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[More_Badass]

You all probably remember the canceled controversial game Six Days in Fallujah. It was going to follow a squad of marines during the Second Battle of Fallujah, was described as having a survival horror-esque vibe and wanted to capture the fear of the unknown and tension in house-to-house combat.

Furthermore, it was being made with the help of Marines who had fought in the battle and who, according to the developers, "asked us to create a videogame about their experiences there"

The game was cancelled due to the surrounding controversy, from fears of "glorifying it in a video game", that it was "too soon" to make such a game, among other reactions.

In recent years, we've had games like Spec Ops: The Line, with its Heart of Darkness-esque attempt to delve into the psychological stress of war, and This War of Mine, a game that shows the misery of war from the perspective of civilians trapped in the warzone and whose console expansion will have a focus on children experiencing wartimes

We've had indie games like Depression Quest and Papo & Yo, as well as in-development projects like That Dragon, Cancer and Autumn attempt to tell more personal narratives (depression, child abuse, seeing your child cope with cancer, post-traumatic stress and struggle of a rape survivor)

Do you think Six Days in Fallujah would garner the same reactions today as it did when it was revealed in 2009? Would it be able to release, if not as a publisher-backed console title but perhaps as an indie game?

 

[10k]

If it was announced today I think people wouldn't be saying "too soon" and would embrace it as a more personal and deeper shooter that is focusing on the emotion and tension of war and not just your normal shooter where you're just shooting at anything in site.

 

[AmyS]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0oOGjEATjw

 

[DedValve]

If it was announced today there would no doubt be a ton of comparisons and expectations set by spec ops the line but I do believe it would have been released.

Spoiler

provided it had a useless multiplayer component of course

 

[Azih]

Unless it shows civilians getting bombed by white phosphorus by American forces it's a white washing of history. You still can't do Vietnam shooters with the player characters napalming a village of civilians, why the hell should the civilians of Fallujah not get the same respect?

 

[Lime]

No, it's still a one-sided perspective of an invading force that has historically destabilized and inflicted harm and tragey upon the country. I am sure that this game would not be up tothe task of doing justice to the complexities of the civilians and the 'insurgents' of the area, especially if the game was going to be done in cooperation with the US army. You bet your ass that it'll be modified and corrected if this would be the case (which such games usually are).

These type of games also mostly suffer from only providing the perspective of the soldiers and not looking into the systematic and structural reasons for the war. Why are we there? What were the reasons? How is this necessary? Who is responsible for making the political decisions that led to this tragedy and are they even justified? It removes the focus of the justification of war and sets it on the soldiers instead. It's a form of New Patriotism that is similar to the Support Our Troops rhetoric that muddies up the conversation and shuts down any critical perspectives of the war effort.

Even worse, knowing what we know now in terms of the damage the US and its coalition forces have wrought upon the countries, I think this would be even more of a spit in the face of the memories of lost ones and the hurt and harm the US and Europeans armies brought. And that's not taking into account the long-term consequences that people in the region still to this day suffer from thanks to the insanity and mass hysteria of the US and its coalition forces after 9/11.

 

[Neuromancer]

I'm still angry that Konami bailed on this project. The idea of a (somewhat) realistic war game with shoot/don't shoot situations always resonated with me.

Now would be an even worse time to make this game with the standard publisher model, since modern military war shooters are pretty much over. If Kickstarter was bigger in 2009 I think that could have been successful route for them.

I wonder if Atomic Games exists any more. Their website is still up.

http://www.atomicgames.com/index.html

 

[Piston Hyundai]

It was a Konami game, so fuuuuuck no.

Seriously, though, I think the answer would still be no. The budget would probably be closer to AAA than indie if they were to take the subject matter as seriously as they claimed, considering the amount of consultation and resources they'd need to make it authentic. I don't believe any publishers would take that risk, given the controversy and the dubious quality of their other games.

 

[PdotMichael]

Didn't see a problem even back in the days. It's not that modern games handle it better today.

 

[CryptiK]

The reasoning for cancelling it originally was stupid . If they announced again this time it wouldnt be any different just do it.

 

[More_Badass]

No, it's still a one-sided perspective of an invading force that has historically destabilized and inflicted harm and tragey upon the country. I am sure that this game would not be up to task of doing justice to the complexities of the civilians and the 'insurgents' of the area, especially if the game was going to be done in cooperation with the US army. You bet your ass that it'll be modified and corrected if this would be the case (which it usually is).

These type of games also mostly suffer from only providing the perspective of the soldiers and not looking into the systematic and structural reasons for the war. Why are we there? What were the reasons? How is this necessary? Who is responsible

Not sure how that disregards the experiences the soldiers felt they needed to share.

Look, I get how fucked up the war was. But what's wrong about providing a realistic perspective from the soldier's view? Yes, it wouldn't focus on the structural reasons for the war, but that wasn't the point in the first place. An on-the-ground perspective isn't aware of those things

 

[RE_Player]

No it wouldn't be released and when it was cancelled due to the backlash it showed how much the gaming industry needs to mature. In a perfect world the game would come out and be judged on its content not its premise.

 

[John Kowalski]

No, it's still a one-sided perspective of an invading force that has historically destabilized and inflicted harm and tragey upon the country. I am sure that this game would not be up tothe task of doing justice to the complexities of the civilians and the 'insurgents' of the area, especially if the game was going to be done in cooperation with the US army. You bet your ass that it'll be modified and corrected if this would be the case (which such games usually are).

These type of games also mostly suffer from only providing the perspective of the soldiers and not looking into the systematic and structural reasons for the war. Why are we there? What were the reasons? How is this necessary? Who is responsible for making the political decisions that led to this tragedy and are they even justified? It removes the focus of the justification of war and sets it on the soldiers instead. It's a form of New Patriotism that is similar to the Support Our Troops rhetoric that muddies up the conversation and shuts down any critical perspectives of the war effort.

Even worse, knowing what we know now in terms of the damage the US and its coalition forces have wrought upon the countries, I think this would be even more of a spit in the face of the memories of lost ones and the hurt and harm the US and Europeans armies brought. And that's not taking into account the long-term consequences that people in the region still to this day suffer from thanks to the insanity and mass hysteria of the US and its coalition forces after 9/11.

I think the game would explore more than the US's perspective... but i'm not exactly sure.

 

[The Albatross]

Similar to what others have said, it would draw comparisons to Spec Ops: The Line and would probably be released. A major reason why it wasn't released in 2009 is because there hadn't been a serious war-based shooter that didn't gamify people dying. Blow up your buddy in CoD and you get 50XP to spend on different colored guns. This was the expectation for war-shooters then, and even if Six Days in Fallujah didn't fall into that gamification of war category, the risk that it would trivialize a recent traumatic historical event was too high.

There is still a chance it wouldn't be made. Most shooters today are based around fictitious events or events that happened well enough in the past that they have already been trivialized by other media. I can't think of many games that have come out in the last 5-10 years that have been about traumatic historical events that have recently transpired.

 

[Corronchilejano]

No, it's still a one-sided perspective of an invading force that has historically destabilized and inflicted harm and tragey upon the country. I am sure that this game would not be up tothe task of doing justice to the complexities of the civilians and the 'insurgents' of the area, especially if the game was going to be done in cooperation with the US army. You bet your ass that it'll be modified and corrected if this would be the case (which such games usually are).

These type of games also mostly suffer from only providing the perspective of the soldiers and not looking into the systematic and structural reasons for the war. Why are we there? What were the reasons? How is this necessary? Who is responsible for making the political decisions that led to this tragedy and are they even justified? It removes the focus of the justification of war and sets it on the soldiers instead. It's a form of New Patriotism that is similar to the Support Our Troops rhetoric that muddies up the conversation and shuts down any critical perspectives of the war effort.

Even worse, knowing what we know now in terms of the damage the US and its coalition forces have wrought upon the countries, I think this would be even more of a spit in the face of the memories of lost ones and the hurt and harm the US and Europeans armies brought. And that's not taking into account the long-term consequences that people in the region still to this day suffer from thanks to the insanity and mass hysteria of the US and its coalition forces after 9/11.

I recall reading that this game also included insurgents feedback.

 

[JordanN]

The U.S were not heroes when they invaded and occupied Iraq.

 

[Keyser Soze]

I'd like a game like this to exist, but it does not need to be an primarily a shooter. It can have moments of shooting, but if it was wrapped up in the decision based systems that Until Dawn, Life is Strange and others use it would be more palatable. The game needs to live and die on the quality of it story alone - not how visceral it feels.

 

[aeolist]

I recall reading that this game also included insurgents feedback.

i'd be really surprised if the developers contacted and worked with a group of people the US government has classified as terrorists

 

[ThoseDeafMutes]

These type of games also mostly suffer from only providing the perspective of the soldiers and not looking into the systematic and structural reasons for the war. Why are we there? What were the reasons? How is this necessary? Who is responsible for making the political decisions that led to this tragedy and are they even justified? It removes the focus of the justification of war and sets it on the soldiers instead. It's a form of New Patriotism that is similar to the Support Our Troops rhetoric that muddies up the conversation and shuts down any critical perspectives of the war effort.

Are you expecting all war fiction (or non fiction for that matter) to "address the systemic and structural reasons for the war" and examine the war's necessity and hold various people accountable for it? This sounds like a generic criticism of war games, and not a reason why Six Days in Fallujah would be too controversial to release today. I wouldn't even say it's a good standard to hold things to. There has been plenty of great fiction that doesn't do much or any of the stuff you're calling for here and instead examines the nature of war on a personal level with respect to the people fighting in it, and these personal tales are not worthless just because it's not a multidimensional analysis of the entire conflict with a primary focus on civilians and geopolitics.

 

[JordanN]

i'd be really surprised if the developers contacted and worked with a group of people the US government has classified as terrorists

Well Grand Theft Auto 5 got to use real criminals to help voice act.

 

[ThoseDeafMutes]

i'd be really surprised if the developers contacted and worked with a group of people the US government has classified as terrorists

The Wiki article cites an issue of GamePro from 2009 and states

The team at Atomic Games interviewed over 70 individuals, composed of the returning U.S. Marines, Iraqi civilians, Iraqi insurgents, war historians, and senior military officials, and learned the psychological complexity of the battle.

 

[Azih]

Are you expecting all war fiction (or non fiction for that matter) to "address the systemic and structural reasons for the war" and examine the war's necessity and hold various people accountable for it? This sounds like a generic criticism of war games, and not a reason why Six Days in Fallujah would be too controversial to release today. I wouldn't even say it's a good standard to hold things to. There has been plenty of great fiction that doesn't do much or any of the stuff you're calling for here and instead examines the nature of war on a personal level with respect to the people fighting in it, and these personal tales are not worthless just because it's not a multidimensional analysis of the entire conflict with a primary focus on civilians and geopolitics.

This would apply more if it was about 'Six Days in random part of Iraq not filled with terrified civilians many of which died or are crippled or still live with the memories of their dead family and friends'.

And there was no way, and is no way, that Atomic Games would, or would now, include the horrendous things that happened to the trapped civilians in the city in a shooter. Hence whitewashing.

 

[ebullientprism]

No, it's still a one-sided perspective of an invading force that has historically destabilized and inflicted harm and tragey upon the country. I am sure that this game would not be up tothe task of doing justice to the complexities of the civilians and the 'insurgents' of the area, especially if the game was going to be done in cooperation with the US army. You bet your ass that it'll be modified and corrected if this would be the case (which such games usually are).

These type of games also mostly suffer from only providing the perspective of the soldiers and not looking into the systematic and structural reasons for the war. Why are we there? What were the reasons? How is this necessary? Who is responsible for making the political decisions that led to this tragedy and are they even justified? It removes the focus of the justification of war and sets it on the soldiers instead. It's a form of New Patriotism that is similar to the Support Our Troops rhetoric that muddies up the conversation and shuts down any critical perspectives of the war effort.

Even worse, knowing what we know now in terms of the damage the US and its coalition forces have wrought upon the countries, I think this would be even more of a spit in the face of the memories of lost ones and the hurt and harm the US and Europeans armies brought. And that's not taking into account the long-term consequences that people in the region still to this day suffer from thanks to the insanity and mass hysteria of the US and its coalition forces after 9/11.

Really good post.

The whole idea reminds me of Boyle's bit -

"Not only will America go into your country and kill all your people, but what’s worse, I think, is they’ll come back twenty years later and make a movie about how killing your people made their soldiers feel sad. Oh boo hoo hoo. Americans making a movie about what Vietnam did to the soldiers is like a serial killer telling you what stopping suddenly for hitchhikers did to his clutch.”

 

[Falk]

No, it's still a one-sided perspective of an invading force that has historically destabilized and inflicted harm and tragey upon the country. I am sure that this game would not be up tothe task of doing justice to the complexities of the civilians and the 'insurgents' of the area, especially if the game was going to be done in cooperation with the US army. You bet your ass that it'll be modified and corrected if this would be the case (which such games usually are).

These type of games also mostly suffer from only providing the perspective of the soldiers and not looking into the systematic and structural reasons for the war. Why are we there? What were the reasons? How is this necessary? Who is responsible for making the political decisions that led to this tragedy and are they even justified? It removes the focus of the justification of war and sets it on the soldiers instead. It's a form of New Patriotism that is similar to the Support Our Troops rhetoric that muddies up the conversation and shuts down any critical perspectives of the war effort.

Even worse, knowing what we know now in terms of the damage the US and its coalition forces have wrought upon the countries, I think this would be even more of a spit in the face of the memories of lost ones and the hurt and harm the US and Europeans armies brought. And that's not taking into account the long-term consequences that people in the region still to this day suffer from thanks to the insanity and mass hysteria of the US and its coalition forces after 9/11.

Spot on then, and spot on now. Moreso now that the world has had 6 years worth of objective real-life consequences and repercussion as additional context.

 

[Corronchilejano]

i'd be really surprised if the developers contacted and worked with a group of people the US government has classified as terrorists

http://kotaku.com/5209552/insurgents-contributed-to-development-of-six-days-in-fallujah

The game was made with contributions from the insurgents that fought Marines during the second battle of Fallujah (otherwise known as Operation Phantom Fury), according to Atomic Games' President Peter Tamte.

...

"We recreate the events as factually and as accurately as we possibly can," Creative Director Juan Benito said added.

More info in the article. This game would've been the first AAA videogame documentary.

 

[Accoun]

Not sure. Unlike Spec Ops: The Line or This War Of Mine, it's actually based on an actual, specific event that happened not so long ago, which may still be too much for some.

 

[ZdkDzk]

It would be released today under most publishers, but it's questionable which publishers would let them go all the way with their concept and which would pull the reigns back.

No, it's still a one-sided perspective of an invading force that has historically destabilized and inflicted harm and tragey upon the country. I am sure that this game would not be up tothe task of doing justice to the complexities of the civilians and the 'insurgents' of the area, especially if the game was going to be done in cooperation with the US army. You bet your ass that it'll be modified and corrected if this would be the case (which such games usually are).

These type of games also mostly suffer from only providing the perspective of the soldiers and not looking into the systematic and structural reasons for the war. Why are we there? What were the reasons? How is this necessary? Who is responsible for making the political decisions that led to this tragedy and are they even justified? It removes the focus of the justification of war and sets it on the soldiers instead. It's a form of New Patriotism that is similar to the Support Our Troops rhetoric that muddies up the conversation and shuts down any critical perspectives of the war effort.

Even worse, knowing what we know now in terms of the damage the US and its coalition forces have wrought upon the countries, I think this would be even more of a spit in the face of the memories of lost ones and the hurt and harm the US and Europeans armies brought. And that's not taking into account the long-term consequences that people in the region still to this day suffer from thanks to the insanity and mass hysteria of the US and its coalition forces after 9/11.

The primary intent of the game was not to explore the structural reasons for the war; it was intended to portray the experiences of those who fought in it, and that;s valuable in its own right. You're making the assumption that the makers would try to white wash things and portray only the US's side of the story, but we know that the developers had interviewed with and talked to people on both sides, inside and outside of the conflict, and were dedicated to the core idea of the game. I'm not saying that it would have been a super well rounded and unbiased account of the events, that's almost impossible for anyone to do; but don't copy-paste the US's own flaws and biases onto the game creators and call it a day.

Really good post.

The whole idea reminds me of Boyle's bit -

"Not only will America go into your country and kill all your people, but what’s worse, I think, is they’ll come back twenty years later and make a movie about how killing your people made their soldiers feel sad. Oh boo hoo hoo. Americans making a movie about what Vietnam did to the soldiers is like a serial killer telling you what stopping suddenly for hitchhikers did to his clutch.”

I'm not a partiotic person, and I don't get nationalism at all, but this sentiment pisses me off. I do think we're way to engaged with and patriotic about are wars in the middle east, and our involvement in WW2 is skewd, and it's portrayal complicated. But pointing fingers at Vietnam is just way off base. The reason why there's so many American movies about Vietnam and what it did to soldiers is because Vietnam was the first war where the American people were able to watch and see how fucked up war is, what it does to soldiers, and what those soldirers do to others. For many, it painted America as the clear bad guy, a calous killer, and everyone caught in the fray as it's victmis. It's much less so now, but so much of America's distrust for government and it's decrease in imperialsim/warmongering disposition was because people wouldn't let Vietnam go. It wasn't a one sided portrayal back then, and I'd like to think that if people were given the chance to try and portray what war is like today, they would do the same. To compare the soldiers to a car is to call the entire affair, and every war America's taken part in, meaningles; to label the soldiers and civilians who died worthless and replaceble, and their experiences non-existent. The reason there's so much Veitnam media is because the creators didn't want people to forget what it was like and to see war like this, and it blows my mind that people can't see that.

 

[Mister Megative]

I'm a two time veteran of Iraq and a three-time Afghan war vet. Watched some really good, heroic Marines get killed. I won't get into the debate of whether or not we belonged there because it doesn't matter anymore, what's done is done. I followed my orders and that's that. But I do have something to say on this topic.

I was wounded near Fallujah in 2004.....a rocket damn near cut me in half. It was May of 2004, on Mother's Day. I was a young LCpl in the middle of my first combat tour in Iraq. My Battalion had set up a little FOB (Forward Operating Base) about 10km south of Fallujah, in a small village called Zadan. The FOB had no official name, but we called it FOB Incoming or FOB Suicide. This was because of the fact that there was absolutely no cover and no place to take refuge from the constant barrage of rockets and mortars we received on a daily basis. Sometimes the number was high as 12 or 13. We had been there for about 2 weeks at this point and morale was.......well, it wasn't terrible, but it wasn't exactly optimistic, either. Just days before, GySgt Ronald Baum had been killed by a direct rocket hit, and those that worked with him (myself included) were still badly shaken by his death. There was absolutely no going anywhere without wearing your flak, Kevlar, throat protector, the whole nine yards. We even wore our gear as we slept.

That morning, I had been tapped for guard duty at the front gate of our small compound, along with another LCpl named Burgess. He was a nice kid, a bit younger than me, and we got along well. We all shared the burden of guard duty during our time there. We were standing near the front gate behind our concrete barriers talking about how much alcohol were going to need upon our return home, when a massive explosion rocket the outer wall across from us. We were immediately able to guess that it was an RPG round (we were later proven right) and dashed back into the compound, turning to draw down with our M16's once we were behind the HESCO barriers. (A HESCO is basically a big square sandbag that comes up to about your mid-torso). As we were turning, the world suddenly became nothing but noise and sand as a 107mm rocket slammed into the ground not 10 feet in front of us, lifting both of us off our feet and right through a stucco-alabaster wall with no ceiling, which had been right behind us. We landed hard and the wall came tumbling down on top of us, and as it did I could discern two things: Burgess shouting that he had been hit, and that fact that I could hear nothing in my right ear.

A Navy Corpsman was the first to get there and pulled me upright. I did my best to help drag Burgess to his feet, a large chunk of shrapnel protruding from his right shoulder. I'm not sure how much I actually did help, but hey, I tried. We were both ushered to one corner of the FOB, at which the Corpsmen worked to remove the shrapnel from Burgess's shoulder and tried to determine how much hearing I had lost. As it turned out, we were both ok: Burgess would suffer no lasting damage from his wounds, and I was not deaf. However, the BN Surgeon correctly predicted that I would face significant hearing loss over the following years (in fact, a recent physical showed that I scar tissue in my right ear had deteriorated further, and I could expect to need a hearing aid within a few short years). My saving grace had been that my ears were dirty. Had they been clean, I would have been put on a chopper headed for Germany and the Hospital.

So what was the fallout? We went back later and examined the HESCO that we had been standing behind to discover large, jagged pieces of shrapnel embedded into the cloth. Had we stopped running on the other side, just one foot forward, it would have torn both of us in half. Burgess and I rested for a day or two and we returned to our duties. We were in the middle of a war, after all, and every man counted. Although my hands shook for the next two weeks and I couldn't hear out of my right ear for four, I was none the worse for wear. Burgess recieved the Purple Heart, obviously. I was denied my Purple Heart by Congress because "despite a debilitating injury for which I would feel the effects over a lifetime, I had not actually shed blood". My Company Commander and my father were livid and both wrote their congressmen, but that was that. In hindsight, I don't really care anymore, as no one goes into combat hoping they'd be wounded.

I guess the punchline is, I'm good with it never being released. Playing a game based on WWII or a fictional conflict is one thing, because I didn't live it. But even then I generally steer clear of them. No videogame can accurately depict the emotional state of what it's REALLY like to walk through a battlefield you've actually fought on. I've lived it. I have no desire to play a fucking videogame about it.

 

[Corronchilejano]

What if it's released and you don't buy it? Would its existence still trouble you? I mean, I don't think you'd find anything worthwile in it.

 

[Spacejaws]

I think the game would explore more than the US's perspective... but i'm not exactly sure.

To be allowed to show the US army uniforms and such don't you need approval from the US military? i know they do it for movies where the military has an entertainment relations sections which has to ok these things for there depiction to be shown.

I wouldn't trust it to be accurate.

 

[Krappadizzle]

I'm a two time veteran of Iraq and a three-time Afghan war vet. Watched some really good, heroic Marines get killed. I won't get into the debate of whether or not we belonged there because it doesn't matter anymore, what's done is done. I followed my orders and that's that. But I do have something to say on this topic.

I was wounded near Fallujah in 2004.....a rocket damn near cut me in half. It was May of 2004, on Mother's Day. I was a young LCpl in the middle of my first combat tour in Iraq. My Battalion had set up a little FOB (Forward Operating Base) about 10km south of Fallujah, in a small village called Zadan. The FOB had no official name, but we called it FOB Incoming or FOB Suicide. This was because of the fact that there was absolutely no cover and no place to take refuge from the constant barrage of rockets and mortars we received on a daily basis. Sometimes the number was high as 12 or 13. We had been there for about 2 weeks at this point and morale was.......well, it wasn't terrible, but it wasn't exactly optimistic, either. Just days before, GySgt Ronald Baum had been killed by a direct rocket hit, and those that worked with him (myself included) were still badly shaken by his death. There was absolutely no going anywhere without wearing your flak, Kevlar, throat protector, the whole nine yards. We even wore our gear as we slept.

That morning, I had been tapped for guard duty at the front gate of our small compound, along with another LCpl named Burgess. He was a nice kid, a bit younger than me, and we got along well. We all shared the burden of guard duty during our time there. We were standing near the front gate behind our concrete barriers talking about how much alcohol were going to need upon our return home, when a massive explosion rocket the outer wall across from us. We were immediately able to guess that it was an RPG round (we were later proven right) and dashed back into the compound, turning to draw down with our M16's once we were behind the HESCO barriers. (A HESCO is basically a big square sandbag that comes up to about your mid-torso). As we were turning, the world suddenly became nothing but noise and sand as a 107mm rocket slammed into the ground not 10 feet in front of us, lifting both of us off our feet and right through a stucco-alabaster wall with no ceiling, which had been right behind us. We landed hard and the wall came tumbling down on top of us, and as it did I could discern two things: Burgess shouting that he had been hit, and that fact that I could hear nothing in my right ear.

A Navy Corpsman was the first to get there and pulled me upright. I did my best to help drag Burgess to his feet, a large chunk of shrapnel protruding from his right shoulder. I'm not sure how much I actually did help, but hey, I tried. We were both ushered to one corner of the FOB, at which the Corpsmen worked to remove the shrapnel from Burgess's shoulder and tried to determine how much hearing I had lost. As it turned out, we were both ok: Burgess would suffer no lasting damage from his wounds, and I was not deaf. However, the BN Surgeon correctly predicted that I would face significant hearing loss over the following years (in fact, a recent physical showed that I scar tissue in my right ear had deteriorated further, and I could expect to need a hearing aid within a few short years). My saving grace had been that my ears were dirty. Had they been clean, I would have been put on a chopper headed for Germany and the Hospital.

So what was the fallout? We went back later and examined the HESCO that we had been standing behind to discover large, jagged pieces of shrapnel embedded into the cloth. Had we stopped running on the other side, just one foot forward, it would have torn both of us in half. Burgess and I rested for a day or two and we returned to our duties. We were in the middle of a war, after all, and every man counted. Although my hands shook for the next two weeks and I couldn't hear out of my right ear for four, I was none the worse for wear. Burgess recieved the Purple Heart, obviously. I was denied my Purple Heart by Congress because "despite a debilitating injury for which I would feel the effects over a lifetime, I had not actually shed blood". My Company Commander and my father were livid and both wrote their congressmen, but that was that. In hindsight, I don't really care anymore, as no one goes into combat hoping they'd be wounded.

I guess the punchline is, I'm good with it never being released. Playing a game based on WWII or a fictional conflict is one thing, because I didn't live it. But even then I generally steer clear of them. No videogame can accurately depict the emotional state of what it's REALLY like to walk through a battlefield you've actually fought on. I've lived it. I have no desire to play a fucking videogame about it.

I can appreciate and empathize with you as I'm an 8 year vet myself and lost friends and family throughout my entire life that were in the Corps, but I would want to see or play a game that gives a more grounded look at the reality of it all. I can imagine it'd be very emotional and maybe a little traumatic to see or play things that you've had a close experience with but I don't think a game like this would be really for people like you, I'd see it as a more for people who are ignorant of it all. Including myself there as I've never had to experience combat and I can read a book or watch a movie/documentary to maybe gain a better perspective and I can see a game enhancing that understanding even more if handled in the right way.

That said the likelihood of a developer to handle the subject with the appropriate tact and subtext would be pretty thin, and that would be pretty shitty for everyone if it wasn't done right.


I remember when Saving Private Ryan came out a lot of people were upset with it saying it glorified violence and shouldn't have been made, but it just showed some of the realities that those troops had to go through and gave me a better appreciation of their sacrifices and hardships they endured during a very delicate time of the world.

 

[antitrop]

I have pretty much zero confidence the actual game would have lived up to its concept.

 

[Finale Fireworker]

If it was announced today I think people wouldn't be saying "too soon" and would embrace it as a more personal and deeper shooter that is focusing on the emotion and tension of war and not just your normal shooter where you're just shooting at anything in site.

Exactly this.

Also, if people did have a problem with it, there would be more people telling them to just not play it and not impede art.

 

[Gamezone]

Looks good and tactical. A new SWAT game isn`t being made, and Ubisoft have ruined Rainbow Six. This game looks like a good replacement.

 

[Krappadizzle]

What was that one game that was all tactics based and put a big emphasis on the fog of war? I can't remember the name but I thought it was pretty great on giving a decent look at how confusing and scary those situations can become. Was on the PS2/Xbox.

 

[antitrop]

What was that one game that was all tactics based and put a big emphasis on the fog of war? I can't remember the name but I thought it was pretty great on giving a decent look at how confusing and scary those situations can become. Was on the PS2/Xbox.

Full Spectrum Warrior.

What a fucking stupid comparison. Yeah, serial killers and soldiers, definitely analogous.

It's one of the stupidest quotes I've ever read on the internet and I've read some pretty stupid shit.

 

[Reebot]

Really good post.

The whole idea reminds me of Boyle's bit -

"Not only will America go into your country and kill all your people, but what’s worse, I think, is they’ll come back twenty years later and make a movie about how killing your people made their soldiers feel sad. Oh boo hoo hoo. Americans making a movie about what Vietnam did to the soldiers is like a serial killer telling you what stopping suddenly for hitchhikers did to his clutch.”

What a fucking stupid comparison. Yeah, serial killers and soldiers, definitely analogous.

 

[Accoun]

What was that one game that was all tactics based and put a big emphasis on the fog of war? I can't remember the name but I thought it was pretty great on giving a decent look at how confusing and scary those situations can become. Was on the PS2/Xbox.

Full Spectrum Warrior? It was based on an actual training simulator, IIRC.

 

[Krappadizzle]

Full Spectrum Warrior.

Full Spectrum Warrior? It was based on an actual training simulator, IIRC.

That was it. That game and its sequel were the tits. I'd love a sequel to that.

 

[TheLostBigBoss]

Yes, I have no doubt that it would release today.

Spec Ops to me broke the mold when it comes to shooters. If you have a game where the main enemy is killing active, serving American marines then anything is possible at this point.

Gaming in the media is in a far different place than it was in 2009. We no longer have Fox news crying about a "sex scene" in Mass Effect or huge pannels about the new release of GTA and it's influence on kids.

Gaming has become a norm of society and the media for the most part has moved on from trying to get it into the headlines.

 

[MightyHedgehog]

I have pretty much zero confidence the actual game would have lived up to its concept.

Yep.

One of biggest problems is that they would be selling to an audience who isn't looking to be enlightened when they're looking to get some headshots.

 

[CazTGG]

Firstly, I think it's worth noting that the game technically was never cancelled, it's just that Atomic Games never found another publisher (I believe at one point Sony was considering it but passed on it) after Konami abandoned the title. That said, i'm not sure the timing would matter much, at least if we're talking about a release date within the next few decades or so. It would still cause a fair amount of controversy in the United States due to the subject matter and the war of which the Second Battle of Fallujah was a part of, to say nothing of the conditions and events that it was a part of. Whether or not the game would be able to approach them in a manner that would not be considered disrespectful to the many people who died (in addition to the U.S. Marines, they also interviewed civilians and historians in regards to the events) has yet to be seen since so little of it was shown.

In short, fuck Konami for abandoning this game, the developer and for one of their most egregious acts that showed how little, if any respect, they have for the medium of video games.

 

[magnumpy]

the iraq war was very unpopular. thus the initial cancellation of the game. I don't think that it's become any more popular over the years.

 

[TheLostBigBoss]

the iraq war was very unpopular. thus the initial cancellation of the game. I don't think that it's become any more popular over the years.

That's not why it was canceled.

The popularity of the war has nothing to do with it, it has to do with

1) Being a real conflict/battle that was one of the worst in the wars
2) Games in media were hot topic and gained vast attention on prime time TV.
3) The war was still happening and the battle was relatively recent
4) Games are/were considered "kids/fun" type of media, with entertainment being the sole objective unlike other media.

I mean, we just had a legit mass murder simulator in the form of Hatred and nobody in the media gave a shit, it's controversy was within the gaming community and stayed there.

 

[iMax]

Last I heard, this game was still very much in development.

 

[TheLostBigBoss]

Last I heard, this game was still very much in development.

That was three years ago.

They released a game Breach four years ago and the servers shut down iirc.

Pretty sure the studio is dead, they haven't released anything in four years.

 

[More_Badass]

Last I heard, this game was still very much in development.

"Published August 2012"

Not exactly a promising sign of the game's current status

 

[iMax]

That was three years ago.

They released a game Breach four years ago and the servers shut down iirc.

Pretty sure the studio is dead, they haven't released anything in four years.

"Published August 2012"

Not exactly a promising sign of the game's current status

It was, but it's the last word we had on the game.

The company appears to still be going but who knows.

 

[Etnos]

At this point any game depicting the iraq war (invasion) is gonna have a hard time

that war is one of the biggest shit-shows in history, pretty much set back the whole region to chaos, we've barely see the consequences yet

its beyond me why would anyone would like to glorify it

 

[akira28]

I said I would be there day one then, And I'll be there day one today.

i don't mind Code Pink one bit. They really just should have marketted this to adults on PC, forget consoles which are still thought of by the hundreds of millions of 40-80 year olds out there as kids toys. I would have loved to have played that as a war sim, but it was sunk ilke a lead balloon.