Irish-Influenced Video Games

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Little_Socrates

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#1  Edited By Little_Socrates

I'm sitting here on St. Patrick's Day, and just as I do every year, I deck myself out in green because I live in Chicago and people are really into the holiday here. But I also always find myself realizing I know little about Irish culture outside of what Irish music sounds like, what Irish food tastes like, what appears in movies, and (of course) potentially unfair stereotypes including the drinking and fighting. 
 
And I thought about it, and realized I couldn't name more than one game with any Irish influence, and that was The Saboteur. I didn't even play the game, but I didn't gather that your main character wasn't a drunken lunatic (such as Irish from Red Dead Redemption,) so I include the game here. But can anyone name games that have distinct Irish influence? They can be modern influence OR more mythological influence so long as it's not just a single Irish character who has a drinking problem and is a little bit out of his mind.

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Video_Game_King

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#2  Edited By Video_Game_King

Conker's Bad Fur Day, since there's a lot of drinking and it makes me hate British people :P.

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zidd

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#3  Edited By zidd

Parts of GTA 4 for better or worse.

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mosespippy

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#4  Edited By mosespippy

The McReary family from GTAIV and the guy from The Saboteur are the only ones I can think of. I know some site (destructiod or kotaku or something like that) ran a list of the best irish game characters a few years ago but can't remember any of the others.

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GreggD

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#5  Edited By GreggD
@mosespippy: I'm pretty sure it was GamesRadar, but for the life of me, I can't find the article.
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hugh_jazz

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#6  Edited By hugh_jazz

Clive Barker's Undying comes to mind.

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KarlPilkington

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#7  Edited By KarlPilkington

Ireland is pretty much like every other Western developed country. 
 
Source: Visited lots of countries.

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Blackout62

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#8  Edited By Blackout62

It could be argued that Gears of War was inspired by Irish Mythology, they just turned underground malicious fairies that stole your children and inspired you to dance till you died into underground malicious space aliens that look like steroidal crocodiles.

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FlyingRat

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#9  Edited By FlyingRat

In the first Broken Sword game you go to Ireland for a bit. I believe it's called Circle of Blood in America...?

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HandsomeDead

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#10  Edited By HandsomeDead
'Irish culture'? Right. Because such a thing exists.
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Twisted_Scot

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#11  Edited By Twisted_Scot

 
The pilot from Mercenaries 2 was Irish. 
There was a couple dudes in Fallout 3 but cant remember their names.
And the guy from Bioshock (dammit no good with names). Atlas? maybe?

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zeforgotten

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#12  Edited By zeforgotten

Irish from Read Dead Redemption is Irish. 
Go figure!

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SefaRed

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#13  Edited By SefaRed

Red Faction Guerilla. Lots of planting bombs and blowing up buildings.
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benpack

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#14  Edited By benpack

No Caption Provided
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DevWil

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#15  Edited By DevWil

irish culture is very nearly an oxymoron. i'm not trying to say anything bad about irish people; they just never really got the chance to develop much culture of their own because they were always being taken over by other cultures (normans then the english). there are really only a few things that are uniquely irish. that isn't to say that those few things aren't interesting and held in very high esteem by irish people. it's just that irish people mostly just have a history of being oppressed and poor.
 
after seeing a hurling match in dublin, i wondered if there'd been any games made of it. yup. so there's that.

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ShaneDev

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#16  Edited By ShaneDev
@DevWil: You seem to have a really strange view of the Irish. There are plenty of things in Irish culture like the language, the sports, the music, the art, the traditions. How exactly does having a history of being poor prevent us from having a culture? Seriously what the hell? 
 
 Irish people are badly represented in games because its always the negative stereotype presented in games, the only game to feature a non  stereotyped Irish person was Bioshock and he didn't even turn out to be Irish. Only Irish influenced games would be the Gaelic  sports games that were made a few years ago.
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ShaneDev

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#17  Edited By ShaneDev
@HandsomeDead said:
" 'Irish culture'? Right. Because such a thing exists. "
Not sure what you mean by that, care to explain?
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DevWil

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#18  Edited By DevWil
@ShaneDev: you're putting words in my mouth. there are absolutely things that are culturally unique to ireland and you've listed many of them. i obviously don't need to tell you about irish history; you probably know more about it than me. all i meant was that ireland has, for much of its history, had the boot of some other culture on its throat. that doesn't exactly encourage developing cultural traditions on your own outside of folk music and things like that. 
 
i'm really not trying to disparage ireland at all, but irish identity and culture is more of a fantasy than a reality. i got the impression that irish people in the 21st century care more about english football than gaelic sports. ireland doesn't produce much of the media it consumes, either. again, there are obviously traditions that people respect, but it's really hard to talk about irish culture outside of oppression. that a culture in itself, but still.
 
unless someone is making a video game version of something written by oscar wilde or james joyce, i don't think you're going to see much positive representation of the irish in games. 
 
edit: i can't stress enough that all i'm commenting on is how little of ireland's history was spent with ireland being independent. i love ireland; i really do. i think it's a great place with great people. it's just that when you spent most of your history with people struggling not to starve, it's harder to develop cultural traditions and institutions.
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Zlimness

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#19  Edited By Zlimness

There's an Irish bar in Toonstruck.

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JoyfullOFrockets

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#20  Edited By JoyfullOFrockets

That dude from The Saboteur was Irish.

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ShaneDev

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#21  Edited By ShaneDev
@DevWil: Ireland has a culture as rich as any other  it was the reason for fighting for our independence. We were a culturally different people from the English. It didn't spring up as soon as we were independent. Obviously we are a small country, with a small population and other countries exert a big influence on us but your example of sports is flawed. English football is seen in Ireland the same way its seen everywhere else, people care about Gaelic sports just as much the difference is the scale. English football is global, people in China follow it. Gaelic is played in county terms and people aren't payed for playing a guy who plays for Donegal was also a math teacher in my secondary school, in fact there is quite a debate over how the sport should evolve. What I am trying to say is that there is plenty to Irish culture buts its obviously not going to be a big as other countries and there is little that could be made into a video game about it thats for sure. You said the term Irish culture was nearly an oxymoron, I thought that was a rather bold statement. I appreciate people taking an interest in Ireland but there is more to our history than the famine.
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eroticfishcake

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#22  Edited By eroticfishcake

There is that Balor of the Evil Eye. Does anyone else remember  that hurling game they made a few years back? Was that even good?...

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DevWil

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#23  Edited By DevWil
@ShaneDev: i know what you're saying and, yeah, the whole amateur status of the GAA complicates comparing it to any professional sport, really.
 
i'm totally going to admit that i may have put my foot in my mouth. i'm kind of embarrassed.
 
it's messed up and not culturally insignificant how the island was controlled by other peoples for most of its history, but i think i arrived at my conclusion a bit haphazardly. 
 
owe you a smithwick's.
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evanbrau

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#24  Edited By evanbrau
@DevWil said:
" @ShaneDev: . ireland doesn't produce much of the media it consumes, either.
As someone who works within the Irish media this (and almost everything else you've been saying) is dead wrong. Part of the most recent struggle against foreign rule was efforts by various groups to get Irish culture back in the limelight. The GAA came from this as did some of the greatest writers the world had ever seen, all of whom gave uniquely Irish impressions of the world. You've acknowledged that you put your foot in your mouth but you are really, really far off the mark about us in general, you gave a better account of yourself than the ignorant prick with the avatar of the woman in glasses though. You're right about Smithwicks though cause it's fucking lovely.
 
As for Irish characters in games there haven't really been that many. Atlas doesn't really count and Irish is probably an American, ditto for the McCrearys in GTA. I guess Jaunty from Shadowman is Irish but then he's not the best example. I remember some anime game was set in Doolin and they seemed to have the place mapped out fairly well, right down to the old style blue and white phone boxes. On the other hand Havok physics were developed in Ireland so a ton of games are influenced by Ireland.
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eroticfishcake

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#25  Edited By eroticfishcake
@evanbrau: You must be thinking of Folklore.
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DevWil

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#26  Edited By DevWil
@evanbrau: i'm not backing down from that specific point, actually. how many irish television stations/shows are there? irish films per year? the media trade deficit is enormous. before you accuse me of it, though, i'm not saying that irish-made media is bad. for example, i thought the book of kells was a beautiful animated film. there are other examples of quality irish live-action films too. it's not that it's not there; it's just not exactly pervasive.
 
i lived in dublin for a few months; it's not like i'm totally ignorant of how irish people live. and if you want to tell me that the average irish person knows more about the work of james joyce than they do the work of matt groening, i think you might be kidding yourself. 
 
this isn't unique to ireland, though. american movies and tv are popular all over the world.
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evanbrau

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#27  Edited By evanbrau
@DevWil: I never said more people would be familiar with Irish literature than with something like the Simpsons, I just said that a literary movement was part of a culture separate from our history of opression. There are six Irish television stations now. Three of them are state owned and obligated to show a majority of Irish content whereas TG4 shows all its programming in the Irish language. TV3 broadcasts an ever increasing amount of Irish content while 3e if focussed on foreign content, it still shows Irish made programming. Our radio sector is also incredibly vibrant. Material doesn't have to make it outside of the country of origin for it to be considered culturally relevant. The amount of cultural material we do export is incredible for a country of our size. I would argue that fact shows we have a far more vibrant culture beyond the famine or English occupation. 
 
If you use your metric for culture (something that can't be contributed to by any other culture/invader etc) then practically no country can claim to have a culture of its own, least of all America.
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MikkaQ

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#28  Edited By MikkaQ

Hey man The Saboteur guy was a bit of a drunken lunatic though. And a right horny bastard too.  
 
Also yeah Irish from Red Dead. Keeping them stereotypes classy.  

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p_p_o_d

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#29  Edited By p_p_o_d

GTA4 has the best getting drunk and falling over in any game ever.  
 
 
it also had a thin lizzy song on the soundtrack  

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ultimatepunchrod

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#30  Edited By ultimatepunchrod

folklore takes place in ireland. if you have a ps3 and havent played this one, you should try it.