No magic health-restoring or limb-regenerating items. A wound detracts from performance and takes weeks or months to heal. Death is final: game over, the player is logged off and, at least until he creates a new identity to authenticate with (harder thanks to identity data APIs), cannot return.

Not for gaming newbs, to be sure, but that could be part of the draw. And the finality of injury and death would both heighten the experience anddrive home the grim reality of mortal combat.

- brushing this piece off as satire seems far more offensive then anything I’ve heard out of Atomic. Let’s hope they handle the subject with a bit more delicacy (since no one has seen the game in anything but a pre-alpha state, we can only hope, not analyze).

My problem was with the things that Atomic’s president was saying about the game, which showed deep insensitivity to the reality of war and violence.

I don’t know how the game would have handled the historical aspects of the battle. But I know how it *could* and *should*. It seems to me though that your words; while intended to paint a bleak picture of turning a deadly serious real-life event into, essentially a toy; are as disrespectful as anything I can imagine in the game.

I hate to use this analogy, but I keep coming back to it. Games can be a lot of fun. So can books. So can films. But there is another use for all three forms of media: To inform.

Films can be a great deal of fun, very entertaining. But nobody in their right mind would ever call “Saving Private Ryan” “fun”.

It’s a gruesome, sickening movie. I know people who became physically ill watching the opening sequences of the beach landing. It’s not “fun” or “enjoyable” or “entertaining”. But it’s an important work of art that informs the viewer – “Hey, bad stuff happened here, and a lot of people were lost! They did it for the greater good, and it’s important you know about it!” That’s the message that works like “Saving Private Ryan” deliver, and that’s the message that “Six Days in Fallujah” should deliver as well.

We may never know now. Atomic Games may or may not find another publisher. But as an avid gamer (and a believer that games can be, but are not always art, just as other forms of media), and a student of military history, I hope that they do, and that their final release is closer to “Blackhawk Down”, or “Saving Private Ryan” than the bleak war-porn you are envisioning.

Furthermore, your assertion that it, or any media should be banned is rather offensive in and of itself. The men and women who put on our nation’s uniform may do so for a wide variety of selfless or selfish reasons. But they all swear an oath to protect and defend our constitution. Freedom of speech is a vital principal in this nation. Your screaming “fire!” in a crowded theater is absurd. That is an exception which is not allowed because it provides a very real risk to life and limb of other people. Publishing a game, does not. I can see why you may be offended by the game. If it’s handled badly, I would be too. That’s why I won’t play many war games. But to suggest that a work be banned is a slap in the face to the freedoms that this country is founded upon.

As the old quote goes, “I may not agree with what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it”.

I am sorry for your loss. And I do not *know* if this particular game would treat the subject with the respect it deserves. But please consider for a moment that it may. Please consider that by working with, not against the developers, the game can be properly handled. Please consider that it can inform, and it can bring new understanding to what happened. Properly done, it can be one more reason that your loved one, and others like him did not die in vain.