This is a commercial Trailer for the new EA game ‘Medal of Honor‘. There has been some controversial about the opportunity to play Taliban fighters in the Multiplayer Option. EA has deleted that option. I am not going to debate that. It was forseeable. It was good advertising. And of course it is wrong to censor the game because of dubious ethical reasons.
About one year ago, Konami stopped publishing the game ‘Six Days in Fallujah‘ – Wikipedia-citation: The premise of the game has been the subject of controversy; with questions raised as to its appropriateness, especially given the fact that the true event the game is based upon was so recent.
Is it a good idea to mix Documentary and Games? Majed Athab discusses the topic with a personal approach in Vol.1 of the brilliant Kill Screen Magazine. Athab is a Gamer and he was there. In Fallujah. In Spring 2002. Far more than six days. He had family there: I don´t know which is worse: the fact that absurdity is given a free pass and even glorified, or the fact that realism has become taboo.
One Realism versus the Other
Nicholson Baker recently wrote in The New Yorker that Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 might be “truer, realer than almost all war movies.” At least it is going to be in 3-D. But does that make the ‘Game’ more ‘real’?
Chris Suellentrop writes about ‘War Games’ in the New York Times (8 September 2010) – Medal of Honor does not aspire to capture the war in Afghanistan in a documentary sense, but like other shooters, it creates a visceral sensation of combat. In essence, it forgoes one kind of realism while embracing another. Are video games like this mere frivolities that dishonor the real soldiers who have fought in the wars depicted — as critics, including military families, have recently charged? Or does their popularity indicate that they are successfully conveying an experience of war to audiences in a way that is at least as effective and affecting as the war stories told in literature or film?
Personal Indisposition
The debate has only just began. Hopefully it will be held without unnecessary fearmongering and without Ignorance.
I have not been to a place where an actual war or conflict is taking place. I have seen a lot of documentaries, read a lot of books and articles and i have spoken to soldiers who have been to Afghanistan – but i have never felt so bad and lonely like when i spent hours during the nighttime trying to follow the bunch of fellow soldiers through the snowy afghan mountains in the new Medal of Honor.
Losing sight, being alone, creeping around in the dark made me feel quesy. I am not sure if it was out of the right motives. But i am pretty sure, that the gaming experience added another layer of knowledge to my humble attempt to somewhat understand conflict in the age of asymmetrical warfare.