Here’s one you may have missed, but will surely hear more about soon: Developer “Aurona Technologies” in India released Anuman, Boy Warrior for the Playstation 2. The game is reported to be the first game entirely developed within the country of India. The plot goes like this: “This game is a “growing up” story of Hanuman, where he starts as a powerless being and regains his powers through the game. …The players ultimate objective is to ‘free’ the sun and kill as many Asuras as possible or to banish them back to the underworld.” Sounds fairly straight foward, so why is this game causing such ruckus? Well, for one, Hanuman is pretty much one Hindu’s most prominent concepts of God. What I actually found most fascinating of this reported “backlash” were the comments on GamingIndian’s coverage of this story. Some people are for it, some against it, all I can say is that I’m glad it wasn’t a huge international incident, condemning some poor North American or European developers for designing a video game without considering prominent religions.

I think this is really going to spark an interesting debate about modernization within the country of India. I intend to follow more news of it closely, but until then, don’t expect the controversy to drum up sales… the same site above, GamingIndians.com, only gave the game a 1 outta 10.