Pro Vs. Pro: Vietnam

The editors debate the pros and cons of Vietnam games?a step too far out of neutral territory?

Every once in a while, the GamePros get a chance to step our from behind the GamePro name, stand up on a podium, and debate topics that are dear to their hearts and (hopefully) relevant to issues that face gamers today. Pro Vs. Pro is a free forum for editors to voice their opinions on a variety of topics?a back-and-forth debate that can get very, very heated.

This time, the Pros tackle an issue little more weighty than whether Shinobi was too hard?this time, the topic is Vietnam, and games about Vietnam like Battlefield: Vietnam and Men of Valor. Keep in mind that the opinions stated here are those of the editors are exactly that?opinions of people?and don?t by any means reflect an official GamePro stance.

And now, without further adieu, here?s Air Hendrix to start things off:

Air Hendrix:
I've always been uncomfortable playing video games based on history's wars, though I've played?and enjoyed?many of them. There's a definite nugget of disrespect in turning a massive conflict where thousands or millions of people fought brutally and were slaughtered...into entertainment. And yet, they make gripping, riveting games, so it's a hard issue to resolve. When the enemy is the Nazis, who are undeniably vile to all but the most morally vacant scum, it's easier to rationalize and enjoy. But even when playing through Medal of Honor: Allied Assault (an amazing game), I was troubled by thoughts that something resembling this actually happened to real people?and that's pretty damn horrible. When the polarity of good vs. evil is far less stark, as it is in games like Black Hawk Down and the upcoming slew of Vietnam combat games, this whole issue gets much more troubling.Personally, I had a blast playing Black Hawk Down, but I also spent a lot of time stewing over the Somalia conflict on a human level. I'm pretty interested in playing the Vietnam games because, from a gameplay perspective, that war's style of combat represents fresh ground. But I know I won't be able to stomach it if the human side isn't fairly treated and represented...or if, God forbid, the developers make the unforgivable mistake of including the rampant racial slurs that were a huge part of that war.

Dom Ex Machina:
As the child of Vietnamese refugees, I can't say that I can ever look on Vietnam games as being in good taste. As Air Hendrix said, World War II is generally considered to be a "just" war?as just as wars can get, at least.The WWII games have also been careful in selecting their subject matter, avoiding such controversial topics as the Holocaust, the destruction of Dresden, or the atrocities of Nanking. But where is there not controversy in Vietnam? Where WWII is seen as a proud battle scar, Vietnam is a festering scab in the American consciousness. Civilians were killed en masse by foreign soldiers due to the Viet Cong's guerilla tactics and no small amount of racism. Soldiers frequently killed their own commanders in mutiny, only to come home to a hostile public that vilified Vietnam veterans as much as they glorified WWII veterans. You can hardly read a page of the Vietnam War's history without happening upon an atrocity or controversy. How can this possibly make for appropriate subject matter for a video game?

One of my many problems with the upcoming flood of Vietnam video games is what I see as a return to the misrepresentation of the war that was rampant in the '80s. Jingoistic, revisionist movies like Red Dawn and Rambo tried to change the way people looked at the war and spin it into a falsely positive light. Meanwhile, take a look at how Battlefield: Vietnam promises to shape up?as a true sequel to Battlefield: 1942, which is a straightforward team deathmatch game with the occasional king of the hill or capture the flag objective. Men of Valor claims to "recreate the tension, risk, and excitement of the jungle battlefields of the Vietnam War". How can these games possibly do conflict the sort of justice that you hope for? Will there be "burn the village to save it" missions in these games? Will there be search and destroy missions where the only way to separate the VC from the general populace is to shoot everyone in sight, a la My Lai? If not, how can they possibly be true to what Vietnam really was? And how can they ever hope to be done in good taste?

D-Pad Destroyer:
Personally, at the risk of sounding like I hate puppies and children, I have little problem with the idea of a Vietnam-based game. As Air Hendrix stated, this is a chance for companies to provide us with gameplay we've never experienced before. Take a look at Vietcong; it tries to capture the sneaky, paranoid nature of jungle combat, and I think it does a great job of being entertainingly tense. I'm personally interested in experiencing that sort of gameplay, precisely because it's not real and because I'm not aiming a gun at a villager or blowing up a village. Games let us experience things without experiencing them, and while I can see that that might seem distancing or desensitizing, it's also a fantastic way to pass along human experience without putting everyone in further danger.

What I'm against is the sensationalization of the war. It was a dirty war on all sides. It's possibly one of the ugliest moments in our nation's history, so making a game that puts players in Vietnam and has them shouting racial slurs and napalming villages for fun in in poor, poor taste. However, a game that takes the way the war happened and communicates the realities of jungle warfare, the paranoia of never knowing when you'll fall into a trap, get sniped, or even just die from the hazards of the jungle would be gripping and, in many ways, educational. I don't think the industry needs to shy away from the dirty parts of the war; it would be best served to portray everything as it was. Developers could deliver a powerful message with a Vietnam game?a message that, up until now has been lost in the flag-waving "This was our finest hour" attitude of the recent line of WWII titles.

If I see a shirtless tough guy rapelling from a helicopter, wielding an American flag in one hand and a rifle in the other, while sentimental music rises in the background and a grizzled voice recites, "It was the day the world became men?It was the finest time of all....", I'll be the first to go BMX XXX on that game's ass. But if it's handled with respect, not only to the soldiers but to the reality of the war and the people involved, then I'll be right there lined up, excited to be presented with a new gaming experience.

DJ Dinobot:
The resounding sentiment regarding the upcoming slew of Viet Nam-themed games is that they might be OK if they represent the human cost of war fairly and accurately. The limited information we have on these titles so far indicates that they will be neither fair nor accurate. As an example, let?s use Men of Valor?s press release to assess the type of game we can expect:

?Touching on some of the most familiar scenes of the war as they exist in the popular imagination, the player guides his group of fellow soldiers through the hardship and confusion of the battlefield, bonding with them as they do their duty for their country with the heroism and valor typical of the American soldier but unsung during the turbulent times...a cast of AI controlled characters accompanies the player through the missions, and he learns their value and mourns their loss as the war progresses.? The press release goes on to mention that the game will feature ?historically accurate scenarios? several times, as well as ?harrowing assaults against fanatically defended enemy emplacements.?

Let?s do a little academic criticism on this thing, shall we? First off, since when did the ?popular imagination? become ?historically accurate?? George Orwell stated it best when, in his classic book ?1984?, he wrote ?He who controls the Past controls the Future. He who controls the Present controls the Past.? Now that the U.S. is back to its overtly imperialist war-mongering ways, its time to rewrite the ugliest chapter in recent American history with a nice little game about Killing the Gooks. The message here is that what actually happened is unimportant. What is important is what people think happened.

The press release goes on to mention the ?heroism and valor? that went ?unsung during the turbulent times.? While ?valor? means simply ?strength in the face of adversity?, ?heroism? carries an entirely different meaning. Heroism goes beyond valor: it implies a higher purpose or striving for a noble end. While loyalty to one?s country and the desire to protect one?s family is certainly a noble end, the results of the U.S. involvement in Viet Nam were anything but noble. Napalm, Agent Orange, murder, rape, and torture are but a few of the enduring legacies of this conflict.

?During the war, 440,000 North Vietnamese and 220,000 ARVNs were known to be killed, and additionally a staggering 300,000 are missing, for a total of nearly a million dead. Hundreds of thousands of people are handicapped as a result of the war, or are suffering the effects of dioxin. Birth defects continue at a high rate in areas that were heavily defoliated.? http://www.ncptsd.org/publications/cq/v5/n4/johnson.html

Millions of decent Americans were drafted and ordered to commit atrocities in the name of ?duty to their country?. Their loyalty and good intentions were betrayed and exploited by the politicians and military commanders who took advantage of these people?s basic desire to defend their homeland. What these poor, exploited soldiers came to realize deep in the jungles of SE Asia is that the US was the agressor, and it was actually the Vietnamese people that were fighting for freedom and defending their country. According to the press release, you?ll be given the chance to empathize with your fallen comrades, while the Vietnamese remain faceless, freedom-hating ?fanatics?. Like it or not, the Vietnamese are People, just like you and me. They have feelings and families, work hard to make a living, and value their independence above all else. Think about how you'd feel if someone developed a game about flying airliners into skyscrapers. It?s reproachful and disgraceful to turn another human being's suffering into entertainment.

No one who was involved in the Viet Nam war walked away unscathed. Thousands of Viet Nam veterans committed suicide upon returning to the States, and many more continue to live with PTSD or dioxin-induced health problems. There are 8 million Viet Nam veterans alive in the U.S. today. It is wholly disrespectful to the war's veterans and victims to trivialize the memory of their suffering for a "unique gameplay experience". I can't abide by the chest-thumping sensationalized uber-patriotism that seems inevitable at this point. In today?s climate of cultivated fear, Americans want more than ever to feel Invincible. But to deny the past is to miss the opportunity to learn from the mistakes of your predecessors. Video games based on this conflict have a great opportunity to educate and cultivate a greater understanding of the monstrosities of war. But rather than use their power to educate, it looks like we?ll be treated to an offensively racist, shallow, and dehumanizing experience that glosses over the ugly realities of Viet Nam.

I spent five weeks last summer in Viet Nam and Cambodia, and witnessed firsthand the ongoing legacy of suffering that this war caused. I doubt any of the limbless orphans I saw will appear in Men of Valor, or any of the other upcoming Viet Nam titles. If developers make the claim of "historical accuracy", they owe it to the veterans, victims, and the audience to cast an unflinching look at the human consequences of war. The wounds, while still painfully apparent, are finally starting to heal. Why go back and rip them open again? In a bizarre twist on the old addage, history is being rewritten by the loser. The current political climate adds an interesting flavor to this bizarre attempt at historical revisionism. Did anyone else see the commandos rappelling from the helicopters at E3, with the huge "Desert Storm 2 - Back to Baghdad" billboard behind them? It seems the Army has taken to rewriting history as it happens. If we don?t pay closer attention, we may not have a future...

D-Pad Destroyer:
What we're really discussing here is games based on Vietnam. Could this same conversation have been had about Vietnam movies, like Apocalypse Now and Platoon? These are, arguably, forms of entertainment that made tons of money on the conflict, but which also carried meaning and artistic skill along with the entertainment.

There's also the focus of the games. Games are, at their heart, meant to be fun, at least the way the industry is now. Saying that an entire era of world history is off limits for that as a setting not only limits the imaginations of designers, but it also limits their freedom of speech. Granted, most of the games coming out soon that have to do with Vietnam don't seem to have the highest ideas in mind, but that's how the developers of those games chose to express their version of the conflict.

Most games are based around conflict. Vice City is a game in which people are murdered, run over, and stolen from all day long and into the night. The player drives over innocent pedestrians, causes immense property damage, and kills hookers for their money. But this is entertainment, and it's considered okay. While I acknowledge that the perils of those in Vice City pale in comparison to those in the Vietnam conflict, no one asks that Rockstar realistically portray the consequences of the strife and pain the players inflict upon the people in the city.

If you haven't done so yet, check out Gathering's Vietcong. It portrays the conflict in a somewhat realistic way, immersing players in the jungle and the paranoia of the conflict, without hyping "gook shootin' action!" Despite a few exclamation-mark-toting claims of the marketing text on the box, I think it's a great example of how the subject could be treated: Without the fanfare of "heroism," and without the sensationalistic "WOW Lookit the napalm!" silliness, I think it gets across what the experience of an American soldier could have been like.

Making money on the suffering of others is always detestable. Making art based on an emotional period of history is human nature. The current crop of upcoming Vietnam games are far from "art" (in fact, most of them are little more than, "We can do Vietnam, too!!" copycats of the historical shooter formulas that are out there already). I'm not saying that softening up the reality of the history is good, but that this subject should not be considered off-limits for a talented game designer with good intentions. After all, if the industry never feels free to broach these topics in an artistic or mature manner, how will it ever grow out of the "children's entertainment" niche it's in today?

DJ Dinobot:
I would never deign to imply that anyone?s freedom of speech should be abridged, because it is only through open dialogue that people can come to understand each other and it is in this spirit that we engage in the Pro vs. Pro dialectic. That said, developers have the right to make disgusting, inhumane games and we have the right to call them on it. No one is asserting that the entire era should be off limits, in fact it?s a period of history that we?d do well to remember. Most people probably don?t realize that the Vietnam War (or the American War as they call it) continued long after the U.S left, well into the 1980s. The new Republic of Viet Nam continued to fight for independence from China and against the genocidal US-backed Khmer Rouge in Cambodia.

The problem with the game is not so much the setting as the casting of roles as Good vs. Evil. What gives any human being the right to declare another human being Evil, and Deserving of Death? There are countless labyrinthine arguments and justifications for the Killing of Human Beings by other Human Beings, but there are two points that lie at the heart of the ethical dimension of this discussion. The first is the problem I mentioned above: the Good vs. Evil connotation. Once you step into that realm, you?re opening a metaphysical can of worms. Good vs. Evil is fundamentally different from A vs. B. Herein, I think, is a key factor that needs consideration when designing war games. A vs. B is reduced to a simple set of conflicting objectives, with no ethical attachments beyond the achievement of those objectives. Good vs. Evil, however, brings the ideas of Right and Wrong into the fray. Justice, nobility, equality, humanitarianism, and other abstract concepts are part of the struggle between Good and Evil. I think D-Pad is right when he says that Vietnam-themed games can be interesting, informative, and educational. To do so, they must either take a neutral A vs. B approach, or delve seriously into the question of Good and Evil, Wrong and Right, Justice and Inhumanity. This type of discussion can't happen if a game insists on casting the Vietnamese people as ?fanatics? while the US is portrayed as ?valiant?. Men of Valor is shaping up to be a misinformed Good vs. Evil scenario, while Battlefield: Vietnam seems to be taking the more tactful A vs. B approach.

This brings me to a second ethical subtlety relating to the discussion. D-Pad mentions the exaggerated ultraviolence of GTA: Vice City. There?s a difference between violence Vice City style and violence Viet Nam style. That difference is the claim of ?historical accuracy? and the direct connection to actual human suffering. The difference is in the portrayal of real violence, directed against real people. Sure, people in the real world have been run over, mugged, carjacked, etc., but GTA games have never pretended to be an accurate portrayal of anything. The cartoony, fictionalized violence of the GTA games creates a different feel, a different state of mind in the player, than does a game striving for realism and historical accuracy. Fictionalized violence can be cathartic, but realistic violence can be traumatic. Just ask any Vietnam vet who saw Platoon.

There?s a subtle boundary here, one that merits exploration and discussion. As games and electronic media grow up and mature, it?s a great opportunity to explore new ideas in cognitive science, philosophy, and psychology that are unique to our era. We live in a society that is governed by laws and a code of ethics, but games give us the chance to suspend these ethics and remove the control of the superego. When, then, is the violation of human dignity entertaining, and when is it immoral? Game designers can?t live with their heads in the sand pretending that what they do has no impact on society. We have the responsibility to scrutinize our industry and ask these tough questions. Pandering to militaristic nationalism doesn?t help the industry mature, it creates a propaganda tool which ultimately hinders free speech, liberty, justice, and the American Way.

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