PeTA Valiantly Continues Campaign to Reinvent Beloved Game Franchises as Torture Porn

PeTA has decided that the best way to advance the ethical treatment of animals is to cash in on the hype of a major release on a Nintendo handheld with a manipulative, gore-fueled “parody” game. Hey, this sounds familiar.

So I played a bit of PeTA’s “Pokemon Black and Blue.” For a simplified flash game, it does a good job of aping the gameplay of the Pokemon games, but with preachy, talking Pokemon and the occasional overwrought, depressing video shoehorned in. I was surprised at the amount of Pokemon in-jokes and references included. It’s almost like they were trying to pull in Pokemon fans, while simultaneously lambasting the series. Either way, the people that made this know the plot to Pokemon Black and White, are familiar with the mechanics and aesthetics of the series, and clearly liek Mudkipz.

But this makes the whole thing even stranger: the Pokemon games bombard you with obvious messages about how Pokemon are friends, partners, and allies. The overall theme of the series is that people and Pokemon working together make each other stronger and the world better. Characters who try to hurt or exploit Pokemon are ALWAYS villains. By making a weirdo blood-and-guts version of Pokemon, PeTA is angrily berating the converted.

The flipside is that they do have an argument here. Throughout the games you engage in (non-lethal) cock fights, and jam everything from bugs to gigantic god-monsters into tiny plastic orbs. It’s not hard to see negative connotations there. But rather than try to raise this point and make an appeal to Nintendo and parents of young Pokemon fans, PeTA again opted for coattail-riding, finger-pointing, and shrill schlock.

The campaign becomes an even bigger bummer when you realize that PeTA poured money and resources into a batshit anti-Pokemon campaign when they could have poured money and resources into helping actual animals. Or at least not killing so many of them.