Outrage over video game allowing players to fight for Taliban

Electronic Arts (EA)'s latest instalment of its popular 'Medal of Honour' video game, which will allow gamers to play as Taliban soldiers plotting against the Coalition troops in Afghanistan, has infuriated relatives of soldiers who have died in the country.

The Medal of Honour is one of several first-person shooting games giving users the chance to get behind the sights of a soldiers' rifle and experience war first-hand.

"Right now we're going into a really, really bad time in Afghanistan and we've just come off of the worst month of casualties in the whole war and this game is going to be released in October," Fox News quoted Karen Meredith, the mother of a fallen US soldier, as saying.

"So, families who are burying their children are going to be seeing this and playing this game. My son didn't get to start over when he was killed. His life is over, and I have to deal with this every day...it's just not a game," she added.

According to the website icasualties.org, which keeps track of U.S. and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) troop deaths in Afghanistan, 245 international troops have been killed in the country this year, 153 of them American.

Last year, 520 international troops were killed in which 316 were Americans.

However, EA has defended its position saying that in the multiplayer games, players have to take the role of opposing forces.

"In the multiplayer set-up, soldiers are fighting against the Taliban much like Allies fight Nazis in WWII shooter games. In Medal of Honour multiplayer, we give gamers the opportunity to play both sides," EA said in a statement.

"Most of us have been doing this since we were seven - if someone's the cop, someone's gotta be the robber, someone's gotta be the pirate and someone's gotta be the alien. In Medal of Honour multiplayer, someone's gotta be the Taliban," it added.

The game will be released in October.