NEW VIDEO GAME CRITICISED BY POLICE AND
MP’S
W h
i p l a s h !
Free
the animals, smash up the lab and chain-whip policemen –
This is the latest video game for children by Richard McComb and Renee Mickleburgh
A computer game
in which players as young as seven are asked to destroy an animal testing
laboratory is to go on sale despite being criticised
as "irresponsible" by police and MPs.
Whiplash, which is made by Eidos, the British software company that created the Lara
Croft computer games, depicts animals being abused in a laboratory, including
one experiment in which a hamster is fired from a cannon and another in which
monkeys are forced to run on treadmills to test their endurance.
Players are asked to free the animals
by destroying security cameras, wrecking the laboratory and chain-whipping
police officers. Eidos, which supplies stores
including Toys R Us, HMV and Virgin Megastores,
describes the game as featuring "a shackled animal duo on a mission to
escape and sabotage an evil animal product-testing corporation".
It says that the purpose is to raise
"positive awareness" about animal testing among children. Ian Gibson,
a Labour MP and the chairman of the House of Commons
select committee on science and technology, said, however, that he feared that
children would gain a distorted view of animal experimentation.
"This is unhelpful to the whole
debate. It is a nasty and vicious way of prejudicing young minds for the rest
of their lives," said Dr Gibson. "Young people with fresh minds need
to be brought into an understanding of the problem with both sides of the
argument being put forward in a rational and reasonable way. Clearly such programmes are not bringing a balanced judgment to serious
and difficult areas of understanding."
The release of Whiplash, which will go
on sale at £39.99 in
In Whiplash, the game's action centres on two shackled animals - Spanx,
an electric shock-tested weasel, and
The game urges children to
"demolish everything in the company from computers and test equipment to
soda machines, plants and treadmills. Break it all and you'll drive the evil
corporation into bankruptcy".
In a statement, Eidos
said it hoped that the game would highlight the issue of animal experimentation
among children. "Whiplash is based in a fictional animal-testing
laboratory where the object is to rescue all of the animals and destroy the
evil testing lab. Although the video game is fictional we hope that it raises
positive awareness of animal testing among children."
Mark Matfield,
the executive director of the Research Defence
Society, which supports ethical and humane animal experimentation, insisted,
however, that the scenes portrayed in the game, including animals chained
together, were totally inaccurate. "The
suggestion that this game might raise young people's awareness of the issues
involved in animal experimentation is ludicrous," he said.
"It's worrying that this game
appears to condone acts that are clearly illegal or violent as an appropriate
way of contributing to an informed debate."
Jan Berry, the chairman of the Police
Federation, which represents rank-and-file officers, added: "This game is
both alarming and disturbing”.
"The role of the police service is
to be independent, uphold the law and prevent disorder. We already have a tough
enough job and this game seems to be sending the wrong
message to young people, which is totally irresponsible."
Eidos, which has its head office in Wimbledon, is one of
the world's leading publishers of entertainment software. The company employs
500 people worldwide and posted a £17.4 million pre-tax profit in the year to
June. Whiplash was developed by Crystal Dynamics, a Californian company also
responsible for Eidos's Tomb Raider computer game
series.