War Never Changes: Why I like playing the American Supersoldier

It probably wouldn’t be a stretch right now to claim that more people have played an electronic version of the Omaha beach landings than were actually there. Especially seeing as the series of games in which these landings have appeared at least twice has itself gone on longer than the war it is based upon.


As time has gone on, there’s been a group of gamers demanding that war games be more realistic, and this had led to games like Armed Assault 2 (which would seemingly fulfil this wish if it bothered to work properly) and the upcoming Operation Flashpoint: Colon Subtitle. This is all well and good, but the Medal of Honour (oh yes, Americans, that ‘u’ is there to stay) and Call of Duty have reminded me of something very important about war games: they’re not realistic, and that’s why I like them.


I’m not one of these murderous game addicts that certain press organisations like to complain about every time some nut case grabs a rifle. Playing games doesn’t prepare me for some coming zombie apocalypse, or make me think ‘hey, maybe shooting a real person would be just awesome!’. I’m well aware of the sort of person I am, and logic would dictate that in a real warfare situation I would be one of the many dead people.


I have a deep respect for the armed forces, even after having been on a train full of British squaddies being fools and pestering the passengers something fierce. It’s none of that patriotic hogwash that gets touted about whenever there’s a bit of a war going on; ‘Oh look at those brave souls fighting for our freedom’ doesn’t do it for me. What I admire is the willingness to do a job where the likelihood of death is more or less 100%. Perhaps not your own death, of course, but someone is going to die, and in all likelihood you will at least witness that.


History has shown us that anyone can be a soldier, but only certain people can do it well. I’m not built for war, I’m barely built to go outside, and I’m fully aware of the fact that sticking a gun in my hand would not make me any more suited to it than the extensive period of being shouted at in a forest would. I know all this, yet still I enjoy war games, precisely because of the reasons the realism crowd lambaste them.


The superhuman qualities of the protagonists in these games allow me to forget about how terrifying the prospect of war is. They help me to forget my fragile mortality and allow me to shoot fifty Nazis in the face like some sort of virtual Rambo, to bayonet charge a Japanese machine gun in a manner perfect for a propaganda poster. It allows me to be someone else, someone who might survive the war, and I enjoy that.


Games like Arma2 certainly can be just as much fun, and I’m not denying that at all. The careful planning and tactics, the slow and steady advance, swift and decisive strikes, all make for a fantastic rush if they succeed. The problem is, they don’t. You’ll die hard and often in a game like Arma2, or I will at any rate. It forces you to learn and adapt to the game, gives you the chance to go back and try again after your plan went well and truly wrong, all the time the little voice in you head is saying ‘this is realistic you know? And you know what that means…’


When you die in a Call of Duty game you feel the usual annoyances and frustrations associated with gaming, but dying in something like Arma2 is so much more. Call of Duty is unashamedly a game, and dying in a game is easily justifiable on the grounds that it’s not realistic, but in games that pride themselves on realism every death is a reminder of how insignificant and useless you are. Die in Arma2 and it’s a shockingly harsh realisation that war is a bad place to be.


I like the ignorance that comes with Call of Duty. I like being an invincible superman who only dies after a trillion bullets and a nice bit of computer cheating. Being reminded of my own weak mortality, not so much fun.

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