SWEATblog

While the historic corridos commemorated injustices, the contemporary ones glamorize drug trafficers. Both elevate outlaws to hero status, a trait shared with elements of gangsta' rap. The song forms accentuate inequities and insufficiencies in the rule of law and its application.

The game, Corridos, puts the player in the driver's seat of someone wishing to buy and sell drugs and smuggle them across the US-Mexico border at San Ysidro-Tijuana. The developers had precious little time to assemble the work, and so don't expect high levels of polish, but the gameplay allows an adventurous time.

Putting the player in the position of a drug merchant/smuggler does that complex critical thing that games and corridos (the ballad form) does. It elevates the "bad" guy (or gal) and draws attention to the screwed up situations that put her in a situation doing "bad" things.

Corridos (the game) is open-source, and was developed in the open-source and free environment called Blender, so there is an opportunity to contribute to and to extend the game. In this the game emulates that song form, which is itself an open and extensible architecture which accepts extemporaneous variation in song lyric with each performance, as well as the elevation of new (anti)heroes with each passing generation.

Corridos is a smart contribution to the growing canon of border games.
See also:
Ilich, Fran. Beaner
Miranda-Zúñiga, Ricardo. Vagamundo
OnRamp Arts. Tropical America

and of course, Crosser and La Migra, a product of SWEAT