Global Conflicts: Palestine is the second game I've played in as many months dealing with the Israel-Palestine conflict that has been going on for the better part of this century. The first was Peacemaker, and it's fascinating to see how two games that deal with the exact same real-world political situation could be so different.

Peacemaker is basically a political event simulator that works not unlike Democracy, for this familiar with that title. As a nation's leader, you make choices on policy and then must contend with how the people deal with your decisions with the ultimate goal being to achieve a lasting peace between Palestine and Israel. The game explores the delicate push and pull balance between the myriad political and cultural forces at work in this conflict.

Global Conflicts, however, takes a vastly different, but intriguing approach to exploring the situation. Whereas you play a national leader in Peacemaker, in Global Conflicts you begin as a cub reporter writing for either a Palestinian, Israeli or U.N. newspaper and reporting on the lives and events that take place in Israel and Palestine. While Peacemaker explores the consequences of high-level political decision-making on the public, Global Conflicts hones in instead on the personal conflicts that take place. How does this conflict affect the day to day lives of the average citizen? The soldier? The militant? The outsider?

One topic, two very different games. Peacemaker is a polished and professional title. It was thought-provoking and smoothly executed. However, it lacked some of the heart and real drama of Global Conflicts. Ultimately, though, Global Conflicts is a game that is heavily flawed, but manages to be highly compelling in spite of itself.

As a young reporter (either a man of Palestinian descent or a woman of Israeli descent), it is your mission to report on the situation in these two nations. There are five scenarios to explore, with a sixth available as a bonus once you've performed well enough on the others. Your mission is to gather facts on what transpires, and get the pulse of the people as well, and then tell the world what you've found.

However, getting information is not easy. There are few truly neutral and informative parties in the game. Most individuals have a firm and very subjective viewpoint and they espouse it strongly to you, the reporter who can spread their word. Whose opinion you record is dangerous, as well. You can write for an Israeli, Palestinian or U.N. paper, which means the views you elect to repeat must speak to the constituency of the papers. However, you're not only out for shock journalism. You must capture the correct viewpoint, but also the correct facts. This is not easy.

As a reporter, you have a notebook that can record five quotes from individuals you speak with. During the course of your conversations, when you can record quotes you'll have a button appear next to your text choices that you can use to record what was just spoken to you. Once you've gathered what you feel is good info, you call in your article and then select three quotes and one photo (generated by the game itself) to frame your story. You pick a headline, the lead-in quote, the body quote, and the sub-text quote to wrap up your article and then you are rated on how well the audience receives the article and how newsworthy the article is. The performance of your work can increase your rank at the paper you write for.

Part of the difficulty in getting viable info from sources is how much they trust you as an outsider. To raise this level of trust, you may roam the areas in the game to visit individuals and perform favors for them. Deliver a wedding present for a friend trapped across a checkpoint. Pick up some new papers for a military officer, and so on. Performing tasks for each group will raise your rating among Palestinians and Israelis, as word that you are a person to be trusted gets around.

Unfortunately, on top of all the in-game, in-character difficulties you are presented with, Global Conflicts makes it difficult to get the required info because it's just simply not very well made. You can record up to five quotes in your notebook. However, if you have three saved in your book when you start a conversation, save two more quotes in the course of this new discussion (maxing your notebook out) and suddenly realize that your source has made a perfect sixth quote for you… you're out of luck. Apparently while you can write while you speak, you cannot erase. That sixth, perfect quote is gone forever. Conversations are timely events, and once something's been said, you won't get a source to repeat it. It's just gone.

This takes the reality and urgency of needing to speak with sources quickly and efficiently (and not to offend them with your viewpoints while you do so), and turns it into an exercise in frustration. The goal is to balance your article perfectly, with a give and take of quotes… but the game makes this near impossible to do short of replaying scenarios.

And replaying scenarios is not a joy. It's almost necessary (your article will, almost assuredly, be dismal the first time out), but navigation of the game makes it a chore. The game is styled like a 3-D adventure game. The action is top down, and the camera can be rotated to see around the many tall buildings and trees that will obscure your view as you wander the city. You can only move by clicking. You click, and your character moves to that point. This means that moving through the city is an exercise in staring at the screen and constantly clicking to get your character to walk down city blocks. The world is small, true, but I got very tired of hearing my mouse very quickly. Doing tasks to raise your rating among the people is too simplistic as well. There's no difficulty and nuance as in the main challenge. You simply accept a task, walk to where a person stands, talk to them, and then walk back to the first source again. That's it. Every time. You're a gopher, sometimes being asked to get things for people that are, quite literally, across the street. Really? You couldn't walk over there and talk to Benyamin yourself? I can actually see him from where we're standing now.

All in all, Global Conflicts is a title that deserves playing, as it provides some really compelling looks at a very complicated and current political and cultural scenario. However, I can't help but feel that the game is a half-baked effort. The graphics engine is barely passable, the interface is filled with frustrating elements and in a game about journalism the text is FILLED with typos (the game was made in Denmark… but the point still stands, I think).

Graphics:
Just because it's in 3-D doesn't mean it's good. True, the 3-D in Global Conflicts lets the game show cinematic actions in the midst of each level, but everything is blocky like it just got yanked off the N64 and the SuperFX chip. The view can be rotated, which is good since some items are unresponsive if you click on them through a building that has become translucent as it moves in front of the camera. However, the rotation is quickly disorienting because each time you look at the map, it resets the orientation of the camera to the orientation of the map each time you close it.

Sound:
There's some sound in the game. Yeah… that pretty much covers it.

Gameplay:
So, as I've said, there are plenty of flaws in the gameplay. The quote-gathering system is horribly broken due to the fact that you can't take more than 5 quotes at a time and cannot delete quotes while you're talking with someone… but on the other hand having such a tight restriction on content for your article kept me absolutely riveted to the dialog on screen, poring over every line to find the most suitable bits for my audience. Of course, this also led to my noticing all the typos… but still. Hunting for quotes even outweighed my dislike for the gopher missions you're made to go on to get people to like you.

Concept:
By focusing on dealing with and helping people in the game, Global Conflicts distills a political issue down to a story about people, which is what it is ultimately all about anyway. I said it for Peacemaker and I'll say it again here, we need more games like this one; games are a powerful way to educate.

Value:
As much as I want to endorse this product, the $20 price tag seems steep for a project with so many flaws. It's challenging and engrossing, though, and by its very nature is loaded with replay value.

Overall:
This is a game, again, that deserves to be played. However, it is filled with quirks and problems that may be an insurmountable barrier for some gamers. However, if dialog and conflict and plot are your bread and butter, you'll likely be intrigued by the unique dynamic of journalistic gaming in Global Conflicts.