If this is any sort of indication about what this general election year will hold, 2024 is going to be a very strange year.
On Wednesday, just three days into the new year, beleaguered “InfoWars” host Alex Jones ventured into a space that the multi-faceted pundit has yet to explore, and it’s one you may not have expected: video games.
Launching on the massive PC game distribution platform Steam, “Alex Jones: NWO Wars” launched to shocking fanfare, given the generally resentful attitude many seem to have toward Jones.
As of this writing, Jones’ new game is currently enjoying “overwhelmingly positive” reviews on Steam, made up of 573 customer reviews.
A day after the launch, and as those positive reviews began trickling in, Jones took to X to brag about his new venture:
WARNING: The following video clip contains language that some may find offensive.
Alex Jones’ new video game NWO WARS, by luck, released on the same day as Epstein’s list, has an unprecedented 97% positive reviews! This groundbreaking game exposes Epstein & the satanic pedo network, destroying our world!
Download it now at @Steam: https://t.co/3K0fAkPX5c pic.twitter.com/pYrNUyaucA
— Alex Jones (@RealAlexJones) January 5, 2024
But while fans appear to be enjoying the game, mainstream media critics were — perhaps unsurprisingly — not at all enamored with what the game presented.
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The left-leaning PC Gamer and far-left Kotaku outlets lambasted the game, calling it “an embarrassment” and claiming in insincere awe about how the game “packs so much stupid into 48 minutes.”
Here’s the most positive thing PC Gamer could muster to say about the game: “The best thing I can say about the Alex Jones game is that it took me about 36 minutes to beat, well within Steam’s two-hour refund window. Also, fair is fair, the pixel art is bafflingly competent—it has a kind of ‘corporate indie’ look, something you might see in the okayest Steam releases of the mid-2010s. Otherwise? It’s kind of a piece of dogs***, and quality aside, it’s an embarrassment for the platform.”
Kotaku, meanwhile, lamented that the game is “racist, sexist, transphobic and homophobic, but it’s also just plain awful.”
An actual assessment of the game falls somewhere between the two extremes of the aggressively negative mainstream coverage and the excessively positive reviews on Steam.
“Alex Jones: NWO Wars” is a perfectly functional game that taps into the old-school sensibilities found in “run-n-gun” side-scrolling shooters of yore, like “Contra” and “Metal Slug.”
(The game appears to take particular inspiration from the 1996 arcade hit “Metal Slug.” Both games feature nigh-identical-looking power-ups, as well as similar-looking bullet animations. A key difference? “Metal Slug” would have the player periodically pilot an amphibious tank. “NWO Wars” has Alex Jones riding on a centaur Joe Rogan.)
As for the premise of “NWO Wars,” it’s a pretty simple one: Alex Jones, with the aid of “right-wing Avengers” (more on this shortly), is taking the fight to the globalist elites with comically oversized guns. Jones, using handguns the size of his entire arm and machine guns larger than his character sprite, goes on an absolutely memetic journey to bring the New World Order to its knees.
The game, which can easily be beaten in under an hour, goes through a veritable greatest hits of Alex Jones memes, including the fact that a common fodder enemy in the game is “gay frogs,” perhaps Jones’ most infamous meme.
Other references that conservatives will undoubtedly pick up on:
- A visit to Epstein Island that includes a “boss” fight against a shirtless Bill Clinton trying to kill you with his saxophone that can raise the dead — a not-so-subtle reference to the theory that Clinton enemies often end up dead.
- A visit to Davos, Switzerland, to fight a “Nazi Dragon” that looks suspiciously like billionaire George Soros.
- Freeing MAGA supporters from a “Big Tech Lizardnerd” claiming to be the thought police — a clear allusion to the oft-repeated conspiracy theory that Meta/ Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is a “lizard person.”
- Taking the fight to an evil underground laboratory that includes a pretty clear reference to Dr. Anthony Fauci (“Dr. Fooker”), as well as evil scientist enemies chasing you with syringes.
But the game doesn’t just feature jabs at conservative enemies — it features a number of positive cameos from those aforementioned “right-wing Avengers.”
Former President Donald Trump, former Fox News host Tucker Carlson and the aforementioned Rogan (even as a centaur) are all given positive cameos in the game. Trump is a Superman analog, rocking a cape and firing lasers from his eyes. Carlson shows up to give power-ups to Jones. And Rogan is ridden.
The writing in this game is actually solid, assuming one is not expecting movie-quality scripts. One particularly funny line that stood out was: “The elites don’t want you to know this, but the ducks in the park are free. You can take them home. I have 558 ducks.”
Last but not least, Jones and his team also sneaked in a patriotic Easter egg to reflect the game’s current sale price.
The game is listed at $22.20 on Steam, but is currently on an introductory sale until Wednesday for $17.76.
