One of the last games Konami showed during the opening presentation at their Gamer's Night was Six Days in Fallujah. The game has gained a lot of attention already due to it being set during the early days of the invasion of Iraq, a battle that is still going on to this day.
The presentation started with a Marine coming up on stage, describing one of his experiences from the the attack on Fallujah. He and his team had just arrived on the roof of a building that they were using to scan for enemies in the area. Shortly after arriving on the roof, the Marine took a much-needed smoke break. He went back to scanning the area when the next thing he knew, he was waking up in a bush with his head ringing. A firefight was under way, and at some point, the Marine looked back to where he was before and saw that an RPG had just blown up exactly where he was taking his smoke break moments before.
To most people, this would have been a once-in-a-lifetime experience. To the Marines, as the Lance Corporal described, it was just another day in Iraq.
Six Days in Fallujah (PlayStation 3, Xbox 360)
Developer: Atomic Games
Publisher: Konami
To be released: 2010
Next, we were shown a video of various Marines talking about their experiences in Iraq as a montage of real war footage was shown. At the end of the footage, the Marines in the video stated that they wanted this game to be made. They want people to see what they went through and hear their stories from the conflict.
And that’s what we’re getting with
Six Days in Fallujah. The team from Atomic Games talked to Marines who were at Fallujah to help create an accurate game. The team got the reports, photos and videos from the Marines to ensure that gamers see what happened. Atomic Games worked closely with the Marines in order to nail down the AI for the Marines in the game. They’ll be moving and using tactics that Marines use in real life to help deliver a legitimate experience. The team also talked to insurgents and Iraqi citizens so they could have all sides covered when telling the tale in this game.
Six Days looked like a
Ghost Recon-type game where you’re moving around in third-person with a squad of soldiers backing you up. It wasn’t made clear if you’ll have any sort of squad commands, though. The game is still a year away, so visually it was nothing particularly special. The game was also very brown, which makes sense with the Iraq setting. Still, the environment looked very stale due to all the "brownness." There were a few firefights, and it looked like your standard third-person shooter affair. The game has the regenerative health system in place, rather than the health bar system
some lady was saying it would have.
One of the big things
Six Days in Fallujah has going for it is the promise of fully destructible environments. They created a new game engine called the "Atomic Engine" from scratch in order to create the fully destructible maps. We were shown a couple of examples of how the player can plant charges on walls in order to flush out enemy insurgents hiding inside houses. It remains to be seen just on what level the destructibility will be. Is it going to be in the style of
Red Faction, where EVERYTHING is destructible, or will it be like
Battlefield: Bad Company, where everything but the frame of the building can be blown up?
It’s hard to say if
Six Days in Fallujah will live up to all of its promises this early on. Ben PerLee, who was at the event with me, noted that a number of people at the event felt uncomfortable with the game. If you’ve never had any issues with any other war game, movie or book before, then you have no right to say that this game is wrong in any way. Actual Marines who were in Iraq are behind this game and they just want people to see what it was like.
On a related note, go watch
Generation Kill. It does a great job of showing what Marines went through during the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
Contest:
5:20 PM on 04.13.2009
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Is it terrible that the first thing I thought of when I read this was M. Bison?
On a serious note, this could be very interesting. Using the medium of video games as a way to explore real, modern issues like this isn't trivializing it in my mind, provided that it's done right. It remains to be seen whether or not it is done right, but the fact that actual Marines are involved adds some credibility.
fixd.
Dexter: Funny, King Friday asked me that too after the presentation was over, lol.
Screw Realism. We're playing bloody videogames. If you want realism in your games, have games give me full body control first. It sucks to call a game realistic yet give the player the real-life equivalent of tunnel vision.
Screw Realism. We\'re playing bloody videogames. If you want realism in your games, have games give me full body control first. It sucks to call a game realistic yet give the player the real-life equivalent of tunnel vision.
Forget Realism. We\'re playing bloody videogames. If you want realism in your games, have games give me full body control first. It sucks to call a game realistic yet give the player the real-life equivalent of tunnel vision.
Or they could do it like old Rainbow Six games where getting shot, you know, wounded or killed you.
"Six Days looked like a Ghost Recon-type game where you’re moving around in third-person..."
Nothing gets me into the mind, and feeling of being a soldier somewhere like seeing the back of my own head.
I'm down.
Ubi's GRAW series is one of my favourites on 360. If Konami can get that kind of feel right, I'll be buying this. Definitely, where this game is going to stand up, is in its realistic tales, which will put it above a lot of other games, and also strike a positive blow for games as a creative medium.
What nonsense you guys. An energy bar is just a tool for feedback to the user. While I'm sure, we'd all like to see a Dead Space style, on-character energy bar, you guys have to understand, Konami are still a japanese dev. As such, they tend to pay less attention to western games out there, naturally sometimes to their detriment. Either way, it matters not, so long as the game is fun. Medical or self healing options, would be a good way to go, like GRAW.
Also, how do you know this isn't using the MGS engine?
Anyway, while it might make some feel uncomfortable, indeed, go and watch Genreation Kill or Over There. Both have been out for a while and are no more or less trivial than this game. Overall, its still a positive move and I hope Konami reap the rewards of it.
If it were any other major studio I'd be more excited.
..here's hoping, though :)
glad to read that you now have a change of heart and prefer fully body control over realism, cause that was your main argument before in the ID game entry 2 days ago. Welcome aboard ;)
I guess we'll see what people would rather see- the dark, gritty, morally ambiguous version of war (SDiF), or the pampered, jarhead, propaganda-driven version (AA3).
I would love to see a game cross the threshold from a one dimensional game experience to an emotional experience. One that tells a story, and have you feel the ravages of war. If they can pull off a "Blackhawk Down" movie feel into an interactive experience, then I think we finally reached a day when games are considered a respected medium where a poignant message can be delivered. If anything, a game should bring out an even more powerful emotional reaction than a movie since it is interactive.