War and Video Gaming

Gaming today has come a very long way. I remember playing Mario kart on N64 and thought it was the coolest thing ever. I never thought video gaming would have ever gotten to the point where it is today. In class we discussed how war is not only reflected in the real-time television war, but video games are another outlet that reflect war. Now we have games like Call of Duty that is so graphic that whatever the gamer sees on the screen is what war is actually like.

I feel that video games can be good and bad for depicting war. First, I will tell you why I think it is good. I think the campaign mode on Call of Duty (when you go through battle missions) is a neat way to make the gamer feel involved. The campaign mode has real life levels such as the Shores of Normandy on D-day. When the level starts you are coming off of the boat and running to shore. This is actually informative to the gamer. They may have never known how the American troops got to Normandy on D-day if they never played the game. Another reason why I think war video games can be informative is the weapons that are available in the games. In Call of Duty the guns are based on real guns that the U.S military uses. When playing the game as a Russian, the weapons change because Russians and Americans do not use the same guns. This shows how the game focuses on details such as weapons, locations, and real historical events to make it more realistic.

There are also downfalls to war games. I feel people get a false outlook on the war by playing these games. Killing people in the game is easy, takes the press of a button, and then you go on the next person. Obviously this is not the case in real-time combat. I have played these games on Xbox Live before and I see people just running around in the middle of an open areas not knowing what they are doing and getting killed instantly. When someone dies their body lies there for about 10 seconds and then disappears; but don’t worry, they have unlimited amount of lives. I feel that younger kids who play these games don’t respect the fact that people actually die in war. Kids play the game and never think about what the real war is actually like, because for all they know, the video game is exactly how war is.