Police Brutality
In gaming terms this, the space year 2007*, was christened with SWAT 4, a game which came free with one of the many video cards Fat Conan recently shelled out for. It’s an FPS with many varied missions and many varied ethnicities to assault along the way making for, what FC imagines is, an almost perfect recreation of real-life police work.
Anyway, with Fat Conan playing it with very much a “Doom” head on his shoulders, he soon found his “if they’re armed, shoot them in the face; if they’re unarmed shoot them in the legs, feet, hands or arms” approach didn’t curry favor with the top brass.
However, what was more interesting was his discovery that shooting an armed suspect dead as they went for their gun (as opposed to letting them shoot at you first) was seen as an “unauthorised use of deadly force” and as such resulted in ten whole points being deducted from his score.
Somewhat disturbingly though: having a suspect surrender, put down his weapon and drop to his knees, then hand-cuffing said suspect before walking nonchalantly around them only to shoot them at point-blank range in the crotch, results in only a five point penalty. Fat Conan wonders if this is the message we should be sending out to our children (not his children, obviously, the years of cumulative damage he’s taken his special region during the many splendid battles he’s fought has put paid to that idea).
* Fat Conan realises he should probably have wished everyone a happy new year.