Fucking cowards.

Amen to that, Jim.

They could've done so much with it: Team Members that stay dead and only recover between missions, limited ammo, fatigue-related limitations to running etc.

And yet, no-one blasted CoD4 for taking place in Namelessabad, which could well have been inspired by Iraq, or Afghanistan too.

@kaecyus - Dude, "Namelessabad." I just had a hell of a chuckle. Good show.

I was looking foward to that game too. :/
Hopefully atomic games can find another publisher with some sack.

This is bullshit. I don't know what else there is to say. Konami are cowards as has been stated.

This could have been an important milestone for games. It still is, it shows when backed into a corner, our industry will buckle, will curtail and refuse to push the medium forward.

This story was interesting until I realised that Colette Bennett's new avatar was nearly as attractive as mine... Dear girlfriend: If you're reading this love, I'm joking.

This game would have been shit anyway. Plus, when 6,000 civilians die because Bush fancied some shits and giggles, I'd rather play an insurgent than vice versa.

@SnakeDude,

No, you're not right!

It's Punami.

The crazy thing is most of the complaints came from the U.S,(the country that a few years ago spawned the administration that thought it was ok to go over there and destroyed everything in the first place) the irony is just amazing here.

@Clance

You sir are a winner. Punami is the best thing I've heard today.

@the news

So far as not getting my hands on the content of the game, I'm not too broken up: I think it had a high chance to be another worthless title about war. MGS as a series has probably made more of a statement about war and being in a war than this game ever could have.

That fact that Konami, implicitly, isn't willing to take the critical risk of putting out a "directly from the headlines" sort of game, is really dissappointing.

so basically, what Jim said.

"The game had support from Marines who'd served in Iraq"

But what about the Iraqi parents who lost their toddlers?

It's unfortunate that the bombastic, public outcry of war families can so easily overwhelm the timid, forum-bound and ultimately silent outcry of game players. Because of that, the message that video games will never evolve as an intellectual, artistic medium as long as they are treated as categorically cheaper than film falls on deaf ears. The carte blanche bestowed upon so many war movies to portray factual events is insufferable when compared to the hostile response one single game invoked, and while the onus of which could be placed on a mainstream press for not affording games the same depth as other art forms, hopefully those of us on the other side of the argument, the game players and creators, will use this as just another in a long line of cues that we should be more conscious of how this whole business is seen.

Oh well. It sounds like they didn't have their crap together anyway.

@Clarence Shut up retard.

Honestly, I'm not sure how I feel about this.

On one hand, I think it's interesting to see Konami drop it, and I can't say I'm not surprised. If this ever did get released, they'd be in even more shit the they were when it was announced, and could have seriously damaged their company.

On the other hand, I really do feel for other families who have a father, a mother, a son, a daughter, a brother, or a sister over there. It's really nerve wracking. I don't mean to preach to anyone, and I apologize since I know I'm going to come off this way, but it's hard to understand unless you have someone in the military right now. You look at someone dying in a game, and you think "that could happen to my brother". It's fucking scary, man. I'm thankful as all hell that my own brother hasn't been deployed yet, but god damn, some of you just don't get it.

/rant

This was pretty much inevitable - if they made the game "realistic" and "deep", people would inevitably complain about the gameplay. If they made it all "fun-fun-shoots-the-things-with-the-bullets-and-nows-theys-deads" people would have complained that it would have been massively insensitive to the real life veterans and the military. Konami had a choice - stick with their original goal, make an artistic game and make a statement, or make a whizz bang shooter that would have brought condemnation down upon themselves. They choose the path that will ultimately save them money: BY NOT MAKING IT. Konami aren't artists, they're business peoples, and they care only about sales and good PR.

Oooh, so this is why we can't fly planes in GTAIV?

This is why games may never be seen, in the mainstream press, as an artistic medium. You have to have an uncomftorable game like this every once in a while. I'm sure we can all name a great movie that when you see it once thats enough. The Passion of the Christ comes to mind for me. Its a movie that I watched once and then never watched again. Thats not saying it isn't good, because it is, but it has so profound an effect on you that you don't need to see it again. Until the gaming industry stands up and starts to make a few games like that it may never advance past the whole "games are for kids" stigma.

@Corak

A big difference between the two is that The Passion was almost 2000 years ago. There are families who are losing people to the war that they're making a game about today.

*sigh* I guess Konami dodged that potential bullet. I wonder if any other publisher will pick them up? I'm still somewhat interested in seeing the direction they were going to take with this game.

oh shi...

@cataract

That is a valid argument. But should the timing be the main reason to not make something. Also note: soliders that were actually in that battle were consultating with the developers. They wanted to see this game made, the guys that were actually there. Yes we are all aware that soliders are dying in Iraq, and they are the sons and daughters of someone. I have friends who are there now. And I agree that great care must be taken with something that is currently going on. But I don't see that as a reason to completly scrap a game that no one has actually seen yet and could end up being a great homage to those that gave their lives in that fight. Much like Blackhawk Down was for the soliders that died in that skirmish. So I pose the question if this was going to be a movie would you feel the same way? Why should a "game" be held to a higher set of standards than a movie would be?

Anything ever made has the potential to offend someone. Hell, LittleBigPlanet managed to offend a few people, and Sony pussied out of that. I can't believe there isn't a publisher out there that has the cojones to publish a game that could potentially push games forward as an art form. Every medium has it's controversial content, and the fact that nobody will give games a chance at this just pisses me off. Freedom of speech is vital to this country, and the fact that developers can't just make the games they want to make is disappointing. The movie Milk was made, despite it upsetting a lot of people (hell, there were protests at the Academy Awards when it was nominated for various awards). You an't tell me that this can't be done, because it most certainly can (just look at HBO and their movie "Generation Kill", which is about the Iraq war, among many other films also tackling this touchy subject).

Fucking shenanigans.

@Corak

It's just a very touchy subject right now. I just think that maybe it should be given a few years to make a game so heavily based on it.

As far as movies go, I think that it's held to a different set of standards because movies aren't interactive. Interactivity with something as heavy handed as a war thats currently going on is different than seeing a movie based off of it. Personally, I think neither of which are in good taste, but film is a medium thats also been around much longer, and it's proven itself to people as being capable of portraying and discussing very intense subject matter. When you throw interactivity into the mix, it can greatly change the way people can perceive a situation or scenario.

Odd truth btw:

If the name wasn't "Six Days in Fallujah", the game probably would have been released before anyone made a big enough PR stink for this to be a threat.

Meanwhile, Kuma War has been doing Fallujah since 2005...

black nexus hit the nail on the head on this one...

but yes, they should have named it six days in new bombasa, given everybody rainbow colored suits, needlers and rocket launchers and they could have avoided all controversy.