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Attack on Pearl Harbor - PC game 2007 - Bin Cue pc game
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Although critics and scholars have considered the extent to which the terror attacks of 11 Sept. 2001 influenced subsequent media productions, video games comprise a largely unexamined form. This oversight also applies to related forms of media production and among those who study video games is in part attributable to the ongoing debate regarding the relationship(s) between narrative and play. Even so, as early as 1997, JC Herz was investigating the role of video games in the military-entertainment complex. That said, the focus of this paper will not be the obvious games which draw settings and plots directly from the terror attacks, from the "war on terror" or from the overwhelming popular responses to them. Instead, it will consider games which function allegorically (at the very least metaphorically) and pedagogically through their imbrication with the web of so-called "post-9/11" narratives. Syphon Filter 3 and Medal of Honor: Rising Sun both represent installments of successful video game series which were affected by the post-9/11 mindset. Through an examination of the games' content and pedagogical functions, the tension between audience expectations and the media's ideological manipulations will be examined, including how this occurs in and through the playing of the games.
Although critics and scholars have considered the extent to which the terror attacks of 11 Sept. 2001 influenced subsequent media productions, video games comprise a largely unexamined form. Most noteworthy in this exclusion is that the critical commonplaces of violence, racism, sexism and the presumed effects on young audiences have generally escaped scholarly and popular scrutiny.[1] Examinations of violence, gender stereotypes, anti-social behaviour abound, but David Leonard finds that "critical examinations of the relationship between games and the hegemonic practices of the military-entertainment complex are virtually absent." This oversight also applies to related forms of media production and among those who study video games is in part attributable to the ongoing debate regarding the relationship(s) between narrative and play. Even so, as early as 1997, JC Herz was investigating the role of video games in the military-entertainment complex. Rebecca Bell-Metereau observes that since the "events of September 11th," media commentators simply "don't bother to subject the current rash of war and spy films to the kind of scrutiny they often apply to films of other genres" (160). Yet the primarily youthful demographic, the fact that video games continue to surpass movies in terms of sales, the direct involvement of movie makers in video games and the transparent interactivity of the form combine to make video games an excellent site from which to theorize media effects on consumer beliefs, media collusion in the project(ion) of nationalism and the extent to which the "events of 9/11" actually inspired the creation of what is popularly termed a "new normal."
That said, the focus of this paper will not be the obvious games which draw settings and plots directly from the terror attacks, from the "war on terror" or from the overwhelming popular responses to them.[2] Instead, I want to analyze video games which function allegorically (at the very least metaphorically) and pedagogically through their imbrication with the web of so-called "post-9/11" narratives. Leonard is one of the few scholars to recognize the importance of video games among the variety of media outlets. He cautions, "Rather than eschew games as irrelevant child's play or lowbrow popular culture, educators must begin to think about ways to use video games as means to teach, destabilize, and elucidate the manner in which games employ and deploy racial, gendered, and national meaning, often reinforcing dominant ideas and the status quo." However, Leonard only considers games directly drawn from contemporary current events following from the terrorist attacks of 11 Sept. 2001. Even the fictional games that Leonard examines are based on contemporary terrorists threats. If significant, the themes of "post-9/11" media will have metaphorical as well as literal effects.
In addition to outlining the immediate reaction, Wheeler maps an approximate timetable of Hollywood's response to the terrorist attacks of 11 Sept. 2001. Initially, some films "were temporarily shelved, sequences featuring the World Trade Center were recut, and 'family' films were rushed into release or production. Predictably, however, this reversal of fortune did not last long, and soon Hollywood was back to work on a series of highly successful 'crash and burn' movies" (3). In the first category, the release of the Arnold Schwarzenegger vehicle, Collateral Damage, was moved from Oct. 2001 to Feb. 2002. Similarly, The Sum of All Fears, an installment in the successful Tom Clancy franchise, was delayed until May 2002. In contrast, romantic comedies such as Love Actually, which had references to the terror attacks of 11 Sept. 2001 added as voice-overs at the beginning and at the end, offered an escape. In the last instance, formulaic Hollywood action movies, the production of Black Hawk Down and When We Were Soldiers was actually accelerated so that they could be released sooner, and some might say to act as shameless propaganda and to cynically capitalize on contemporaneous jingoism. While one cannot be certain of the exact duration of the "post-9/11" period, any concerns about the propriety of media content eroded quickly among producers and consumers: "Perhaps the best gauge that things had returned to business as usual was the success of The Sum of All Fears, which was released in May [2002]" (Ansen). If not the end of the period, it signals a different phase of it. The two video games which provide the primary focus of this paper represent examples of video games whose production and distribution fall into the first and last categories. They bear the signs of the entertainment industries' graduated responses to the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001. Syphon Filter 3 was scheduled to be released on 19 Sept. 2001. However, Sony Computer Entertainment America, Inc. delayed the release until 23 Dec. 2001. More subtle in its implementation, but no less effective in terms of its message, was Stephen Spielberg Productions' allegorical treatment of the Pacific Theatre of World War II in the Electronic Arts release, Medal of Honor: Rising Sun, which was released two years later.
Syphon Filter 3 features a familiar formula for an action adventure video game: a secret government agency,"The Agency", has developed a viral weapon which it plans to use to take over the world. There are government cover-ups, conspiracies and double agents. This basic narrative kernel is used in the Metal Gear, Resident Evil, Final Fantasy and Deus Ex series. Since the series begins with an existing problem, Syphon Filter 3 provides background information which fills gaps in the narrative and in the characters' lives. In fact, most of the game's missions are based on flashbacks deriving from the characters' testimony before a Congressional hearing. In other words, Syphon Filter 3 attempts to function as a prequel. In industry-speak, it is also an example of "stunting" because its overall format is different than the examples which precede and which follow it.[6] The histories included in the gameplay and in the cut-scenes give the game a pedagogical function. Thus, Syphon Filter 3 was destined to stand apart from its cohort regardless of the timing of its release. However, Syphon Filter 3 was temporarily shelved by its creators. Less than a week before the game's release date, Ami Blaire, Director of Product Marketing for Sony Computer Entertainment of America made the following statement:
Admittedly, Aarseth and those of his school are not just new New Critics. In clarifying his position that play elements should be considered at least on equal terms with narrative, Aarseth writes, "Genre theory can help us describe" relations between games and other texts:
It is worth emphasizing that Aarseth does not say that such a mixing is impossible or should not happen. His position is not incongruous with Steve Neale's differentiation between a film's status as an individual text (immanence) and as a cultural production (intertext). This was an important debate in film studies and in the case of games with linkages to crucial events such as 11 Sept. 2001 would be worth considering.
In cinematic terms, the connections might enhance the game's verisimilitude, which Steve Neale defines as "'probable' or 'likely' [. . .] what is appropriate and therefore probable (or probable and therefore appropriate)" ("Questions" 46). In an earlier study, Neale maintains that
Not surprisingly, as Lynn Spigel observes, "the histories mobilized by the media after 9/11 were radically selective and simplified versions of the past that produced a kind of moral battlefield for 'why we fight'" (245). Also not surprising was that the histories tended to emphasize World War II and "narratives [which] offered people a sense of historical continuity with a shared, and above all moral, past" (245). In this regard, a video game offers the perfect sort of narrative. The entire war in the Pacific is reduced to only eight missions, which are themselves based on brief episodes of that war. The total time to complete the game varies, but Medal of Honor: Rising Sun is somewhat shorter and the product feels somewhat rushed. It only requires about four hours for an experienced player to complete the eight missions. The first level, "Day of Infamy," takes the player through the opening moments of the war. Many video games have preliminary "training" levels, but the designers of Medal of Honor: Rising Sun included this function in the first level. Thus, "Day of Infamy" has two pedagogical functions: first, to teach the player the controls of the game; second, to teach the player the history of World War II. The trip from the depths of the Oklahoma to the deck adds to the history lesson through game play and through a reward for that game play. 2ff7e9595c
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