War games

:"America's Army" is a brand including computer, cell phone and console games, frequently available for free to anyone with the right hardware specifications to download and enjoy.

There is a catch, of course, though it is a thinly veiled one. The U.S. Army readily admits the games are little more than a recruitment tool to the army, a way to get teenagers to sign up for the forces.

The anti-war group in San Francisco was up in arms against Ubi Soft's association with the U.S. because they claimed the tool specifically targeted under-age soldiers.

There may be a point somewhere in there, but there are no statistics indicating exactly how successful this tool is. In fact, I'd be willing to bet most people download the games just for fun, and play them as they would play just about any other game with a war-like setting, without giving a second thought as to picking up a rifle for real.

However, this brings up another question. Is the depiction of war in this industry in general somewhat too juvenile and immature?

The most popular of war-based games are easily those depicting World War II, which have known a huge surge in popularity ever since, believe it or not, Saving Private Ryan made World War II movies something viable again in that industry I always like to compare gaming to, Hollywood.

There is literally no shortage of games on World War II out there, likely for good reason. It was a relatively morally unambiguous war. The West does not exactly look back on World War II and think to itself that it should not have gotten involved…unlike, for example, the Viet Nam conflict, which is so mired in controversy there are no more than 10 games that have chosen it as a setting.

As a gamer, I don't believe there is a simple answer to figuring out whether it's wrong to publish war games or not. The pacifist in me can see the argument they glorify real-life warfare. However, there are just as many Hollywood war movie productions out there.

What I would like to see, though, are video games that depict the reality of war slightly more seriously, games that thematically explore the same depths as classics such as Full Metal Jacket or Apocalypse Now (perhaps ironic, I know, that these are both set in Viet Nam).

We're starting to get there. The recently released Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, for example, has its spy/assassin protagonist Solid Snake slowly but surely begin to question the nature of the missions he undertakes, which set him on a path where those who stand in his way end up dead. A futuristic first-person shooter, Haze, tried to play with the same themes, but was largely a critical failure.

In the meantime, perhaps the U.S. Army could stave off some criticism by actually having its official games rated 18 and above to avoid the teen controversy, and just maybe present statistics on just how successful a recruitment tool "America's Army" has been. Somehow I suspect these two things are unlikely to happen anytime soon though.