The most meaningful day of my college career was a guest lecture by a Hiroshima survivor. Just that phrase "Hiroshima survivor" was impactful. It hadn't occurred to me that anyone survived.
The professor translated as this woman, now old, described a week of her life when she was a very small child. She saw some absolute horrors. Not all of them were unique to nuclear weapons. Traditional aerial bombing has some awful outcomes.
Trying to understand the trauma experienced in those days and weeks and months afterwards will always be very difficult. The smells described won't be present in VR. A 90-minute lecture by a soft-spoken septuagenarian was hard to bear.
The Civil Rights Museum in Atlanta has a great exhibit to simulate the abuse lunch counter sit-in protesters had to endure. The museum is all-around excellent and that exhibit in particular is a highlight.
This reminds me also of the playable prologue to Battlefield 1. Before you get to play the rest of the chaotic typical crass online environment you have to play through a series of situations centred around a person you’re introduced to before getting dropped into a messy battle where the character inevitably is killed.
Unfortunately judging by the comments you’ll hear online after playing through the emotional introduction, it doesn’t seem it makes a lasting impression on many.
Frankly, I'm of the opinion that that's because it was an equally crass attempt at stimulating that kind of emotional investment. You don't get feelings for free. They are contextual things with many more dimensions that what is put immediately in front of you. Trying to build a genuine commentary on the nature of war into a game like that requires a fundamentally different kind of game, and attitude towards game-making, more than just a tacked-on nod to the fact that some people died in the War.
Unfortunately judging by the comments you’ll hear online after playing through the emotional introduction, it doesn’t seem it makes a lasting impression on many.
Cynicism is the default mode for internet denizens. Wouldn't want anybody to think they were soft enough to feel an emotion!
I loved the introduction. As much as I love war games, I despise the concept of war, and think more media should reflect the abject, stupid-as-fuck reality of it. Because it is absolutely stupid as fuck. Almost any vet would tell you that. Everything about it.
Though less centered on a real scenario, the phosphorous section in Spec Ops The Line has had similar effects to some (including me). War isn't pretty.
Comments
The most meaningful day of my college career was a guest lecture by a Hiroshima survivor. Just that phrase "Hiroshima survivor" was impactful. It hadn't occurred to me that anyone survived.
The professor translated as this woman, now old, described a week of her life when she was a very small child. She saw some absolute horrors. Not all of them were unique to nuclear weapons. Traditional aerial bombing has some awful outcomes.
Trying to understand the trauma experienced in those days and weeks and months afterwards will always be very difficult. The smells described won't be present in VR. A 90-minute lecture by a soft-spoken septuagenarian was hard to bear.
The Civil Rights Museum in Atlanta has a great exhibit to simulate the abuse lunch counter sit-in protesters had to endure. The museum is all-around excellent and that exhibit in particular is a highlight.
This reminds me also of the playable prologue to Battlefield 1. Before you get to play the rest of the chaotic typical crass online environment you have to play through a series of situations centred around a person you’re introduced to before getting dropped into a messy battle where the character inevitably is killed.
Unfortunately judging by the comments you’ll hear online after playing through the emotional introduction, it doesn’t seem it makes a lasting impression on many.
Frankly, I'm of the opinion that that's because it was an equally crass attempt at stimulating that kind of emotional investment. You don't get feelings for free. They are contextual things with many more dimensions that what is put immediately in front of you. Trying to build a genuine commentary on the nature of war into a game like that requires a fundamentally different kind of game, and attitude towards game-making, more than just a tacked-on nod to the fact that some people died in the War.
I found it unexpected and sobering, even if it was a 'tacked on nod'. It certainly changed the way I played the single player campaign.
Cynicism is the default mode for internet denizens. Wouldn't want anybody to think they were soft enough to feel an emotion!
I loved the introduction. As much as I love war games, I despise the concept of war, and think more media should reflect the abject, stupid-as-fuck reality of it. Because it is absolutely stupid as fuck. Almost any vet would tell you that. Everything about it.
Though less centered on a real scenario, the phosphorous section in Spec Ops The Line has had similar effects to some (including me). War isn't pretty.
Tsutomo Yamaguchi survived not only the Hiroshima bombing, but the Nagasaki one too.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsutomu_Yamaguchi