Is "Velvet Assassin" disrespectful?

[QualityChimp]

Just been reading about Velvet Assassin, which is a WWII stealth game featuring a svelte female protagonist called Voilette Summer having flashbacks from a hospital bed about her exploits as a spy for MI6, usually wearing tight leathers.

The game is based on the life of Voilette Szabo, who also spied for the MI6, but died in an horrific fashion:

After capture, she was transferred to the custody of the SD in Limoges, where she was interrogated under torture, enduring sexual assault, rape and severe beatings.

From there, she was moved, first to Fresnes Prison in Paris, then in August 1944 to Ravensbr?ck concentration camp,[1] where over 92,000 women died. There, she endured hard labour and malnutrition.

Violette Szabo was executed on or about 5 February, 1945 and her body disposed of in the crematorium. She was 23 years old.

It's also noted:

Southpeak Interactive and developer Replay Studios announced that their upcoming videogame Velvet Assassin is inspired by the exploits of Szabo. Tania Szabo has not been given a copy of the game for review. It has been reported to her that the game is not representative of her mother nor her activities in occupied France. Replay Studios did offer to show Tania the game, but she wasn't interested.

My question is:
Is this poetic licence gone to disrespectful levels or is the phrase "inspired by" a valid get-out clause?

[Number45]

I had no idea, and I'm in complete agreement to be honest. If they had any sense they would have named her something entirely different and gone to great lengths to distance themselves from any connection.

I'm a very laid back fellow, so this is as close as you'll get to internet outrage from me, but that it really very distasteful.

[Guts]

"It has been reported to her that the game is not representative of her mother nor her activities in occupied France. Replay Studios did offer to show Tania the game, but she wasn't interested."

Seems to me there's not really a problem. Her daughter(?) wasn't even interested in the game and the devs say the game doesn't represent the life of the real person in question, it's inspired by her life. They could have changed the characters name perhaps but I don't see a problem with that either.

Let's face it; 99% of the people playing the game won't even know who Voilette Szabo was (neither did I before this thread) or what she did and died for, maybe this game will change that fact a little. I wouldn't call that disrespectful if the game is handled maturely.

Besides, people need to remember the horrible things of the past so that they're never allowed to re-occur.

[Number45]

The daughter chose not to watch the game - who's to say that, if she had, she wouldn't have been offended by it? As for it being handled maturely, we'll see, but reading the previews I'm not convinced its intention is to show what she did during the war for what it really was (As mentioned in the Six Days in Fallujah thread, who'd really want that as entertainment?).

The game employs a special lifeline if detected called "Morphine Mode". If triggered, a cutscene will play out where the hospitalized Violette convulses and is administered a dose of morphine by a military nurse. Once returning to the game, the game world will temporarily freeze, giving the player the opportunity to execute any remaining enemies.

[Neon Ignition]

Really it depends on how it's handled in game which can only be truly seen by playing it in the first place. The story has to be handled carefully but purely as an idea it shouldn't be off limits because it's a game. This thread will work better after the game has been experience in full by everyone.

[SuperBeatBoy]

I've played a promo of this. I was really looking forward to it too, its such a poor linear stealth game. Absolute garbage, such a tradegy that a game based on the events and name of a real-life female hero has to end up like this.

[Eight Rooks]

Not intentionally so, I don't think. Their attitude (the awful emo-rawk over the trailer, "morphine mode", violent stealth kills etc.) strikes me more as really, really dumb than anything else. I agree - they should have distanced themselves as far as possible from someone who was about as far removed from sexy chick blows **** up reeeeal good while stabbin' Nazis IN THE NECK as it gets. I mean, her daughter wrote two extensively researched books about her mother's life - wonder why she wouldn't have been too keen on seeing any version of the same events turned into a videogame, hmmm? Which is not to say it could never be done; just never in a million years like this.

And

Really it depends on how it's handled in game which can only be truly seen by playing it in the first place. The story has to be handled carefully but purely as an idea it shouldn't be off limits because it's a game. This thread will work better after the game has been experience in full by everyone.

Bold = nonsense. You only have to watch promo footage to see it's way oversexed and wants you all hyped up for the neck-stabbing very very badly. That's crass, tasteless and yes, fairly disrespectful. I can't tell if it's got a decent story from watching these clips, and I can't really get much of a feel for how it plays, but the idea you can't tell the general tone the developers were shooting for is ludicrous.

On the other hand, again, sure, I agree you can't say these things shouldn't be adapted. It's just they don't sit at all well with the tired old idea that "games must always be fun".

[Flabio]

It's no more disrespectful than all those Hollywood films that make out it was the Americans that did everything in WW2...

[Eight Rooks]

Well, true. Which is to say, they're both pretty disrespectful.

[MisterBubbles]

didn't they??

[Guts]

Didn't the Germans have their part too?

[Neon Ignition]

Bold = nonsense. You only have to watch promo footage to see it's way oversexed and wants you all hyped up for the neck-stabbing very very badly. That's crass, tasteless and yes, fairly disrespectful. I can't tell if it's got a decent story from watching these clips, and I can't really get much of a feel for how it plays, but the idea you can't tell the general tone the developers were shooting for is ludicrous.

Which is fine presuming any promo materials viewed are representative of the final product. They usually are but as with film it's no guarantee, hence, final product.

[SuperBeatBoy]

They very much are representative of the final product. Except the gameplay is as shallow too. Metal Gear Solid 1/4 had more buttons to press for stealth than this game did.

[averybluemonkey]

Doesn't seem any more disrespectful than the Brothers in Arms games which feature the deaths of real people for dramatic effect.

It also doesn't seem any more disrespectful than all the WW2 games that depict the Allied forces as heroic bastions of liberation, when what they did to the German civilians was in many cases, just as bad as what happened to Szabo.

[Eight Rooks]

Meh. I'd call glossing over her hideous death entirely more disrespectful. But I'm not getting too bent out of shape - critical and public opinion doesn't speak very well of it so far, so disrespectful or not I'm guessing it'll end up quietly forgotten soon enough.