Yeah, I can understand that sentiment. I guess it boils down to what they mean by "make sense of." If they mean they're going to explain away the entire complex, confused situation, time to call bullshit. They could also mean they're trying to tell the story from a human perspective so that people can begin to understand the situation from the soldier's view, which I think is doable (if unlikely).
From the description, it sounds like it has a lot of potential. If it's a more open-ended game about trying to deal with the occupation of a city, it could be awesome.
The fact that the soldiers came to Konami is a good sign, I think.
Nothing to do now but wait for the first gameplay videos/impressions, I suppose.
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DrakeEdgelord TrashBelow the ecliptic plane.Registered Userregular
edited April 2009
Well, if it's a Close Combat style game it will focus more on a command level strategy style of game play than putting you in a soldiers boots. That would provide a distance that a FPS type of game wouldn't be able to accomplish. Also, I hope that it allows exploration of both sides of the conflict, which a strategy game is also better suited to provide over a pure action/FPS style of game. Like I said earlier, Fallujah is a particularly muddled portion of a war that overall is unclear, if for nothing else than that it's still an unresolved conflict. I hope that the developers can give it the respect that it deserves.
KumaWar lets you experience firsthand some of the toughest fighting in the global war on terror. Whether you're in the 10th Mountain Division hunting Al Qaeda in Afghanistan or in the 101st Airborne defeating the Hussein brothers in Iraq, each mission is based on real-world events and delivered to your computer soon after the events happen. With each episode, you'll receive a video news show with expert analysis and the critical intel you need to understand a world in crisis. You can test your combat skills in single-player or in multiplayer modes.
Calling their method "reality gaming", Kuma will be re-creating current events as they unfold and, using a broadband connection and a subscription service, offer games a chance to play a game based on real life military conflicts within weeks of the events actually taking place. Starting players off in Mosul, Iraq in July 2003, player's first challenge will be to hunt down Saddam's sons, Uday and Qusay (who were both confirmed dead on July 22). As events continue to unfold, players will be updated automatically with new weapons, maps, enemies, and missions, so that the focus will be on playing, rather that searching for new downloads to play.
i'm not entirely sure you can cover an actual war in a meaningful, let alone tasteful way in a vidyagame, especially one so fresh
Call of Duty series has done it. Maybe none of it is up there with The Wire in terms of quality and scope of narrative about a serious subject, but it was done with respect for the material.
If guys who were fucking there are putting their experience into this project, then the least I'm going to do is wait and see before I judge.
Hoz on
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DrakeEdgelord TrashBelow the ecliptic plane.Registered Userregular
edited April 2009
Ugh. I just read the article and saw that this is going to be a third person shooter. So much for distance.
I don't know if this is going to be as stomach churning as Kuma:War, but something tells me that this isn't going to be as objective as I would like.
I don't really see why we need a video game about this conflict.
Video games are not good mediums for exploring that sort of thing.
I mean, they can put all this focus on being objective and showing the soldier's P.O.V., but at the end of the day, it's about shooting people for a score. It is very unlikely that you will ponder much about the "insurgent" that you just shot, or care that your AI comrade just got blown up (unless you needed him to progress).
It's just weird that they want to make a game where we are supposed to empathize with real soldiers when the medium creates such an emotional distance.
But as I said before, I love WW2 games and I am aware that there is no magical border between things that are and aren't okay to depict. So I am conflicted.
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DietarySupplementStill not approved by the FDADublin, OHRegistered Userregular
I don't really see why we need a video game about this conflict.
Video games are not good mediums for exploring that sort of thing.
I mean, they can put all this focus on being objective and showing the soldier's P.O.V., but at the end of the day, it's about shooting people for a score. It is very unlikely that you will ponder much about the "insurgent" that you just shot, or care that your AI comrade just got blown up (unless you needed him to progress).
It's just weird that they want to make a game where we are supposed to empathize with real soldiers when the medium creates such an emotional distance.
But as I said before, I love WW2 games and I am aware that there is no magical border between things that are and aren't okay to depict. So I am conflicted.
Then again, didn't you compare including more characters from mixed race backgrounds in games to having more plastering of walls or something in games?
Anyway, I'm loathe at this point to pass judgement. It could be rather effective, it seems like the ideal medium to tackle say the way literally anyone you see being a potential enemy. And the fact that they’ve hired actual soldiers to be involved in the production is promising. Indeed many moments in COD4 were incredibly well done such as
the nuke and the intro (when you ‘play’ as the deposed ruler)
.
I find the way you all appear to be going ‘lol videogame/shooter’ can’t be filled with relevant commentary on the modern world kinda sad. Yes the history isn’t exactly all that great here. But until we have people taking a stab at it this isn’t going to change.
I think this video game is a great idea. I like the idea of doing a video game like a documentary, having it about a real event and make it like you're experiencing that event. I'm hoping they do a tactical gameplay, like Rainbow Six games.
A lot of other war games were great; the old Civil War hex-based strategy games taught me more about the civil war than any time in school or a museum. Age of Empires 2's campaign modes were the same for mideval history (especially the English/Scotland conflict).
I would love this to spur more documentary-esque games, like a really deep Louis & Clark game, with cut-scenes talking to Jefferson.
its a game where you shoot brown people. nothing more. its just has all of this hype shit to sell copies
Yeah, that's the way it's looking. There is a way to treat a subject like this properly, but it's not going to happen in a third person shooter.
That's the way it's looking from, what, one article about what they want to do and a screenshot?
"Shooter" doesn't have to mean a vapid experience.
I don't think that a shooter will be able to provide enough room to explore the complex realities and allegations of Fallujah. I'm not saying it's going to be vapid, but shooters rely heavily on scripted sequences. There is less flexibility in the way the the conflict can be portrayed because of more linearity inherent in the design of shooters. With a strategy game it would be easier to explore the different facets, factions, allegations, and hypotheticals that could make a game based on the siege of Fallujah actually worth playing.
I can't imagine how this game being based on Fallujah is relevant in any fashion outside of possibly being fairly interesting for people curious about that particular battle.
its a game where you shoot brown people. nothing more. its just has all of this hype shit to sell copies
Yeah, that's the way it's looking. There is a way to treat a subject like this properly, but it's not going to happen in a third person shooter.
That's the way it's looking from, what, one article about what they want to do and a screenshot?
"Shooter" doesn't have to mean a vapid experience.
I don't think that a shooter will be able to provide enough room to explore the complex realities and allegations of Fallujah. I'm not saying it's going to be vapid, but shooters rely heavily on scripted sequences. There is less flexibility in the way the the conflict can be portrayed because of more linearity inherent in the design of shooters. With a strategy game it would be easier to explore the different facets, factions, allegations, and hypotheticals that could make a game based on the siege of Fallujah actually worth playing.
They're not dealing with any of that though, they're trying to portray it as it happened from at least one perspective
its a game where you shoot brown people. nothing more. its just has all of this hype shit to sell copies
Yeah, that's the way it's looking. There is a way to treat a subject like this properly, but it's not going to happen in a third person shooter.
That's the way it's looking from, what, one article about what they want to do and a screenshot?
"Shooter" doesn't have to mean a vapid experience.
I don't think that a shooter will be able to provide enough room to explore the complex realities and allegations of Fallujah. I'm not saying it's going to be vapid, but shooters rely heavily on scripted sequences. There is less flexibility in the way the the conflict can be portrayed because of more linearity inherent in the design of shooters. With a strategy game it would be easier to explore the different facets, factions, allegations, and hypotheticals that could make a game based on the siege of Fallujah actually worth playing.
They're not dealing with any of that though, they're trying to portray it as it happened from at least one perspective
You can't be sure what happened by exploring one side of a conflict, especially one this recent and murky. There are serious allegations that there were war crimes commited by US forces in the siege. Hell, we didn't know the full story of the Eastern Front in WWII until after the Soviet Union collapsed. There was a ton of information that wasn't available to historians because the Soviet government had locked piles of documents away to never see the light of day.
I don't see how this is going to be anything but a sanitized, official version of events, and I don't find that interesting or valuable at all. I could definitely be wrong about that, and I guess we will find out when the game is released.
I don't think they're even trying to tell the player objectively "what happened." The soldiers went to the game devs to tell their personal stories during the conflict.
BloodySloth on
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Olivawgood name, isn't it?the foot of mt fujiRegistered Userregular
I don't really see why we need a video game about this conflict.
Video games are not good mediums for exploring that sort of thing.
I mean, they can put all this focus on being objective and showing the soldier's P.O.V., but at the end of the day, it's about shooting people for a score. It is very unlikely that you will ponder much about the "insurgent" that you just shot, or care that your AI comrade just got blown up (unless you needed him to progress).
It's just weird that they want to make a game where we are supposed to empathize with real soldiers when the medium creates such an emotional distance.
But as I said before, I love WW2 games and I am aware that there is no magical border between things that are and aren't okay to depict. So I am conflicted.
I highly doubt there will be any sort of scoring mechanic. It's not like it's going to be the Arcade Mode in Call of Duty 4 or some shit. And hell, you might care about the AI comrade if his death is suitably terrible/you got to know him over the course of the last few missions or cutscenes
I for one enjoy being emotionally involved in the story of a game but it almost never happens. Maybe this will be different? I don't know, I just hope it is told with respect I guess
If this is scary and horrifying and not fun at all, it has a chance at being tasteful. But I doubt it'll turn out that way.
The developer normally makes wargames.
I don't know how many people would consider those "fun," but they're the company's bread and butter. Still, wargames are often pretty detached, though the Close Combat series loved its battlefield psychology.
If this is scary and horrifying and not fun at all, it has a chance at being tasteful. But I doubt it'll turn out that way.
The developer normally makes wargames.
I don't know how many people would consider those "fun," but they're the company's bread and butter. Still, wargames are often pretty detached, though the Close Combat series loved its battlefield psychology.
Meh, Been there, done that, don't need or want to play a video game on it. But if other people want to see what it was like, I've got no problem with them playing a game on it.
I don't see the level of censorship games are receiving as being notably preventative of artistic importance, but this does suck a lot. I was quite interested in this game. Maybe they'll find another publisher?
OremLK on
My zombie survival life simulator They Don't Sleep is out now on Steam if you want to check it out.
While it may have focused on things from our perspective, it looked like things might have been heading in the right direction for forcing players to make choices and decisions that are reflective of the choices soldiers had to make in the midst of battle (to shoot or not to shoot someone who appears unarmed, etc).
Unfortunate that this had to get shut down in my mind.
That is frustrating. Whether or not it was going to be an insightful and realistic portrayal, we're never going to see games that are if any game attempting to do something like that is shut down.
I find it incredibly depressing that people on a videogame forum don't think that a game can deal with complicated issues.
Some games already have, don't be so fucking narrow-minded.
I haven't really been following this thread, but, personally, it's not that I don't think video games can't deal with things like this. I absolutely think they should, as the expressive potential can be much greater in an interactive story.
But from what I've heard/seen of Fallujah, this wasn't that game. Several people who saw the demo already pegged it as refusing to take any chances, and the developers have also stated that they don't want to be touching on things like civilian involvement and the like. We've heard conflicting reports from different representatives, one saying "yes, we're dealing with the tough issues" and another going "oh, but it's just a game".
It didn't seem like they knew where they wanted to go with it at all, and if they already caved into pressure this early, chances are it wasn't just the press making a big deal about it, but also insecurity on the part of the developer/Konami. It's possible that the game could have accomplished something, but I guess now we'll never know.
Cherrn on
All creature will die and all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai.
I find it incredibly depressing that people on a videogame forum don't think that a game can deal with complicated issues.
Some games already have, don't be so fucking narrow-minded.
I haven't really been following this thread, but, personally, it's not that I don't think video games can't deal with things like this. I absolutely think they should, as the expressive potential can be much greater in an interactive story.
But from what I've heard/seen of Fallujah, this wasn't that game. Several people who saw the demo already pegged it as refusing to take any chances, and the developers have also stated that they don't want to be touching on things like civilian involvement and the like. We've heard conflicting reports from different representatives, one saying "yes, we're dealing with the tough issues" and another going "oh, but it's just a game".
It didn't seem like they knew where they wanted to go with it at all, and if they already caved into pressure this early, chances are it wasn't just the press making a big deal about it, but also insecurity on the part of the developer/Konami. It's possible that the game could have accomplished something, but I guess now we'll never know.
That would be my guess as well. I don't think Konami would've cared at all about what "indignation" they're quoting now as the reason for dropping the game, so long as they could keep saying that "Real Soldiers who were there" made this game, and so long as they were confident it would make them money.
I'm thinking number two fell through. Most games never make it to release, to be honest there are plenty of reasons to choose from other than Konami pretending to be all shy and sensitive now when they clearly knew what the game was about before when they signed it, and that it might upset a few people.
Posts
From the description, it sounds like it has a lot of potential. If it's a more open-ended game about trying to deal with the occupation of a city, it could be awesome.
The fact that the soldiers came to Konami is a good sign, I think.
Nothing to do now but wait for the first gameplay videos/impressions, I suppose.
This.
First thing I thought of when I read the OP. This has been going on since 2004. No one remembers Kuma: War?
http://www.kumawar.com/
http://www.kumagames.com/kw2_free_game.html
http://pc.ign.com/articles/454/454190p1.html
I'M A TWITTER SHITTER
If guys who were fucking there are putting their experience into this project, then the least I'm going to do is wait and see before I judge.
I don't know if this is going to be as stomach churning as Kuma:War, but something tells me that this isn't going to be as objective as I would like.
Video games are not good mediums for exploring that sort of thing.
I mean, they can put all this focus on being objective and showing the soldier's P.O.V., but at the end of the day, it's about shooting people for a score. It is very unlikely that you will ponder much about the "insurgent" that you just shot, or care that your AI comrade just got blown up (unless you needed him to progress).
It's just weird that they want to make a game where we are supposed to empathize with real soldiers when the medium creates such an emotional distance.
But as I said before, I love WW2 games and I am aware that there is no magical border between things that are and aren't okay to depict. So I am conflicted.
edit: wow, what a terrible, terrible totp.
So yeah: it's a game about a war. And for serious, maybe this should move to D&D, all kinds of political stuff cluttering up this thread.
Yeah, that's the way it's looking. There is a way to treat a subject like this properly, but it's not going to happen in a third person shooter.
That's the way it's looking from, what, one article about what they want to do and a screenshot?
"Shooter" doesn't have to mean a vapid experience.
Then again, didn't you compare including more characters from mixed race backgrounds in games to having more plastering of walls or something in games?
Anyway, I'm loathe at this point to pass judgement. It could be rather effective, it seems like the ideal medium to tackle say the way literally anyone you see being a potential enemy. And the fact that they’ve hired actual soldiers to be involved in the production is promising. Indeed many moments in COD4 were incredibly well done such as
I find the way you all appear to be going ‘lol videogame/shooter’ can’t be filled with relevant commentary on the modern world kinda sad. Yes the history isn’t exactly all that great here. But until we have people taking a stab at it this isn’t going to change.
Plus I doubt we'll see an Iraqi response game, like there was when Kuma: War created their "Assault On Iran" game.
A lot of other war games were great; the old Civil War hex-based strategy games taught me more about the civil war than any time in school or a museum. Age of Empires 2's campaign modes were the same for mideval history (especially the English/Scotland conflict).
I would love this to spur more documentary-esque games, like a really deep Louis & Clark game, with cut-scenes talking to Jefferson.
Welcome to the world of tomarrow.
Where nations fight eachother by releasing shitty games.
I don't think that a shooter will be able to provide enough room to explore the complex realities and allegations of Fallujah. I'm not saying it's going to be vapid, but shooters rely heavily on scripted sequences. There is less flexibility in the way the the conflict can be portrayed because of more linearity inherent in the design of shooters. With a strategy game it would be easier to explore the different facets, factions, allegations, and hypotheticals that could make a game based on the siege of Fallujah actually worth playing.
They're not dealing with any of that though, they're trying to portray it as it happened from at least one perspective
You can't be sure what happened by exploring one side of a conflict, especially one this recent and murky. There are serious allegations that there were war crimes commited by US forces in the siege. Hell, we didn't know the full story of the Eastern Front in WWII until after the Soviet Union collapsed. There was a ton of information that wasn't available to historians because the Soviet government had locked piles of documents away to never see the light of day.
I don't see how this is going to be anything but a sanitized, official version of events, and I don't find that interesting or valuable at all. I could definitely be wrong about that, and I guess we will find out when the game is released.
I don't think they're even trying to tell the player objectively "what happened." The soldiers went to the game devs to tell their personal stories during the conflict.
I highly doubt there will be any sort of scoring mechanic. It's not like it's going to be the Arcade Mode in Call of Duty 4 or some shit. And hell, you might care about the AI comrade if his death is suitably terrible/you got to know him over the course of the last few missions or cutscenes
I for one enjoy being emotionally involved in the story of a game but it almost never happens. Maybe this will be different? I don't know, I just hope it is told with respect I guess
PSN ID : DetectiveOlivaw | TWITTER | STEAM ID | NEVER FORGET
The developer normally makes wargames.
I don't know how many people would consider those "fun," but they're the company's bread and butter. Still, wargames are often pretty detached, though the Close Combat series loved its battlefield psychology.
I didn't know that. So it has a chance I guess.
That's some bullshit, right there
PSN ID : DetectiveOlivaw | TWITTER | STEAM ID | NEVER FORGET
I was really happy about some of the fucked-up stuff that was featured in COD4, I think a game like this done well could have been something special.
S'all I'm sayin'
PSN ID : DetectiveOlivaw | TWITTER | STEAM ID | NEVER FORGET
Some games already have, don't be so fucking narrow-minded.
https://medium.com/@alascii
Unfortunate that this had to get shut down in my mind.
I haven't really been following this thread, but, personally, it's not that I don't think video games can't deal with things like this. I absolutely think they should, as the expressive potential can be much greater in an interactive story.
But from what I've heard/seen of Fallujah, this wasn't that game. Several people who saw the demo already pegged it as refusing to take any chances, and the developers have also stated that they don't want to be touching on things like civilian involvement and the like. We've heard conflicting reports from different representatives, one saying "yes, we're dealing with the tough issues" and another going "oh, but it's just a game".
It didn't seem like they knew where they wanted to go with it at all, and if they already caved into pressure this early, chances are it wasn't just the press making a big deal about it, but also insecurity on the part of the developer/Konami. It's possible that the game could have accomplished something, but I guess now we'll never know.
That would be my guess as well. I don't think Konami would've cared at all about what "indignation" they're quoting now as the reason for dropping the game, so long as they could keep saying that "Real Soldiers who were there" made this game, and so long as they were confident it would make them money.
I'm thinking number two fell through. Most games never make it to release, to be honest there are plenty of reasons to choose from other than Konami pretending to be all shy and sensitive now when they clearly knew what the game was about before when they signed it, and that it might upset a few people.
Or maybe I'm just being cynical.
Totally not the developer's fault. I'm fucking pissed. Atomic Games is on my A-list