It’s not very often that you come across an activist game that skillfully incorporates its message with its gameplay, and rarer that they’re so much fun as Harpooned. Take control of a Japanese research vessel and extinctify some whales in the name of science (and selling cat food.)

Read the rest of their list here.

“It’s by equal measure sad, fun and an absolutely commendable way to make an important political point. Score - 81%”

You can download the magazine here.

View the trailer:

Harpooned 2009 update from Conor O’Kane on Vimeo.

Read more for the complete press release…

Harpooned 2009 update press release.

Harpooned - the world’s premiere Cetacean Research Simulator returns in 2009 with new features and is now playable on Macs as well as Windows.

New features include:

Capture protesters ability - Tired of protesters getting in your way? Don’t harpoon them, kidnap them! Simply press the ‘C’ key to capture protesters that get too close to your research vessel.

Online leaderboards - Compete for the rank of top scientist with other players from all over the world.

Download the game, and view the updated trailer and screenshots at http://harpooned.org

Press for Harpooned:

“This is the coolest protest ever. Besides getting the message across, it’s actually a fun game”.

- Attack of the show, G4TV

“This is pretty much how the Japanese government officially justifies sending out a fleet every year to explode a bunch of whales: They paint “Research” on the side of the ships. All that science just happens to make for good eating. This is actually the best possible kind of “activist” game: one that succeeds not despite of its message but because of it.”

- Games for Windows magazine

“[Harpooned] tasks players with gunning down defenseless whales in Antarctica, transforming them into dog food and whaleburgers as you go. While it’s both gross and sad, O’Kane said he wanted to use satire to illuminate a real-world problem – the mass slaughter of whales by the Japanese under the guise of “research.”

- MSNBC’s Citizen Gamer

Media links:

Screenshots: http://harpooned.org/?page_id=4

Article about the making of harpooned: http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=17718

YouTube Harpooned 2009 trailer embed code:

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High quality Vimeo Harpooned 2009 trailer embed code:

<object width=”500″ height=”377″><param name=”allowfullscreen” value=”true” /><param name=”allowscriptaccess” value=”always” /><param name=”movie” value=”http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=3026336&amp;server=vimeo.com&amp;show_title=1&amp;show_byline=1&amp;show_portrait=0&amp;color=ff9933&amp;fullscreen=1″ /><embed src=”http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=3026336&amp;server=vimeo.com&amp;show_title=1&amp;show_byline=1&amp;show_portrait=0&amp;color=ff9933&amp;fullscreen=1″ type=”application/x-shockwave-flash” allowfullscreen=”true” allowscriptaccess=”always” width=”500″ height=”377″></embed></object><br /><a href=”http://vimeo.com/3026336″>Harpooned 2009 update</a> from <a href=”http://vimeo.com/cokane”>Conor O&#039;Kane</a> on <a href=”http://vimeo.com”>Vimeo</a>.

You can buy game developer magazine on their website here.

While it’s both gross and sad, O’Kane said he wanted to use satire to illuminate a real-world problem – the mass slaughter of whales by the Japanese under the guise of “research.”

Read the article here, and the page about Harpooned is here.

Harpooned is also in this month’s PC PowerPlay (Australia).

“Most of us are a bit miffed about the whole whaling debacle, so Conor O’Kane created a game to express what he and I’m sure many others feel towards it. The result is an addictive arcade shooter with a biting satirical edge, where players must “research” whales while avoiding the media and Greenpeace. Species Combo!”

Click here to read the abstract of the paper on the “Fertilisability of ovine, bovine or minke whale spermatozoa injected into bovine oocytes” written by Hong Wei and Yutaka Fukui of the Laboratory of Animal Genetics and Reproduction, Obihiro University of Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine, Obihiro, Japan

The conclusion of the experiment: “Blastocyst formation was only observed when bull spermatozoa were used.” Unfortunately they failed to create any viable cow/whale mutant hybrids. I wonder if they’d eat grass or krill?

Thanks to Steve Jackson for the link.

Click here to read the article.