Play as the mighty Gajah Mada in “Civilization 5: Brave New World” and conquer the world as the Indonesian empire
There are definitely a lot of video gamers in Indonesia – both players and game makers. But is there a lot of Indonesia in video games? You’d be surprised!
Here are six virtual versions of Indonesia you can find in video games – lovingly recreated pixel for pixel by game designers or fans. Whether you’re a gamer or not, it’s pretty cool to see how our homeland is portrayed in the digital world.
Civilization 5: Brave New World
The Civilization series is all about conquering the world with your chosen, well, civilization. In the latest expansion pack for the latest version of the game, the developers have expanded the selection of playable civilizations to include 46 of the most powerful cultures in human history – including Indonesia!
Each civilization is represented by one of their most famous leaders – for example, the French civilization is lead by Napoleon while the American faction is led by George Washington. The face of the Indonesian civilization is none other than the mighty leader of the Majapahit Empire, General Gajah Mada. They even got a Javanese voice actor to portray him!
Each Civilization also gets its own special unique military unit, and for Indonesia it is the badass Kris Swordsman, whose mystic blade skill lets him quickly evolve into an even fiercer warrior.
If you’re looking to live out a patriotic Indonesian power fantasy of our country taking over the world, then Civilization 5: Brave New World should definitely be on your playlist.
DreadOut
Made by local game developers Digital Happiness, DreadOut is a psychological horror game that puts a uniquely Indonesian spin on scare simulators like “Fatal Frame”. You play a student named Linda who must face an army of Indonesian ghosts and monsters using modern technology such as smartphones and digital video cameras. Definitely one of the scariest games out there – as proven by this ridiculous scream filled video walkthrough of the game’s first section.
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
No, the infamous Grand Theft Auto series does not take place in Indonesia. But if you’re playing it on the PC, you can install a number of user-created modifications to give Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas some serious Indonesian flair, including batik shirts and in-game Indomarets (that sell Teh Botol). You can also hijack a mobil polisi and get it refueled at a Pertamina gas station, or even take control of a Garuda Indonesia airplane and fly it by Monas.
Tekken Tag Tournament 2
The Tekken fighting game series is known for its crazy over-the-top characters, including Mexican wrestlers and zombie samurais. Although there are no Indonesian warriors in the series yet (we’re hoping for a brawler based on Iko Uwais from “The Raid” in the next version), the latest game in the series does let you battle in a beautifully recreated wayang kulit (shadow puppet) theater, complete with background music from a fully-animated gamelan orchestra.
Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow
You could have probably guessed there would be at least one game on this list where Indonesians would be the bad guys, and this is it. In this espionage simulator based on the works of Tom “The Hunt for Red October” Clancy, you play a superspy who must take down a radical Indonesian guerrilla group known as Darah Dan Doa (“Blood and Prayer”) led by a man named Suhadi Sadono.
While it sucks to have an Indonesian terrorist be the main bad guy of a video game, at least Sadono isn’t a completely cartoonish villain. His backstory is that he was trained by the CIA to help fight communists, but felt betrayed when the Americans stopped backing Indonesia and put their support behind East Timor instead, causing him to declare war on the USA.
In one of the final missions of the game, you must sneak into a television station in Jakarta in order to capture Sadono.
SimCity 4
Saying that Jakarta has some city planning issues would be an epic understatement. But do you think you could build a better version of Jakarta? You can, using the world’s most popular city planning simulator, SimCity. While you cannot create a specifically Indonesian city with the basic game, you can download some lovingly created user content to pop a few of Jakarta’s most famous landmarks into your city. However, no matter how badly you play, you cannot create traffic as bad as Jakarta’s – you’d need a supercomputer to simulate our traffic nightmare.
