Soldiers Support Six Days in Fallujah

[omglaserspewpew]

@Therumancer: Oh, by the canon of free speech, I would defend the right of Konami to make such a game. I would still deem it inappropriate, though.

@Jumplion: the horror film experience can't possibly come close to a true PTSD. But you raise a fine questuon: how far can you go down the road of unpleasant experiences to still be entertaining?

 

[SomeBritishDude]

It's the war Veterans that want this game made, if they think it's ok no one has the right to complain.

If this goes well this could make a lot of changes in games, they could be used to depict real serious subjects, just like movies or books. But so far all that seems to be happening is people are getting pissed as hell.

 

[Andy Chalk]

As Iraqi war vet Dan Rosenthal said:

"A 'realistic' war game is not going to be fun ? who wants to play a game where you sit around doing nothing, punctuated by raiding the wrong house and tearing apart the home of an irate Iraqi family, or sitting around on a convoy until your vehicle gets hit by an IED and your character dies, with no clear enemy in sight? Who wants to play that?"

But that's the way this game would have to be ... to be really able to show the truth.

And I'd agree with Rosenthal except for one thing: He's talking about accurately portraying life in the military and what it's like to be stationed in Iraq. Six Days is going to portray the Second Battle of Fallujah. It's a focused look at a very small part of the war and thus the monotony and the peripheral details don't have to enter into it in a major way.

Consider war movies. Blackhawk Down, for instance, to cite a movie based on a recent American conflict. Because it focuses on the elements of that single battle, viewers get lots of action and blood-pumping entertainment as well as a small taste of the chaos and camaraderie of the battlefield. It entertains without diminishing the reality of what soldiers went through in Somalia.

So why not afford games the opportunity to do the same thing? It may work out, it may not, it could turn out to be a total piece of crap. But why are we hitting it with such harsh judgments now when all we really know is that it's going to be a game?

 

[omglaserspewpew]

Consider war movies. Blackhawk Down, for instance, to cite a movie based on a recent American conflict. Because it focuses on the elements of that single battle, viewers get lots of action and blood-pumping entertainment as well as a small taste of the chaos and camaraderie of the battlefield. It entertains without diminishing the reality of what soldiers went through in Somalia.

I almost went and counted minutes till someone would mention Black Hawk Down. It's a very cool movie that I enjoyed immensely. But I stress - it does NOT portray the conflict in a realistic way, because of several key factors.

Because it focuses on just a few elements, it is also both devoid of context on a lot of occasions and leaves out the other part of soldier's life in a conflict: all that boring and annoying stuff you do when bullets are not whizzing past your head ... and that's like 99.9% of time. Hopefully more. And no, even in a high-intensity conflict, you're not under enemy fire all the time, no matter how strongly movies want to tell you that.

Moreover, the movie is not really dealing with consequences of said experiences. Moviegoers will just walk out of the theater, maybe think about the flick for a couple days at most and forget most of the experience. Soldiers however, are left with usually traumatic memories that have far stronger impact than most people seem to realize.

War movies can make an impact on you. Anyone that has seen first 20 minutes of Saving Private Ryan will agree. But tell any war vet that movies are realistic and he'll be laughing his ass off.

The problem is also, that movies and games are profoundly different in the way you participate in them. If you watch a good war movie, it's bound to be full of action. If you play a war game ... well, you'd better be good or there's a lot of reloading waiting for you. Which takes us to another fact: you *can* reload in a game. Now picture this: you're twenty minutes in a cool war movie, and suddenly the main character dies and the movie ends abruptly.

*Damn, I wanna make such movie! ;D*

 

[Gladion]

Consider war movies. Blackhawk Down, for instance, to cite a movie based on a recent American conflict. Because it focuses on the elements of that single battle, viewers get lots of action and blood-pumping entertainment as well as a small taste of the chaos and camaraderie of the battlefield. It entertains without diminishing the reality of what soldiers went through in Somalia.

I almost went and counted minutes till someone would mention Black Hawk Down. It's a very cool movie that I enjoyed immensely. But I stress - it does NOT portray the conflict in a realistic way, because of several key factors.

I think you didn't get the point. The point was that it's clear the movie didn't portray a whole war in all its details, but a little part of it, just one single conflict - the game could become very similar to that.

I'm not sure what to think about this game. In my opinion it sure would have been better if the developer was from a country not being directly involved in this war, i.e. America. I don't know if they can really pull it off well, but I'm not biased, let's just see how it's going to turn out.

Anyways, why does this game get so much attention, but Americas 10 Most Wanted didn't? Or did I just miss the outrage on that game?

 

[TsunamiWombat]

*salutes Casey* fuckin' a indeed.

 

[EmeraldGreen]

Yeah if the soldiers want it made, GO FOR IT. Screw what anyone else says. They lived it, they deserve it.

Some soldiers want it made. Other soldiers don't. Which group is the more "deserving"?

 

[marine0351]

they cant make this game realistic they weren't there they will not honor my friends and brothers that died over there . those solidiers who support it are most likely poques that stole are mail ate chow and then came home and told everyone how brave they are disgusting animals unfit to wear a uniform even thier poque uniform