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Representing Modern War in Video Games.
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It was surreal. War as a video game inside a video game about war.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planescape:_torment
Also, depending on how realistic and how close they get it to the memories I believe it should affect the game rating.
Google+ Profile Origin: 13Evigilant Steam: Evigilant
I guess maybe I should play this game to see what all the hulabaloo is about.
The turret scene was just disturbing. Shooting a huge shell that completely obliterates some white blips and hearing completely emotionally disconnected "ka-boom". It was wonderful
Khavall's Beginner's Guide to Music Everything(Theory Blog)
(Also, you should totally play COD4 because it is a fucking excellent game, besides being a pretty thoughful FPS)
Because seriously, the ballsiness of the cinematics plus the realistic physics effects and hit detection plus the super steep learning curve... it's probably the most immersive and authentic war experience ever.
AC-130 Spectre. Yea, that scene was actually really powerful to me. It wasn't even particularly fun, just... big impact.
Boom
There's a video of an actual AC-130 from afghanistan on youtube and it's a little scary how similar it looks
This does bring up an interesting point--killing police officers isn't acceptable for obvious reasons, but what about shooting down German bomber-interceptors?
I mean, after all, those certain FW-190s were specifically intended to shoot down those B-17s, etc.--bombers that were going to drop bombs and kill, rather than soldiers or the like, innocent civilians--even noncombatants forced to work for Germany itself. In that sense, those fighters were saving both the lives of innocent Germans and those who forced into slave-labor, like Red Army POWs.
Personally, as deplorable as I find many of Germany's behavior during the war, I see those bomber-interceptors (either German or Japanese) as doing something easily as honorable as being a police officer, protecting people from crime. Every bomber they managed to down could potentially mean saving hundreds or even thousands of lives. I really can't think of many things more noble in the horrors of war than saving noncombatants from a threat they have effectively no defense against. To defend your own comrades is one thing--how about protecting civilian lives from a death from a bomb dropped at 8,000 meters?
Of course, it's not that simple. Those bombers were intended to break the infrastructure and bring a quick end to the war, something that would, in theory, save lives (particularly those on your side). I just presented this as an example--a dutiful cop versus a bomber hunter. The same could be said about Allied bomber hunters, except that Axis bombing raids never reached a comparable scope (even Shanghai's bombing pales in comparison). I wouldn't recommend looking at games too far for that reason--for me, in GTAIV or in Kane & Lynch, a cop is simply another human entity (and not even a real one at that). Call of Duty games have me killing wave after wave of nameless 'foreigners'--they're no different from police in that they're fictional entities.
Of course, that's just my view on the subject. Then again, I do take a certain pride in IL-2 Sturmovik hunting Allied bombers in the Luftwaffe and IJA campaigns. It's nice to think that every bomber you bring down is 20,000 less bombs that will land in some neighborhood somewhere.
(This is me trying to keep the subject on war)
"Military men are just dumb stupid animals to be used as pawns in foreign policy." - Henry Kissinger, quoted in "Kiss the Boys Goodbye: How the United States Betrayed Its Own POW's in Vietnam"
edit: Kissinger is a bastard.
" Nobody will ever win the battle of the sexes. There’s too much fraternizing with the enemy. "
This one's pretty good though.
I only realized later they were probably civilians.
If it is unreasonable or distasteful to make a video game about a current conflict, then MASH was an absolute atrocity.
STEAM ID
It is based on a real thing that happened. Whilst researching Market Garden, Gearbox came across a report or interview or something. Some GIs found that barn and the woman hanging inside of it. (There is a BiA:HH video on XBL where the mention this. Could be on YouTube or something...)
Brothers in Arms does make a few concessions to the nature of video games (squad members 'respawning' during the mission and such). But it also tries really hard to at least remind the player that war isn't supposed to be fun. Also, since it's from the allied perspective, I kind of expect the Germans to come off a bit more villainous. Like Rent kind of mentions, if you're not on the battlefield ready to kill the enemy, then you aren't going to be any good to your squad.
You're muckin' with a G!
I'll bet Hitler could throw out a good one liner every now and then.
On the topic of modern warfare in games, I'll chime in with some of what I wrote in Galenblades thread. An action game at best can convey the "war sucks" idea and at worst "it's awesome to shoot people." That's why I'd hoped that this Six Days in Fallujah would be a strategy game, especially since that's what Atomic is known for (the original Close Combat games) producing.
Strategy war games allow for a deeper understanding (in my opinion anyway) of both sides of a conflict, allow for more exploration of hypotheticals. Consider a game where you are given a set of objectives delivered as policy. How do you implement this policy? Do you bomb the hospital that has been taken over by the insurgents? What are the appropriate Rules of Engagement that will limit civilian casualties to their lowest potential? Is it acceptable that these RoE put your men at greater risk? These are the kinds of things that I would like to see in a game about modern war. This kind of gaming could truly be an educational experience, even if what you learn is the futility of the situation. Hell, I think that could be the most useful thing that a war game could teach.
edit: And I'll also say, as I did in the other thread, that I could totally be proven wrong about Atomic's new game, and they may deliver something unique and worthwhile.
Nah, The ultranationalists did a pretty good job of killing the civilians on their own. And I think you can see them carrying rifles if you zoom in enough.
*edit* Yeah, you can see rifles.
Yep.
Not only that, but MASH's creator even stated that MASH was set in Korea to be a direct analogy to Vietnam, which was the current hot-button topic
So it was doubly about a current conflict
And how do we make the industry mature, class?
HINT: It's not by releasing DOOM over and over again until we decide it's time and we've magically reached the point where it works.
Khavall's Beginner's Guide to Music Everything(Theory Blog)
I still think somebody should reboot MASH in Afghanistan while making allusions to Iraq.
Yeah, that part was definitely a sterling example of art in games. I remember my friend was playing the game on his big screen and several of us were gathered in the living room, and that bit came up and the collective mood quickly went from "oh cool" to disbelieving laughter to D:D:D:
Other games have achieved that, but often by accident. I loved all the old Rainbow Six and Ghost Recon games on PC, but felt a bit oogy sometimes gunning down enemies explicitly described in the briefing as "leftist students". I had this friend at the time who would actually yell at me for playing the "fascism simulation" and while he was a dick I think he sometimes had a point.
Actual Play: Mage: the Awakening - At the Edge of All Things
And even though you 'win' in the end its still pretty bleak. Not only the nuking, civilian executions, etc that you mention, but in the finale scene you watch helplessly as two squad members get executed and later the screen fades to black as you watch a soldier try (seemingly in vain, but its vague) to revive your commanding officer.
CoD4 did a great job of portraying war in a way that a majority of games haven't even tried.
Still, what about the part in the start where you shoot the crew of the Estonian freighter? They were pretty harmless.
There's a pretty big gap between DOOM and this. We should probably bridge that gap before tackling politics.
I also don't mean to insinuate this is some big conspiracy, I should really say that as well as being deliberately designed that way, it could be they have that effect because of the nature of the fancy pants wall seeing toys.
You may choose whichever explanation is more pleasing to you.
But shit if I was designing a machine for soldiers I'd probably do that. Not that I would want to design such a thing.
Regardless, the point is it dehumanizes whats happening, which is an important thing to remember.
I'm not making a moral point, I'm just saying it matches up to what I know about how humans work. It makes sense they would be like that, the impersonal comments and whatnot.
I don't take any of it as reflective of the person involved, they're doing the job they are told to do.
Sure, the security detail was armed, but the crew wasn't. Remember the briefing?
Cpt. Price: ...it has a crew and a small security detail.
Gaz: Rules of engagement, sir?
Cpt. Price: Crew expendable.
I'd imagine the first bogies you eliminated (i.e. the bridge crew and the guys in the crew quarters) probably had no idea what they were carrying.
As far as I recall, everyone on that ship was armed. There was some drunk guy in a corridor, even he was armed.
They are not fancy police.
But I gotta say, I've seen a pilot demonstrate a few reels of bombing runs and he acted like he was watching footage of himself playing basketball. It was creepy as hell.
Shocking, I know.
Pretty sure I remember shooting two guys in their bunks. Just sayin'.
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