Tehran (Iran) – Special Operation 85 : Hostage Rescue is a first-person shooter with a twist, because the players must rescue Iranian diplomats and scientists from the clutches of American and Israeli captors.

The eight-level game has the player killing American and Israeli solders and was developed by the Union of Islamic Students, an ultra-conservative group of university students in Iran. From the screenshots it basically looks like a Half-Life type of game with different skins and terminology for weapons and vehicles.

Of course this game seems a bit strange because after all it was a militant group of Iranian university students that staged the Iranian Hostage Crisis of 1979 by taking dozens of United States embassy employees hostage. However, the group’s secretary general Mohammad Taghi Fakhrian told the AFP that the game is not about “promoting terrorism and violence”.

Releasing games for propaganda value isn’t anything new, and this game definitely is pro-Iranian, not just for the American and Israeli enemies, but for the big flapping Iranian flag in the upper-right corner of the screen. Some people will argue that this game is no different that the current batch of first person shooter games out on the market that are basically a not-so-subtle advertisement for the United States Army or Marines (America’s Army anyone ?).

We’re sure this game will surface in the Western world (nothing yet on eBay), but it would be interesting to find out if games like America’s Army are available in Iran.