Chances are you may have missed Sunday's celebration for the 90th anniversary of the People's Liberation Army of China, held in the far-off deserts of Inner Mongolia without any disruption to local traffic or airports.
But should your Chinese patriotic tendencies get the better of you, there's still a way for you to celebrate China's military.
Under the hashtag "Dream to build a stronger army together," China News Network has released a video game that "salutes China's military." However, the strange thing about this video game is that its purpose happens to be at odds with its own existence.
Featuring a sadistically-punishing level of difficulty, players are given just one life to complete all the objectives of the PLA video game in which a Chinese soldier must dodge grenades, hop over bonfires and mines, parachute and pilot a boat. Upon making it to the final destination, players are tasked with the unenviable goal of memorizing a 16-digit code in order to defuse a ticking time bomb.
Should the player ever manage to bypass all obstacles and the generic bad guy soldiers dressed in non-descript grey, this is the reward they will get:
Successfully passed the level!
For you, this is just a simple game, but for us military personnel, we must face the smoke of gunfire. We live in a safe era, but we shouldn't forget the green sihouettes that pay the price of defending peace.
Upon failing a level (which will happen a lot), players will receive the following message:
This is just a game. After losing, you can try again; but for soldiers, there is only one life to spare on the battlefield.
Yup: No matter the outcome, all players will be told that this is "just a game" – one that was promised to us with the question: "Would you like to satisfy your own cravings by personally going to the front lines?" As difficult as this game is, there's no satisfaction to be had when this game chastises you for ever agreeing to play.
PLA video games have been previously available to the public, each with its own specific set of messages.
In 2013, the PLA responded to a maritime territorial dispute with Japan by helping make a first-person shooter in which players do their part to "defend the motherland." Previously featuring US soldiers as enemies, the new dowloadable content for the Glorious Mission video game had players "fight alongside Chinese armed forces and use their weapons to tell the Japanese that 'Japan must return our stolen territory!'" (Watch an advertisement for the game here.)
The same year saw the Global Times release a web browser video game that also tasked the player with repelling foreign invaders. Called Defence of the Diaoyu Islands, the game is a top-down 2D "bullet hell" shooter in which players must guide a single, upgradable Chinese attack boat against massive swarms of Japanese naval boats armed with lasers and missles.
Can't satisfy your own cravings? Accessible to both cellphones and personal computers, the China News Net PLA video game is playable here. Swipe up (or hold the mouse button and move up) to jump, swipe down to drop from a parachute, and tap at grenades and enemies to destroy them. Also, be sure to have a writing utensil handy for when the game throws a 16-digit code for you to memorize.
More stories from this author here.
Twitter: @Sinopath
E-mail: charlesliu1@qq.com
Images: China News Network