John Phillips, a veteran of the Iraq War, believes that video games should also show the faces of civilians involved in conflicts.
Since its return to life last week, Six Days in Fallujah has not stopped giving news thanks to its controversial theme, and is that this war game canceled 10 years ago by Konami and resurrected by Victura is based on one of the battles cruellest of the Iraq War. Its creator, Peter Tamte, has left a good number of statements, some with good intentions about the supposed plurality of the game, but others that have not left anyone indifferent, including some veterans of said contest. One of them has left anonymity to openly criticize the Six Days in Fallujah proposal, and to take a direct position against Tamte.
A war that should never exist
In fact, Tamte himself stated in an interview with Games Industry that he does not believe that there are “many people who wonder what it is like to be in the place of an Iraqi civilian. Nobody would play that game, but people are curious about what it would be like to be in combat ”, a phrase that this veteran, named John Phillips, considers“ incredibly monstrous ”.
“Speaking as someone who was in Fallujah in 2004, it was an illegal war to begin with,” Phillips begins by explaining. “We should never have been there. Many atrocities were committed, especially in Fallujah. That doesn’t mean that all troops are criminals, I don’t think about it for a second. Most of those who were there are genuinely decent people who wanted to do the right thing for people. But that does not mean that there were no atrocious acts hidden there, because there were.
“War crimes were committed by American soldiers, and many Iraqi civilians were killed who should not have died,” he continues. “Those deaths were completely avoidable and meaningless because we should never have been. And to say that, ‘Who cares about an Iraqi civilian’s perspective on the Iraq War?’ I mean, it’s their fucking country. You should portray that. Nobody cares? Make them care. “
By the way, Phillips considers that Tamte’s statements assuring that he wants to make this an apolitical video game “do not make sense”, pointing out that politics and war always go hand in hand. “Tell me a war that was not started by politics. You can not. War is political, just in a different way, ”he says. He also believes that it is necessary to show the other side of the coin. “We have many stories about the American military in this medium. When are we going to tell the stories of other people who are also involved in the war, especially those civilians who were in the middle? “
Be that as it may, the controversy is served with Six Days in Fallujah, which will go on sale throughout this year on consoles and PC.
