THE APPROACHING war with Iraq could enter our homes in more ways than one.
There's talk of the U.S. government deciding to sanction media coverage of the actual invasions. And even if media coverage of the war itself doesn't find its way onto America's televisions, digital images already have.
Generic war video games have been around forever, but two new ones on the market feature situations that ring uncomfortably true to specific current events. These games promote the idea that we should be at war with Iraq. Makers of popular games should realize that their games subtly come down on one side of this highly controversial current issue.
Gotham Games' "Conflict Desert Storm" is a tactical shooter set in the scenario of the Persian Gulf War. The player has the option to become the U.S. special forces squadrons that invaded Iraq in 1990. If you want to be literal, it's a historical game. But with Bush number two in the White House pushing for another war with Iraq, it's hard to miss the parallel with our current situation. The message of "Conflict Desert Storm" is that Iraq is the enemy, and Iraq must be destroyed. Popular culture that legitimizes an offensive against Iraq and glorifies war itself is problematic in a current political climate where the war is a highly debatable issue. Creating a game that has implications of a present-day Iraq as the enemy is not in the best taste.
The ethics of violent, especially militaristic video games has long been questionable. But now the choice of enemy should bring the issue to the forefront even more. Older video games like "Wolfenstein" pitted players against the Nazis during World War II, a definite U.S. enemy in a decidedly retrospective scenario. It would have hardly been appropriate for an American company to have produced this game pre-1939 when the Allies were practicing appeasement. Thus, while many Americans are still hoping to reach compromise with Iraq, America's youth should not be blasting their way into a virtual Baghdad.
Another new video game has even more serious negative implications. "America's Army" is a product of the actual U.S. Army. It's a game that asks kids as young as 13 to join in the war on terrorism. Basically a recruiting tool, the game is completely free. The game Web site offers links that direct the user to the U.S. Army's Web site and their recruitment information. Unlike "Conflict Desert Storm," the enemy isn't specifically Iraq, but rather generic terrorists -- which still plays nicely into today's newspaper headlines. The Web site claims that children "need to know that the Army is engaged around the world to defeat terrorist forces bent on the destruction of America and our freedoms." If that's true, then their parents need to be reading them a newspaper. Children needn't be exposed to these somewhat dogmatic ideas through the wires of a PlayStation.
"America's Army" teaches tactics, but implies that being in the army is, well, a game. If you like playing this game from the comfort of your home, perhaps you'd like being shipped to Iraq to fire actual guns similar to your handheld simulator. The game has very little gore, further downplaying the reality of war, though the Web site claims the game presents "an accurate portrayal of Soldier experiences" (www.americasarmy.com).
These games are certainly not the first pieces of mass media to popularize the culture of war. Films like Black Hawk Down have polarized the good and evilsides of recent military engagements. Americans are deified with the attractive faces of Josh Hartnett and Ewan McGregor, while the Somali enemies barely register as individual humans.
But video games go a step further than the popular film or novel. First, they are traditionally geared toward children or teenagers, for whom these games may be one of the sole sources of their information on these sensitive issues. Secondly, the interactive quality of these games renders them more dangerous. Putting the civilian behind the shooter says even more: if you're good at this game, maybe you'd succeed in the U.S. Army. Moreover, the experience of virtually fighting the enemy is a step further than watching a movie character do it. It commits you, the player, much more wholly to an unconditional defense of America and, more importantly, to a hatred of the given enemy.
If we were currently at war with Iraq and short of volunteers, perhaps the value of these games could improve. Ask me after Jan. 27 -- the U.N. weapons inspectors' deadline, largely acknowledged to be the final chance for peace -- if I think these games are inappropriate. But in the current tense environment where we should be avoiding blind anti-Iraq sentiment, game companies should stick to fighting good old-fashioned Martians or Nazis.
(Kimberly Liu's column appears Mondays in The Cavalier Daily. She can be reached at kliu@cavalierdaily.com.)
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