As I spoke about in my video blog earlier, The Times, a reputable UK newspaper, has, for all intents and purposes, made up a bunch of things abut Far Cry 2 to link it to the German shooting. There are other parts to the article, but for brevity I’m only going to focus on the Far Cry 2 statements.

I also don’t want to take anything away from the horror of the incident. I genuinely do fee for those in mourning and those shaken up by this incident. However, I refuse to allow politicians and “journalists” to lie to the public to push an ill informed agenda when events like this happen.

Whilst it’s true that playing the game likely didn’t put Kretschmer off his plans, the way The Times’ Adam Lewitt links Far Cry 2 to the incident borders on the ridiculous. If not just for its position in the surrounding text. Earlier in the same article is this:

Kretschmer’s father, Jörg, a wealthy businessman, has a passion for guns: his 15 handguns and rifles were meant to be locked in a safe but Kretschmer would proudly show off to friends the Beretta pistol that he went on to use.

‘œYou could say he was a true gun fanatic. Weapons were [Tim's] obsession,’ said Michael Veit, 17, a neighbour.

Kretschmer’s father had started taking him to a shooting range at the age of eight, according to Zdenka Karanovic of the Lautenbach gun club. Just three weeks ago he went back to the range with his father, telling him he wanted to practise his aim.

That clearly doesn’t sound like any kind of link to the shooting. Perhaps his playing of the virtual murder simulator Far Cry 2 caused him to commit his atrocious acts.

Instead of focusing on the actual reasons, some apparent ulterior motive drove Lewitt to out right invent facts to link Far Cry 2 to the shootings.

[Far Cry 2 is] a violent video game in which a heavily armed mercenary tracks down and kills an arms dealer [...]the player takes on the role of the killer.

That’s the entire plot? That’s the point of Far Cry 2? Well, he is correct in that one of the over arching plot lines is that you have to kill The Jackal, who technically is an arms dealer, but it’s much more complicated than that. Or at least, that’s not the important part of the plot.

You play a heavily armed mercenary? Again, I can’t technically argue with the statement. I would probably class anybody with more than 3 guns as heavily armed. Incidentally, Halo is a game where you play a heavily armed soldier sent to kill people because of their beliefs.

Given the choice on how to spin these “facts,” Lewitt just errs on the side of making the game seem barbaric and cruel. He could easily have said that during the game you work undercover for warring factions as a mercenary, trying to bring peace to a troubled nation.

In the game it is essential to hijack cars to move around.

This is just wrong. As anybody who has played the game for a few minuets would know. Once unlocked, at every safe house you are given a vehicle. After every fast travel you are given a vehicle and at many checkpoints there are enemy vehicles to take. The only vehicles you could hijack have enemies in who are actively trying to kill you on sight.

Characters in the game [...] wear black camouflage uniforms ‘“ the clothing Kretschmer wore on Wednesday.

Again, no idea where this came from. Characters wear a range of clothing. I’m not going to say there aren’t black camouflage uniforms, but there are plenty of other outfits too. To say Kretschmer wore the same outfit as the characters on purpose is just grasping at straws.

Far Cry 2′s killer uses a Beretta 92 handgun, the weapon fired 112 times by Kretschmer [...] The game includes sequences in which the aiming, firing and reloading of a Beretta are portrayed in vivid detail.

According to the weapons list and from checking out the (fully unlocked) weapons store just now, the Beretta 92 hand gun isn’t in Far Cry 2. There are 20+ weapons in the game, but none are the Beretta. Please, do explain where these “sequences” are.

It also rewards players who shoot their victims in the head, the style of killing chosen by Kretschmer.

My only guess is here he is referring to either the fact a headshot is an instant kill (as with most games, or for the most part, real life), or the fact the stats track your headshots. To say the method of killing in Far Cry 2 is was the same as his “style of killing” is ridiculous.

For what it’s worth, I hope the Times issues an apology for the wildly skewed implications, or at least the factual errors. I contacted the paper’s Editor-in-Chief but don’t expect a reply. What I expect is for the paper to ignore any complaints and continue on.

As I said in my video blog, if they can allow such clear prepossession and factual errors in easily checkable things like video games, I loose all faith in their ability to inform me accurately of the larger world issues.