Forget Realism, We Need Truth

[Robert Rath]

Forget Realism, We Need Truth

Robert tackles the military games genre and says that if you want to depict war, you need to talk about the material in a way that resonates with the audience.

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[CaitSeith]

In fact, the more lifelike graphics get, the more game-like and constrictive gameplay seems in comparison.

I have heard that before from Extra Credits. In their Uncanny Valley episode explained a little about it; although they also stated that we may be able to reach the point where photorealistic graphics will finally deliver the intended real-life experience if we keep on pushing the limits. Can't we find a way to combine the best of both worlds?

 

[SlumlordThanatos]

My father, a Vietnam veteran, hated the movie Platoon. They got all the weapons and uniforms right, he told me, but it felt wrong. "It took everything bad that happened during the war and had it happen to one group of guys," he liked to say. He worried that the technical realism would mask how unlikely the narrative was, giving non-veterans a distorted view.

I find it pretty odd that my grandfather (also a Vietnam veteran) has the opposite opinion. He likes Platoon, and mentioned to me that the movie "...was pretty close to how it actually was." I've never watched Apocalypse Now with him, so I'm not sure his stance on that particular movie, however.

Still, have you considered other examples of games in the military genre? I'm fairly surprised Valiant Hearts wasn't mentioned, considering how people have been going on about it and singing its praises. Not had the chance to play it myself, so keep that in mind.

 

[Falterfire]

Excellent article as always, and I generally agree with most of the stuff in it, but the more I reflect on Spec Ops, the less I like the message it's trying to portray about player-driven violence being a bad thing. Attempting to humanize video game enemies and guilt the player for killing them seems to me to feel too much like the game's writer/designer blaming the player for his own faults. As a player I can only take actions within the game that the game allows me to take. In a military shooter I can't put down the gun and talk things out. But that's okay, because the enemy is literally inhuman. The bandits in Borderlands are literally mindless killing machines. I and every other player am correct in treating them as sub-human target dummies because they are code simulacrums designed for exactly that.

It seriously bugs me that people try to conflate the actions depicted on-screen with their real-life counterparts while ignoring fundamental differences. A shooter (especially a multiplayer shooter) has far more in common with a game of paintball than it does war or even hunting. There is no death in these things - If I fire a 50 cal sniper round through a friend's head in Call of Duty, he'll be able to get up and fight back as soon as the respawn timer runs down. If I kill a bandit camp in Borderlands 2, they'll be right back there again when I reload the area later.

Kinda wandering off topic here, but my point is that Spec Ops changes the rules slightly and then guilts the player for following the old set. It says that the people you kill have families, but they didn't until the writer tells us later that they did. It says that this soldier liked Tennis or that soldier cried over a letter to his mother, but they didn't. They literally only exist during that brief time frame between loading the level and their corpse despawning, and the only actions they can take are pathing and basic combat logic.

Trying to bring things to an actual conclusion here: Although I applaud the writers of Spec Ops for attempting to make a point, I strongly disagree with the validity of the point they are trying to make.

 

[VyceVictus]

Excellent article as always, and I generally agree with most of the stuff in it, but the more I reflect on Spec Ops, the less I like the message it's trying to portray about player-driven violence being a bad thing. Attempting to humanize video game enemies and guilt the player for killing them seems to me to feel too much like the game's writer/designer blaming the player for his own faults. As a player I can only take actions within the game that the game allows me to take. In a military shooter I can't put down the gun and talk things out. But that's okay, because the enemy is literally inhuman. The bandits in Borderlands are literally mindless killing machines. I and every other player am correct in treating them as sub-human target dummies because they are code simulacrums designed for exactly that.

It seriously bugs me that people try to conflate the actions depicted on-screen with their real-life counterparts while ignoring fundamental differences. A shooter (especially a multiplayer shooter) has far more in common with a game of paintball than it does war or even hunting. There is no death in these things - If I fire a 50 cal sniper round through a friend's head in Call of Duty, he'll be able to get up and fight back as soon as the respawn timer runs down. If I kill a bandit camp in Borderlands 2, they'll be right back there again when I reload the area later.

Kinda wandering off topic here, but my point is that Spec Ops changes the rules slightly and then guilts the player for following the old set. It says that the people you kill have families, but they didn't until the writer tells us later that they did. It says that this soldier liked Tennis or that soldier cried over a letter to his mother, but they didn't. They literally only exist during that brief time frame between loading the level and their corpse despawning, and the only actions they can take are pathing and basic combat logic.

Trying to bring things to an actual conclusion here: Although I applaud the writers of Spec Ops for attempting to make a point, I strongly disagree with the validity of the point they are trying to make.

I think that their intent was less about saying "shooting bad guys in video games is bad", but more about questioning (or indicting you could say) the motives of a lot of the players in how they chose to interact with these kill simulations that are in and of themselves harmless. More specifically, there are cases to be made about how the current/next gen iterations of the Call OF Duty were decidedly anti-war, as Robert gave in his examples. Nonetheless, despite the intent of the message, many players used it to vent their frustrations/aggressions about terrorism and to indulge in their post 9/11 revenge fantasies (one could find any number of anecdotes about hyperagressive players online spouting racial slurs, or even outside of multiplayer in the real world, where kids line up to get their chance to "kill some sand ni**ers"). I think this was the real point behind it, as far as the ending dialogue is concerned when it talks about the player "wanting to feel like a hero". I feel its somewhat comparable to the open disdain GTA V has for it's demographic, yet wants to have its cake and eat it too by making fun of gamers but still wanting to be a fun game. But in this case, Spe cOps purposely makes the game "un-fun" in many parts.

 

[Silent Protagonist]

A big part of the problem is that "truth" isn't always as absolute and objective as the name implies. While I agree that games and movies(or at least "serious" ones) should focus more on the consequences and issues surrounding the events they depict rather than making sure the soldier's shirt has the exact right number of buttons on it, what the actual realities of an event were vary greatly depending on who you ask. Two different soldiers doing the same job, in the same war, at the same time, in the same unit can still come out with very different opinions on what the war was actually like and what issues were significant about the war in question. This has already been mentioned in the thread above, with one veteran thinking Platoon was accurate while the one mentioned in the article thought it was inaccurate. That is what you need to be careful of when you try to focus on the "truth" because your own philosophies and experiences can have a drastic effect on what the "truth" you depict is. Realism is at least a little more objective but in the end we don't really learn much from it.

 

[Coreless]

I agree to an extent in what your saying, as a veteran of the US military there is nothing even remotely realistic or authentic about most modern military games. The only game that I have played that remotely resonates with my personal military experience is the Arma series and even that is just a shadow of what its like to serve. Arma can't replicate the complexity of emotions you feel when patrolling dangerous roads in Baghdad or the connections you establish from interacting with the local people on the ground. It can't convey the everyday frustrations and anxiety that soldiers experience when you have to watch every person, even every piece of trash on the side of the road for a potential threat that could in a flash be the last thing you see.

One of my biggest issues with modern military games is how they really make a mockery of the relationships that soldiers have with one another. Many developers portray soldiers to be like cavemen, who glorify killing or care so very little for their comrades that when they die it barely raises so much as an eyebrow when in reality its a genuine shock to the entire company. We don't sit around in our downtime talking about dying for our country or talking about how we can't wait to get into another fight so we can kill more of the "bad guys"etc. We talk about normal everyday things, anything to take our mind off of the constant stress and the dangerous monotony of conducting patrols day in and day out not knowing if in the next hour my time could be up.

I don't think there ever will be a game that brings any sense of "true" realism to the military experience because its just not something that can be easily replicated. The reality of non combat garrison life is like any normal job with its share of boredom and challenge. There are days were you do nothing but sit around in the company offices and days were you go to the range to train and both are not what most people consider worth turning into a game. Combat on the other hand has always been the avenue that makes "compelling gameplay" but would a developer ever want to convey the hours of preparation that go into the every patrol? the long walks to the ammo dump to grab munitions or the walk to the chow hall to grab to go plates to eat for the evening mission? What about the moments sitting around in your vehicles trying to decide who has first night watch or who gets to sleep in the drivers seat of the tank because its the only seat that can recline? Is that the realism people want from their games? because it doesn't get any more real then that.

Just my 2 cents I guess, I may have completely gone off topic though.

 

[Gorrath]

I don't think there ever will be a game that brings any sense of "true" realism to the military experience because its just not something that can be easily replicated. The reality of non combat garrison life is like any normal job with its share of boredom and challenge. There are days were you do nothing but sit around in the company offices and days were you go to the range to train and both are not what most people consider worth turning into a game. Combat on the other hand has always been the avenue that makes "compelling gameplay" but would a developer ever want to convey the hours of preparation that go into the every patrol? the long walks to the ammo dump to grab munitions or the walk to the chow hall to grab to go plates to eat for the evening mission? What about the moments sitting around in your vehicles trying to decide who has first night watch or who gets to sleep in the drivers seat of the tank because its the only seat that can recline? Is that the realism people want from their games? because it doesn't get any more real then that.

Just my 2 cents I guess, I may have completely gone off topic though.

As a fellow military man I agree with you for sure, which is why it's not so much important to make a "realistic" military game but a compelling one. There is nothing at all realistic about Spec Ops: The Line but it is a compelling game to play regardless. Much the same can be said about Apocalypse Now, which borrowed from the same source material Spec Ops did. Nothing about Apocalypse Now is realistic but it's certainly a compelling film anyway.

I don't know how you feel about the movie Jarhead or if you've ever even seen or heard of it, but I found it to be pretty much as close to "realistic" as any military movie I've ever seen. Many of its scenes captured, perfectly, what life was like for soldiers in Iraq. But that movie would make a terrible game. I think it's hard to portray boredom in a game without actually making the player themselves bored, which is probably not what you want. I think it could be done but it'd not be easy.

So yeah, I agree with the author. Realistic military games aren't the best idea, compelling military games are.

 

[remnant_phoenix]

Thank. You. So. Much.

People get confused when I try to explain why I like certain games and dislike others.

CoD fans get confused when I argue that CoD4 was miles better than MW2.

CoD haters get confused when I defend the artistic merits of CoD4.

People think I'm weird because I will talk about Portal, Bioshock, Half-Life, and CoD4 in the same discussion of "video games as a storytelling medium."

But this. This right here. You nailed it on the head Mr. Rath:

"...I like fun - but fun has a short expiration date. I stop having fun when I put down the controller, but a game that shows you truth flash burns itself on your soul."

BAM!

That's it! This is what I've been trying to articulate for years!

 

[InsanityRequiem]

Sadly I don't expect developers and publishers will try to get more truth into video games. I remember the "controversy" regarding Six Days in Fallujah that got absolutely ruined by mainstream media, and then the publisher dropped the game completely instead of backing the developers.

If getting more truth in video games equals extreme hate from media outlets, no business will touch on the idea.

 

[K12]

Personally I tend to use the term "authentic" or "genuine" rather than truthful for the concept that this article is talking about.

It's not quite the same as "realism" where the writers have done some research to make the incidental details accurate after they've already worked out the main story beats. Instead, it's where the original motivation for the meat of the story comes from experience or an emotional connection or incite into the subject matter.

 

[RoonMian]

First: Of course Apocalypse Now used Vietnam only as a backdrop. The story was originally set in the Congo.

Second: Audiences have often a very hard time differentiating between the realism and the "truth" of a story. Just look how Evangelical Christians interpret the bible.

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

Thank. You. So. Much.

People get confused when I try to explain why I like certain games and dislike others.

CoD fans get confused when I argue that CoD4 was miles better than MW2.

CoD haters get confused when I defend the artistic merits of CoD4.

People think I'm weird because I will talk about Portal, Bioshock, Half-Life, and CoD4 in the same discussion of "video games as a storytelling medium."

But this. This right here. You nailed it on the head Mr. Rath:

"...I like fun - but fun has a short expiration date. I stop having fun when I put down the controller, but a game that shows you truth flash burns itself on your soul."

BAM!

That's it! This is what I've been trying to articulate for years!

I think you're arguing CoD's single player merits to people who probably enjoy the multiplayer aspect more than the SP experience... because I see that CoD4 was a much better storyline, but MW2 had a much better Multiplayer experience. Just sayin.

CoD haters? Bah... why argue with people who're already disinclined to like a game series based on something you, and they, probably can't quantify.

OT: I agree with almost everything here, except the total backhanded attempt to smack Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed here... I know we're still feeling burned by Unity's release but you can't say that Ubisoft was going for any form of Historical accuracy beyond period looks and historical figures, the rest is a very what-if fiction and has no need nor reason to be truthful or accurate in events portrayed.

 

[UberPubert]

The thing is...
I do not think these game fetishize realism. Not at all. At least not CoD (MW2 and 3) and Battlefield.

I mean any game where the 125mm 2A46 shells (real ones) used by the T-90 cant destroy US tanks from 100 meters (they should from 2+ kilometers)... it is obvious it is "lolol USA!!!" and the devs are not thinking of realism at all.

I feel the same. These are all action games with dramatic action movie themes and writing, at no point do they even attempt to simulate actual combat. If somebody wants realism, they pick up Arma 3 or something.

And I'm also really tired of the word "fetish" being thrown around. The sexual connotations they're meant evoke are juvenile when synonyms such as "fixation", "obsession", or "compulsion" would work just as well, but the author is being dishonest in the first place by describing realism as such. Attention to aesthetic detail and visual authenticity is one of the core principles of ALL mediums of visual arts, games are no exception and I see no sense in criticizing them for it.

 

[Kahani]

military games... Considering that these games came from a genre that fetishizes realism

You make some interesting points, but I'm really not sure your base assumption is at all valid. The problem is that you appear to be lumping a whole pile of very different games and trying to force them all into a single genre that doesn't actually exist. There is no such thing as a "military game" genre. Most of the games you list are FPSes, and more specifically the sort usually termed "modern military shooters", in other words a sub-genre that is specifically about having shooters that look somewhat realistic. But then you also talk about Endgame: Syria, which obviously isn't a shooter of any kind. So what exactly is this "military games" genre you're talking about? Why are games like This War of Mine, Hearts of Iron and Panzer General, all in very different genres but undeniably military games, not included? Or if you're trying to limit things only to modern shooters, why is Endgame: Syria there at all?

It seems as though you wanted to make a point about a particular sub-genre exemplified by CoD, but then generalised it to everything related to anything military without really thinking about whether that generalisation was actually valid. Lots of military games address truths about war while including various degrees of realism. Not all of them do it from a first person perspective of one of the people doing the shooting, but that's far from the only perspective that matters. Look at Crusader Kings, for example, where going to war can result in people refusing to fight for you and potentially even rebelling, and there can be all kinds of political, cultural, and economic effects from your decisions of whether to fight or not. You may not be seeing the actual killing through someone's eyes, but there's an awful lot of truth about war right there.

The point is, you can't complain that games in a genre have a particular problem, but then hold up a game in a completely different genre as a better example, while completely ignoring all the other games in a whole pile of genres that cover the full spectrum of bad to good. If you want to talk about problems with modern military shooters, do that. If you want to talk about military games in general, ignoring the vast majority and depicting the flaws of one sub-genre as the flaws of all is not the way to do it.

 

[Zulnam]

Well, with Battlefield: Hardline looming around the corner and pinning americans against americans, I guess some people gave thought to a subject which has plagued the others for over a decade: modern warfare shooters forming prefabricated false, incorrect or incomplete public opinions.

Too late now though, everybody thinks Russia's Hitlerland.

 

[Lightknight]

Eh, I think the article fails to articulate why realism and truth are incompatible. It also failed to illustrate why the game saying something interesting about war is a necessity in any way. No Mario games seem to touch on the effects of habitual mushroom abuse but those games still seem to be enjoyable. You've automatically defined a game that is true as saying something that resonates with the gamer. By default, you have made a given something that we enjoy. So a game without truth wouldn't resonate with us and so wouldn't be memorable.

You might as well have defined truth as "games that are fun" and then went on to explain why games that are fun are better than games that are not fun.

That being said, I think the core of your article is just that these games need to have a point. Some kind of message that they are trying to depict. I agree that this is nice, but by no means the only way to make a successful game that we all love. Escapism and game mechanics can easily compensate for a lack of "truth". The truth in media is overrated when we have all this truth at our fingertips in real life already.

 

[Darth_Payn]

I think this lines up with what this Tuesday's Experienced Points said about the two-gun limit: ditch it. Ditch this whole "realism" shtick and let imaginations go wild. A game's story doesn't have to LOOK like real life in order to get a message that IS real to you.

Excellent article as always, and I generally agree with most of the stuff in it, but the more I reflect on Spec Ops, the less I like the message it's trying to portray about player-driven violence being a bad thing. Attempting to humanize video game enemies and guilt the player for killing them seems to me to feel too much like the game's writer/designer blaming the player for his own faults. As a player I can only take actions within the game that the game allows me to take. In a military shooter I can't put down the gun and talk things out. But that's okay, because the enemy is literally inhuman. The bandits in Borderlands are literally mindless killing machines. I and every other player am correct in treating them as sub-human target dummies because they are code simulacrums designed for exactly that.

It seriously bugs me that people try to conflate the actions depicted on-screen with their real-life counterparts while ignoring fundamental differences. A shooter (especially a multiplayer shooter) has far more in common with a game of paintball than it does war or even hunting. There is no death in these things - If I fire a 50 cal sniper round through a friend's head in Call of Duty, he'll be able to get up and fight back as soon as the respawn timer runs down. If I kill a bandit camp in Borderlands 2, they'll be right back there again when I reload the area later.

Kinda wandering off topic here, but my point is that Spec Ops changes the rules slightly and then guilts the player for following the old set. It says that the people you kill have families, but they didn't until the writer tells us later that they did. It says that this soldier liked Tennis or that soldier cried over a letter to his mother, but they didn't. They literally only exist during that brief time frame between loading the level and their corpse despawning, and the only actions they can take are pathing and basic combat logic.

Trying to bring things to an actual conclusion here: Although I applaud the writers of Spec Ops for attempting to make a point, I strongly disagree with the validity of the point they are trying to make.

I guess that's what a game being "True Art" means: it makes you feel like a dick for playing it the way it was designed.