Hezbollah, a Palestinian political and paramilitary group, has released a game based on last year's 34 day war between the group and Israel called Special Force 2.

"This game presents the culture of the resistance to children: that occupation must be resisted and that land and the nation must be guarded," Hezbollah media official Sheikh Ali Daher said. "Through this game the child can build an idea of some of ... the most prominent battles and the idea that this enemy can be defeated," Daher added.

Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev was less enthusiastic, responding, ''It should come as a surprise to no one that Hezbollah teaches children that hatred and violence are positive attributes.”

Special Force 2 puts players behind the trigger of a Hezbollah fighter, or Mujahid, and challenges players to accumulate weapons and points by killing Israeli soldiers.

The game, which was designed by volunteer Hezbollah programmers, retails at around $10 (£5) and is available on the PC. It's unclear whether the game was submitted to Sony, Nintendo or Microsoft for their consoles, but SPOnG has a sneaking suspicion it might not have been signed off.

We don't know what Jack Thompson thinks of the game yet, but it's just possible that on this occasion SPOnG might agree with him. Assuming he's not too busy planning his next move against Take-Two.

But wait, the game encourages lateral thinking! "The features which are the secret of resistance's victory in the south have moved to this game so that the child can understand that fighting the enemy does not only require the gun... It requires readiness, supplies, armament, attentiveness, tactics", said Daher. SPOnG suspects, however, that Hezbollah does not really have the children's best interests at heart.

For more examples of heavily agenda-led games, check out Left Behind: Eternal Forces (the world’s first ‘mature’ apocalyptic Christian videogame) and America's Army (which, we think, speaks for itself). We live in frightening times.

^{Source: CNN}