War (Games) are Hell and so are the Ads

An anonymous reader writes "As the clock ticks down for ShellShock: Nam' 67 we find out that the press releases are as controversial as the game. RedassedBaboon quotes several of the email press releases that seem to brag about the joys of killing and fun of having sex with a base camp mama san. My favorite obnoxious and mostly non-sensical email quote: 'You'll always remember your first kill. And in ShellShock: Nam'67 you'll definitely get more than just one.' The article goes on to point out how this behind the screens publicity push runs contrary to the public face of the game - which is supposed to depict the real horrors of war. The article ends with this thought: 'I can't imagine Coppola or Stone sending out exhuberent messages to the national press about how fun it was going to be to catch a wave off the coast of Vietnam in Apocalypse Now or how sexy Platoon's mama sans are. Before the gaming industry can be taken seriously by the world, it has to be taken seriously by itself.' How very true."

Comments

Scary

[MikeSweetser]

I agree with the article, this IS pretty scary. I have no problem with war games, but basically making a joke out of a serious subject like this is somewhat over the line, IMO..

Mike

Re:Scary

[77Punker]

Yeah, and nobody made a joke out of WWII? WWII was a much larger problem than Vietnam, but we ended up with TV shows like Hogan's Heroes and games like BF1942; neither of these seem to take it too seriously yet they were commercial successes.

Re:Scary

[Blakey Rat]

In Hogan's Heros, the humor was based around the fact that the Germans never knew what was going on while the American prisoners had already figured out the prison and were doing more for the war effort by being in prison then they could have been with a rifle on the front lines. It wasn't making light of the war, it was basically just "ain't those Nazi's stupid and those Americans with-it?" propaganda made after the war.

I've never played Battlefield 1942, so I can't speak for it.

Re:Scary

[merdark]

I agree, but personally, I think making any *game* out of real historical wars is wrong.

It is decidedly easy to make fictional war games, and I'd say they would even be more interesting. There are a number of problems with real war games.

For instance, 90% of the horrors of war are not shown. What are we trying to say? That our grandparents experiences were 'fun competition?' That war is fun in general? There is no way that a game can simulate the real fear of dying that soldiers face, or losing a best friend, or family member.

Another problem with war games is that they are *always* about the US beating somebody up. Not being from the USA, playing games which are 'ra ra usa' is simply not fun. Sure, some of the multiplayer games allow you to be the enemy... but this is small consolation for non US gamers.

The lack of non-US war games is also illustrative of the war like nature of the American culture. While most societies feel war is to be avoided at all costs, American society is rife with things glorifying war, and games are the biggest souce of such propaganda.

Since this site is US centric, I am sure I will get lots of responses showing that there *ARE* non-US based war games. And other societies DO glorify war. I have no doubt such examples exist, but the fact remains that the vast majority of war games are American, and make light of very serious topic.

Re:Scary

[david duncan scott]

Near the end?

The beginning of WWII is generally cited as the invasion of Poland in September of 1939. The absolute latest date for US entry (a date that would ignore Lend / Lease and US participation in the Battle of the Atlantic, a grave diservice to the crew of, among others, Reuben James, never mind the quasi-official status of the Flying Tigers) would be December 7, 1941. Since the war ended in August of 1945, it spanned 77 months, and Pearl Harbor was attacked in the 27th month since Poland (arithmetic in my head, but it's about right.) Hardly "near the end".

You remind me of the excellent Beyond the Fringe routine, Aftermyth of War, which ends with something like. "...and then the Americans came in and spoiled everything..."

As for Viet Nam, my favorite comment was the old T-shirt that read something like, "South East Asian War Games, 1958-1972: Second Place"

Re:Scary

[slux]

Americans making arrogant remarks about the French not fighting for their country really make my blood boil. There were 210,000 french soldiers and 350,000 french civilians killed in the second world war.

They were in the unfortunate position to be direct border neigbors to the Germans, I doubt Britain would've lasted either if they had been a similar situation.

The USA had a significant part in ending the war, no doubt. But that was only after the Japanese dragged you into it in 1943. Before that USA was content with letting the rest of the world fall under Nazi rule as long as they wouldn't try conquering their country (isolationism).

Meanwhile, the French and British (and the rest of europe) was under war for all of 1939-45. I find it somewhat disappointing that almost every movie is mostly about the american involvement and can only imagine how much more the european soldier has had to gone thru with enduring war over twice as long.

The French weren't cowards, Hitler just had a very strong army. On the other hand, the Americans were a bit slow to take part at all.

Had to be said. By the way, I'm not French. I'm Finnish.

Re:Scary

[ultramk]

You do realize that the US is not the only 'good guy' in wars like WW2? In fact, the US only jumped into WW2 near the end.

Well, you could also say that the war wasn't near the end at all, until we jumped into it.

Without the US involvement, most of Europe would be speaking German right now. Including France, including the UK.

It was a choice to become involved. It came late, perhaps, but it was the right choice. Does anyone disagree?

(rant)

I suppose the thing that amuses me about this discussion is, so many (mostly western) Europeans think they understand the US because they see american films, or american tv, or watch fox news or something. The US is an incredibly diverse country. Those of us in northern california are really nothing like southern californians, much less someone from the east coast. There is no way in hell you've experienced a realistic crosssection of our society through the media pinhole you have available to you. And yet, making these broad, stereotypical generalizations of americans is perfectly socially acceptable. I swear to god, you see an Oliver Stone film or two and you think you know everything about this country.

Hell, you forgot that a lot of us weren't even born here. Or if we were, our parents weren't. You don't know me. You don't know my family, my friends. How is it that you think that you do?

(/rant)

Ah... ignorance. It lives everywhere: on both sides of every ocean, it seems.

m-

Think of the children!

[Anonymous Coward]

Won't somebody PLEASE think of the children?

Joking about it now ...

[isolationism]

... Seems like a precusor to, "And that's the way it actually happened," 20 years from now. Which do you think kids will associate with better -- the history book they didn't read, or getting to pillage and rape in a village in glorious 3D? :|

Pretty sad

[solojony]

How sad, that depicting women who have to sell their body to invading soldiers to get food or other goods is becoming a joke... I have no problems with the tactical meaning of a war which can be reduced to rules to a game (read The Art of War if you don't think that war hasn't a game-like aspect), but trivializing social impact of wars like that is going too far.

What's next, husbands beating women at The sims 3 and getting points for it?

What is worse, is that games like Manhunt that depicts a brutal *FANTASY* get more bad press than a game that depicts REAL SEXUAL ABUSE laughing at it. It makes me feel sick. I'm against any kind of censorship if you are going to show it, show it like it is, it's cruel, it's sad, it's something everyone should be ashamed of. Show it at a game or at a movie, but don't come to me saying than screwing mama-sans at the base camp is fun like some wicked holiday camp for kids with killing and raping included.

real horrors of war?

[TheLink]

Uh realism is overrated in games.

Hands up who wants to play a soldier that's air dropped many miles away from the actual site due to various reasons ranging from "plane got shot" to "bad weather"

And then having to hike all the way for hours to the actual site and then getting your leg blown off in the first 10 seconds of the firefight. Then spending years in a PoW camp eating weeds[1] and some nondescript gruel.

[1] Apparently someone mixed ground up iron nails and weeds/leaves into the rations as a vitamin supplement while a PoW.

War games can be great teachers of history

[SmallFurryCreature]

In theorie that is. Most western people will have no real idea what warfare is like. I am one of the last people to be drafted in Holland so most younger then me won't even know what a rifle feels like. Not just the bloody size of it, we trained with the FAL, but how bloody impossible it is to do anything when you are constently supposed to keep it with you.

To many guns are not real and war is not real. You can see an excellent example in many young americans whose response to vietnam is that they should go back and finish the job. TV and movies have made them believe that they could have won and that is was the hippies that made america withdraw.

Make a realistic war game and people will at least get a real fast lesson in what war is really really like. No med packs. No magic armour. No "secret" weapons. Just you, a rifle designed by someone behind a desk, grenades wich hurt you just as easily as the enemy, friendly fire and of course the enemey. You die, you die.

Want to know what real war is like? Well real war does not allow you to retry the mission from the latest save point.

Just as motorist organisations use "drunk" driver simulations to safely teach the folly of driving a good war game can tell you the folly of war.

A good vietnam game would tell the story from both sides and not be afraid to be extremely controversial. America was defintly not the good guy in vietnam. Considering the amount of civilians killed you can not come to any other conclusion that they must have been deliberate targets.

A realistic vietnam game could never be made since it would not sell. Oliver stone made 3 vietnam movies. 2 showed the americans as "heroes". One did not. Guess wich one failed at the box office.

WW2 games are plentifull and many allow you to play both sides yet none reflect the true nature of WW2, the rounding up of civilians and the transports to the extermination camps, the shooting of prisoners of war. The punishment details against cities and towns.

Maybe china will make a game showing vietnam from the communist side.

Re:AMAZING... Utterly Amazing...

[Talrias]

No, you have it wrong.

Defending freedom of speech does not mean you are defending what people say, you are defending that they are legally allowed to say it.

This by no means suggests that saying it is a good idea - which is what these guys are arguing. They aren't arguing that people who say this kind of stuff should be locked away etc., they are saying that the people who make these games probably shouldn't (because it's rather immoral and unethical), but they can if they want to!

"I do not agree with what you have to say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." -- Voltaire

"Just because you can say something, doesn't mean you should." -- Me

irony (FMJ)

[nmoore]

Those writing the press releases sound---intentionally or not, ironically or not---like military recruiters. One could argue that, by lauding the joys of killing and the pleasures of Mama San (how racist-sounding can you get?), Eidos is starting the immersion before you even begin playing the game.

All movies about the horror of war have to deal with this problem in one way or another. How do you simultaneously:

• accurately portray the mindset of warriors trained to kill without thought,
• get the audience to identify with the characters and become involved in the film,
• without desensitizing the audience to the horrors they are seeing?

One way to do this is to go ahead and let the audience get desensitized. Then, when they are high on blood and ammo, punch them in the gut with something they didn't get desensitized enough for. To some extent, that's what happened in the last part of Full Metal Jacket. The problem with this approach is that individuals have widely differing responses to the tactic. A substantial part of the audience will be over-desensitized and miss the point entirely; others will remain sensitive throughout, and think of the film as glorifying violence even when the intent is quite the opposite. I suspect something similar will happen with this game. The additional interactivity only makes identification happen that much faster.