Six Days in Fallujah

[Govinda]

I heard about this on the news last night. I figure since it's gaming related, people here will be interested.

Next year, a company are planning to release a game called Six Days in Fallujah. This game will follow the very real story of a group of American Marines during their mission to take the city of Fallujah during the Iraq War. Many have said that the battle for Fallujah was the most intense and dangerous urban warfare experienced by American soldiers in at least half a century. Many of them lost their lives during this mission.

As soon as the publishing company got wind of the reaction to this game, they dropped the games company. However, the games company are continuing on their own, looking for a new publisher. They say that this game will be the closest anyone can get to the Iraq war without going into combat (though why anyone would want to be there, I don't know).

Of course, families and friends of the brave Marines who died during the mission are outraged. I am on their side in this one, as my cousin served in Iraq, though thankfully he is still alive. It hurts these families to imagine people playing this game seeing someone die and just going, 'Oh well.' It pains them to imagine a restart button. More than that, it pains them to imagine laughter during this game, say in multiplayer, or if they shoot an insurgent who falls over weird.

The creators of the game say that it is part game, part documentary. Marines are being consulted to get everything right, they say, and if you shoot an innocent it's automatically game over. I think they're placing a bit too much faith in the gaming population.

What do you think?

[Walter Sobchak]

If it used the Grand Theft Auto IV game engine, I would give it a try. Otherwise, it will probably be clunky and generally unplayable.

I don't feel too terribly sorry for the family of the soldiers when I compare it to the Iraqi family members of those killed for no reason. It will take less than five posts for someone to distort that sentence, but that is to be expected. In the politics of my country, one soldier tends to equal at least ten brown Iraqis, so I don't expect this to be reciprocated by anyone.

If someone can be offended by a simulation of a military operation, they need to buy a dog or engage in some exciting activity. I don't lose sleep over how other people think of my cousin's death in Iraq. You shouldn't let other people get your kicks for you.

[SOLDIER #819]

Sensitivity toward the families... I wonder how far a person could take this line of thinking. I'm not denying that the war was terrible, I have no objections to that. The suffering is very real. But since that is the case, why are we stopping with just this particular war? Why are World War II FPS allowed onto the market and in such a large quantity? Or for any war within the past one hundred years, really.

A person can say that enough time has elapsed since then... but for the people who fought and/or lost during any of those wars, time doesn't change much. That's what I would think, anyway.

Even if it isn't made into a game, inevitably war is used as a basis for some other form of entertainment. And not all of it brings a portrayal ideal to the soldiers and their families. Should this not be allowed, either? This isn't a rhetorical question.

I don't think anyone with even an ounce of sympathy would ever say, "Ha, I totally played that one game! I got this war thing in the bag, yo," or something equally absurd. People are normally pretty decent, really. Or is that statement so untrue that we can't let them play a game lest they make a mockery out of its basis?