Six Days in Fallujah

[DatGuy]

Six Days in Fallujah is an upcoming third-person survival horror game, developed by Atomic Games. It is the first game to focus directly on Operation Iraqi Freedom, mainly the Second Battle of Fallujah. The game follows a squad of U.S. Marines from 3rd Battalion 1st Marines over the span of six days.

In an interview with Atomic Games president, Peter Tamte, Tamte stated that "One of the divisions in our company was developing training tools for the United States Marine Corps, and they assigned some Marines from Third Battalion First Marines to help us out.". However, a few months into development, Third Battalion, First Marines was deployed in Iraq and participated in the First Battle of Fallujah. Tamte later stated that "When they came back from Fallujah, they asked us to create a videogame about their experiences there, and it seemed like the right thing to do.". Tamte further stated that the goal of Six Days in Fallujah is to create the most realistic military shooter possible, and that "Ultimately, all of us are curious about what it would really be like to be in a war. I've been playing military shooters for ages, and at a certain point when I'm playing the game, I know it's fake. You can tell a bunch of guys sat in a room and designed it. That's always bothered me.". Tamte describes the project as "a meticulously recreated in-game version of Fallujah, complete with real life Marines lending their names and likenesses, as well as recreations of specific events from the battle. It's almost like time travel. You're experiencing the events as they really happened."

The team at Atomic Games interviewed over seventy individuals, composed of the returning Marines, Iraqi civilians, enemy insurgents, war historians, and senior military officials, and learned the psychological complexity of the battle. The game's director, Juan Benito, elaborated that "Through our interviews with all of the Marines, we discovered that there was an emotional, psychological arc to the Battle of Fallujah..

Atomic Games describes Six Days in Fallujah as a survival horror game, but not in the traditional sense. The fear in Six Days does not come from the undead or supernatural, but from the unpredictable, terrifying, and very real tactics employed by the insurgents that were scattered throughout Fallujah . Benito states that "Many of the insurgents had no intention of leaving the city alive, so their entire mission might be to lie in wait, with a gun trained at a doorway, for days just waiting for a Marine to pop his head in. They went door-to-door clearing houses, and most of the time the houses would be empty. But every now and then, they would encounter a stunningly lethal situation... which, of course, rattled the Marines psychologically." Gamepro has stated that for Benito, giving players a taste of the horror, fear, and misery experienced by real-life Marines in the battle was a top priority. Benito states "These are scary places, with scary things happening inside of them. In the game, you're plunging into the unknown, navigating through darkened interiors, and 'surprises' left by the insurgency. In most modern military shooters, the tendency is to turn the volume up to 11 and keep it there. Our game turns it up to 12 at times but we dial it back down, too, so we can establish a cadence."

Atomic Games has also stated that the game's environments are 100% destructible and degradable thanks to a completely custom rendering engine, and it would surpass that of Battlefield: Bad Company. Tamte states that "This engine gives us more destructive capability than we've seen in any game, even games that aren't finished yet." According to the developers, destructible environments are critically important in telling the true story of the events in Fallujah, as the Marines eventually learned to blow holes in houses using C4, grenade launchers, and air strikes to blindside the insurgents waiting within, being considered as "combat puzzles". It is also stated that the claim of the game containing destructive environments is genuine and not based around a "goofy, out-of-place marketing gimmick."

This game will be released on PC, PS3 and XBOX 360

[DatGuy]

There have been books, movies, poetry and even rap songs coming out of the war in Iraq. Now, there's going to be a video game, one based on the November 2004 battle in the Iraqi town of Fallouja that left dead 38 U.S. soldiers and an estimated 1,200 insurgents.

The idea for the game, called Six Days in Fallujah (The Times spells the name of the city differently), came from U.S. Marines who returned from the battle with video, photos and diaries of their experiences. Instead of dialing up Steven Spielberg to make a movie version of their stories, they turned to Atomic Games, a company in Raleigh, N.C., that makes combat simulation software for the military.

Wars throughout the ages have inspired great literature, including Homer's "The Iliad," William Shakespeare's "Troilus and Cressida," Ernest Hemingway's "A Farewell to Arms" and Erich Maria Remarque's "All Quiet on the Western Front." Wars also have provided grist for Hollywood's mill, which has churned out numerous World War II films with cigar-chomping soldiers played by square-jawed actors such as John Wayne and Clint Eastwood. Recently, movies such as "Apocalypse Now," "Full Metal Jacket" and "Black Hawk Down" presented grislier views of war.

Today's warriors are more likely to pick up a game controller than a paperback. "The soldiers wanted to tell their stories through a game because that's what they grew up playing," said John Choon, senior brand manager for the game at Konami Digital Entertainment in El Segundo, the publisher of Six Days in Fallujah.

The game, scheduled to be released sometime next year, is ground in ...

U.S. Marines at Atomic Games
Eddie Garcia (left), a former U.S. Marine, and an unidentified former soldier consult at the Atomic Games studio in Raleigh, N.C. Credit: Atomic Games.

... the intimate and harrowing experiences of three dozen U.S. Marines from Camp Pendleton's 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment. As far as video game idioms go, it's a traditional third-person tactical shooter that puts players in the combat boots of U.S. soldiers during the multi-day assault.

At first blush, the game looks like many others in its genre, including Medal of Honor and Call of Duty. The environment is realistic, the weapons are modeled after actual guns and explosives used in Iraq, and the player takes on the role of a Marine who is part of a four-person fire team, charged with clearing the city of insurgents.

What separates Six Days in Fallujah, however, is the game's primary goal, expressed by Atomic Games President Peter Tamte, during an interview last week:

For us, the challenge was how do you present the horrors of war in a game that is also entertaining, but also gives people insight into a historical situation in a way that only a video game can provide? Our goal is to give people that insight, of what it's like to be a Marine during that event, what it's like to be a civilian in the city and what it's like to be an insurgent.

A game about war that is both entertaining and realistic can be considered an oxymoron, said Celia Pearce, professor of digital media and director of the Experimental Game Lab at the Georgia Institute of Technology. "Making a fun game about war is hypocritical, because war is not fun," Pearce said. "That's why many shooters have cartoon hyper-violence that's just physically impossible. It's exaggerated for the sake of entertainment. And it's also done to distance people from the violence, because it's an obvious special effect."

Tamte and Juan Benito, the creative director of Six Days in Fallujah, say they're trying to broaden the scope of what's considered entertaining in a shooting game. "You can have entertainment that's not just about violence, or just about Care Bears and rainbows," Benito said.

So what's left? Tamte and Benito believe players will find the game compelling for several reasons. The first revolves around the stories told in the game. More than a dozen Marines are featured in documentary-style video interviews that are interspersed with the game's action. The Marines reappear in the game itself, doing pretty much what they did during the war. One soldier tells the story of how he furiously wrote a letter to his wife and begged a chaplain to give it to her if he died. Another, Eddie Garcia (pictured above), talks about how his right leg was shredded in a mortar attack, and how he suffered survivor's guilt after he was taken out of combat. Their actions are recreated in the game as players encounter the soldiers' avatars.

"What interested us were the soldiers' stories," said Anthony Crouts, Konami's vice president of marketing. "Some of these soldiers came right out of high school. They went from boys to men in the span of two weeks."

Benito also thinks players will find the game fun for the same reason boys love to play with miniature soldiers. "It's about having a challenge, then formulating a plan to overcome that challenge," said Benito, who co-founded Red Storm Entertainment, the developer behind games based on Tom Clancy novels. "Overcoming that difficulty is a big part of the fun."

This is where games and movies part ways as an entertainment medium, Tamte said. "The basic difference between a movie and a game is that the player can make choices in a game," he said.

One of the most difficult choices facing soldiers in Iraq today is identifying civilians from insurgents. These choices are often made under fire, in split seconds. Sometimes, the soldier makes the wrong decision. As a result, the military has prosecuted a number of soldiers, including a Marine who is charged with murdering an unarmed captive rather than take the time to bring him back to a prison. But many choices, both in the game and in real life, aren't as cut and dry. What if a woman is running toward you at full speed, and you tell her to stop but she doesn't?

"Our opportunity for giving people insight goes up dramatically when we can present people with the dilemmas and the choices that faced these soldiers," Tamte said. "It's a chance to really give them a better understanding and empathy."

[Tagger]

Link to Atomic Games

[AEJustin1]

looks bad ass

[Tagger]

I am wondering how a developer who's experience is primarily limited to top-down-turn-based strategy games is going to succeed with this idea. It is a great idea, no doubt. But, the translation from the idea to a game is going to be tough.

Developers spend a lot of time working to ensure a game has flow and the right pace for the player. I think Atomic is going to have a hard time sticking to the real life stories they plan to drawn from while achieving the right balance of flow and pace in the action. It will take a lot of artistic freelancing in my opinion. I hope they do well though.

[[SS]Shooter]

I once spent six nights in Ahkbar.

Of course, Ahkbar was a handsome, olive-skinned fellow that gave tennis lessons at my country club...

[DatGuy]

Originally Posted by [SS]Shooter

I once spent six nights in Ahkbar.

Of course, Ahkbar was a handsome, olive-skinned fellow that gave tennis lessons at my country club...

LMAO

[[SS]Wally]

my pics were too big.

[Tagger]

If you were trying to post pictures Shooter's "tennis lessons", I'm good without them. Really, it's ok.