror. That citizen was
26-year-old Tunisian street vendor Tarek el-Tayeb Mohamed Bouazizi. When local
government officials claimed he had no vendor permit, his wares were confiscated.
In late December 2010, after many failed appeals and, according to family
members, even harassment by local politicians, Bouazizi stood in the middle of
traffic, 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 visited
Bouazizi in the hospital and promised his family he would fly him out to France
to receive medical treatment. This promise never materialized, much to the dismay
of critics and eventual protestors. Bouazizi died on January 4th, 2011.
Immediately following Bouazizi's death, tens of thousands of mostly working-class
citizens hit the streets in protests in and around Tunisia, and eventually spread
to Libya, Yemen, Syria, Bahrain and countless other Arab nations. The State, as
per usual, attempted to silence the growing movement, predictably resulting in
protests going from peaceful demonstrations to full-blown violent revolutions
that eventually saw the reformation or overthrow of governments and exile of many
nations' top politicians. Less than two weeks after the Tunisian protests began,
President Ben Ali stepped down. But the ensuing revolutions, which became known
as the Arab Spring, continued.
The growing violent repression by governments and law enforcement slowly began to
force the revolutions into submission by roughly mid-2012. Come December of that
year, the Arab Spring was over. Many Arab nations saw different results: Morocco
and Jordan saw constitutional reforms. In Libya, rebel fighters captured,
tortured and executed Muammar Gaddafi, ending his 32-year rule. In Syria, civil
unrest against Bashar al-Assad eventually exploded into a civil war that saw
intervention 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 in
Italy which sought resistance against the construction of high-speed railways.
The movement became known as No TAV (Treno Alta Velocità) and is ongoing to this
day. The purpose of this project was part of a larger European Union plan to
directly connect to Ukraine along with various other countries and territories.
Italian citizens had long-expressed concerns about construction displacing
residents, damaging the environment, economic issues, etc. Despite this, their
pleas were ignored, to no one's surprise.
No TAV participants utilized many methods of resistance, including occupying
and/or squatting government and construction company buildings, hunger strikes,
sit-ins and other forms of civil disobedience. Many have even taken the liberty
of supporting local agriculture over big industry, forcing production shipping to
a near-stand-still by way of changing up distribution and schedules, organizing
with students, and more.
To repeat, this movement is still ongoing. Hopefully, time will soon tell if the
resistance can achieve more and more victories for the struggle.
Keratea (Greece)
Last, but certainly not least, we have the Keratea struggle in Greece. There have
been too many radical movements to count coming out of Greece, most notably the
anti-austerity uprisings primarily in Athens. Working-class Greeks have been at
war with the State for years, so when the Greek government in 2010 decided to
greenlight a landfill construction project in and around Keratea-that is, amidst
a historic economic crisis-and send countless dozens of cops to preemptively
stamp out an inevitable uprising, the Greeks did exactly what the Greeks have
always done best in the face of tyranny: they fought back.
Practically overnight, everyone from the young to even the old became guerilla
fighters. The townsfolk made it crystal clear that anyone who stands for the
State shall fall for the State. In fact, this isn't the first time something like
this has happened. Similar protests were held in 2008 and 2009, in which a
43-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 let
up, despite multiple citizens being arrested. Police were outnumbered and
overwhelmed every single night. From the anti-austerity movement in Athens, to
various construction protests, resistance against the Greek government continues
to 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 choose
to play as are actually members of the Greek Communist Party (KKE), a Stalinist
organization who are known collaborators with fascists and the State, who would
much rather get into skirmishes with the anarchists and other political rivals
than do anything worthwhile.
Final Thoughts
Riot: Civil Unrest is a pretty interesting educational tool. It gives players a
sense of how chaotic the aforementioned uprisings were, while allowing them to
choose how things play out. Sadly, the game is plagued with somewhat buggy and
unresponsive AI, which is the game's near-fatal flaw. What's the most important
aspect about any game? Control. If you feel like you have no control, any game is
virtually unplayable. There were times when my AI units simply didn't do what I
wanted 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 or
control over their actions, despite abusing the option to constantly call for
reinforcements. 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 your
character(s).
Earlier I mentioned that the game's mechanics are difficult to get used to, but
it goes a bit further than that. There doesn't seem to be an actual tutorial on
how to control your rioters/police units. Even after watching a let's-play on
YouTube, I still had not much of a clue. You get to choose your equipment, and
after 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 the
controls before you're overwhelmed by the opposing units. I still have absolutely
no idea how I secured the few victories I did. It must have been pure luck. While
playing as the rioters, I found myself desperately hurling Molotov cocktails and
rocks every single chance I got, because I simply couldn't keep my unit defense
lines from falling apart or retreating. I found it was a lot easier to play as
the police. All I had to do was form strategic riot control lines and throw
flashbangs 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 riot
scenarios. It's like Create-a-Park from the Tony Hawk's Pro Skater franchise but
more politically radical. The difference is that Create-a-Park, which was first
introduced all the way back in 2000, was courteous enough to give you tips and
tricks on how to customize your park. RIOT: Civil Unrest once again is lacking a
coherent tutorial on how to customize your units and landscape, which is
inexcusable for any modern title. As gamers, we aren't asking game developers to
hold our hands when we play. They also shouldn't be damn-near cryptic about their
games, either.
This game, while a very unique concept, is unavoidably flawed. I believe you'll
have a much more fun time watching actual riot footage on the internet. I give
RIOT: Civil Unrest a 4/10.
Vincent Parsons
https://organisemagazine.org.uk/2022/07/26/riot-civil-unrest-red-black-gamers/
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A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E
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