Updated

'Call of Juarez: The Cartel', is the latest chapter of the gun slinging Western series, but this time the plot thickens taking place in the violent and drug ridden modern day Ciudad Juarez, Mexico.

Ubisoft is the latest video game company to transition to the modern day game genre, in which plots are stripped from the world's news headlines in stories rooted in the drama of current events.

The games website says, "you'll embark on a bloody road trip from Los Angeles to Juarez, Mexico" and "take justice into your own hands."

"These games - making tragedy and human consequences invisible - provide fun and adventure. I can only imagine, with sadness, the stereotypes that are reinforced, especially among non-border people," said Kathleen Staudt, political science professor at the University of Texas at El Paso and the author of several books on Juarez and the border, she told the El Paso Times.

"It really comes down to how this game is handled. What you wouldn't want to see is a lot of negative stereotypes and exploitation of those stereotypes but I think they will be sensitive of that,"said Sam Kennedy, Editorial Director for 1UP.com, a leading video game news and reviews website. "As a general trend by bringing it into modern day or real day you can get more publicity to the game and it makes them more relevant."

Kennedy referenced other video game companies that have exploited the present day conflicts.Activision's success in the Call of Duty series in particular Modern Warfare and  Black Ops

In the company's Press Release announcing the debut of 'Call of Juarez: The Cartel'

"Call of Juarez The Cartel is an action packed shooter game with a strong story, interesting characters and wide variety of gameplay options," said Adam Novickas, director of marketing at Ubisoft."The game will bring the best elements of the Wild West into modern times with a very gritty and relevant plot."

Being billed as "Western Hemisphere's deadliest city" by multiple publications
More than 3100 homicides in 2010 --- about one-quarter of the total for Mexico's Drug War for the year.
About 2 miles from the U.S. border.
NYC has 6 times the population of Ciudad Juarez but Ciudad Juarez has 6 times as many murders.
Drug violence killed record 352 in Ciudad Juarez in October 2010 alone -- that's more than during the entire year of 2007.
Estimates of 110,000 to 230,000 have left the city since the unprecedented wave murders and mayhem have been unleashed on the city.

Living on the border of the 30 years and 6 years...the untold story is the suffering of families and tragedies and the massacre of last january 2010 and at the same time the resilency of people that manage to work and raise their families.  This game doesnt tell the whole sotry. border people have a hard time neough getting people to think about border cities ....this is called the new wild west. People who dont understand the border and dont know the border are going to view it in a charactered game. The whole picture of the border is people who are suffering tragedies and the reslience of it.

Bi national rally on both sides of the border fence and those kinds of things don't get told.  After people get shot we don't see the fear oin the faces of family, we dont see kidnaps or aassianted journalists and im concenred about its not all fun and games.

The U.S. Mexico border is pretty much the humanitarian disaster in the 20th century. Ciudad Juarez is called the worlds murder capital and while that may sell games that it doesn't tell the whole stories.

I think it should be taken more seriously...there is a large scael demonization of mexico and people from mexico. number 2 there is alot of xenophobia and people that are immigrants feel the affects of that kind of hate.  Feed the hate and the demonization of mexicos.  It is one thing that demonizes violence in your own country but once you start doing that across borders you bhave cross cultural misunderstandins and nationalist sympathies can be misundested..

Mexico is our second larges trterading partner and our friend lets respec tthe country adn the people with mexican heritage more than that.

This is a large segment of our population and i think there are long term effects.

The new group that people hate maybe of mexican heritage and video games like this feed that kind of sentiment.

Colorism issue are the good guys all white and the bad guys darker skin, and i havent seen those parts of the game.

Kathleen Staudt, Professor of Political science and teaches and does research about the border,

Half of the population falls below the mexican poverty line.  People in mexico have enough to deal with and now to have these video game manufactureers to make a buckl to add to the burden for what it mean to be mecian or be in mexico in the 21 st century is alil ove rth top for me.