The Call of Duty franchise is easily one of the greatest first-person shooter franchises of our time. All but one of the titles in the series have taken place during World War II, the most important and Earth-shaping conflict in recent memory. Still to this day many carry the memories of those events, yet there has been no significant backlash to these titles — rather, the purchasing public is begging for more. Even Call of Duty: World at War’s depiction of extreme violence, be it in your face or unleashing a flamethrower on your enemy, did nothing to slow the franchise’s momentum. Yet Six Days in Fallujah felt the heat so harshly that it may never see the light of day. Is it too soon for Six Days in Fallujah’s release? I argue that the time is right now.
It may seem like I am down on the Call of Duty games, but the opposite is true. I wanted to discuss them to make my point about Six Days in Fallujah. When I started playing Call of Duty, it was with Call of Duty 2 on the Xbox 360. I was blown away at the time by its attention to detail and its portrayal of the events of World War II. For the first time in my life, I became keenly aware of the sacrifices our soldiers went through in the name of defending our freedom. I used that interest as a springboard to learn more about the conflict, to ask questions about what happened and why, and in the end I had more respect and admiration for those who have served in the past and present, and those who will in the future. Playing the game, you realize that this isn’t exactly historical fact — it is a videogame after all. Your health doesn’t regenerate in real life after being hit with scores of bullets, nor can you keep respawning after you fall. Yet games like these offer a tiny glimpse of what those soldiers faced, enough to spark some interest and curiosity in those events.
That is why we need Six Days in Fallujah more than ever, to reach those who may not watch the news on TV, listen to the radio, or read the newspaper — those, in some cases, who live and breathe in an online world. Even if the game is just an adequate first-person shooter that does nothing to push the genre forward, simply by the fact that it is taking place in a theater of operations that has such a profound effect on all our lives, this game could be the catalyst for some person to be awakened to what has been and is still going on in Iraq or Afghanistan. Think of it as the gateway drug for them to explore their country’s involvement in wars that are happening right now, and perhaps learn more about the sacrifices that have been made and are still being made today. That is why I think Infinity Ward dropped the ball a bit with Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. It’s an incredible game filled with moments the likes of which we have never seen, but I always felt that the absence of a real-world Middle East “villain” took away from the game’s impact. I can imagine the difficulty they must have had, even with the decisions they made — in particular, the detonation of a nuclear device — but at the end of the day, it is my opinion they took the easy road out.
In conclusion, I hope that Six Days in Fallujah sees the light of day and makes it onto our gaming consoles. I myself was rather excited at the prospect; now in light of all the controversy I would like to hear and see what discussion would arise surrounding its release. As they say, there is no such thing as bad publicity — I guarantee that because of the backlash and the news stories that followed, this game would sell through 1 million units in no time and be a guaranteed financial success. All we need is for one brave publisher to step forward.
Source: Text Adventure