Apologies for the lack of articles recently, it’s coursework season… which makes us sad. Anyway we all think this fantastic guest post by Alex Morris (GamerTag: scousiewousie) was well worth the wait. Speaking of guest posts, if you fancy a go at writing (and it’s something you think would suit Gizunk, sorry to anyone that wishes to write some long winded essay about paperclips) we’d love to see what you’ve got to say. All credit goes to your fine self and if we like your stuff, and you fancy it of course, you could always become a permanent contributor. Anyway, on to the article!

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Whilst watching a rented copy of Hurt Locker at the weekend (Blockbuster is still around, who knew?)… I got to thinking about war. This stark, gritty, free-cam filmed (think The Wire’s drug scenes in the projects, but in Iraq and feature-length) drama following a team of US bomb disposal soldiers apparently cost a ‘mere’ $11 million to make, yet picked up the highest accolade for best picture at both the BAFTAs and the Oscars.

Now, I’m sure all of us have heard the story of how Kathryn Bigelow managed to beat her ex-husband’s record breaking block-buster to critical acclaim, and if you’re like me, you got a little snobbish pleasure out of that*. But, does this indicate a sign of the times more than anything else? Is the idea that we need reminding about war, more prevalent than the idea that we need escapism? If you’ve seen some of the forums for fans of Avatar – or Avatards – then you might think that the idea of escaping this dull life for a world of blue aliens and fluorescent flora and fauna is the answer.

If anything, Hurt Locker represented the complete antithesis of this. Not to state the obvious, but I don’t think anyone in the ‘real world’ has a life as psychologically destructive as the troops out at war unless you’re a 12 year-old smack fiend who pays for his/her addiction through prostitution. But I digress; I think Hurt Locker was needed. Hurt Locker, like so many great films about war (real war, not war over ‘Unobtainium’, as it were) doesn’t get a lot of press when it comes out but slowly, as word of mouth spreads, as the internet forums chatter and critics see talent and shout it to the world, people start to think – oh yeah I’ll go and see that. Or rent it from Blockbuster. Whatever floats your boat.

Waltz With Bashir is another example of a film I think you should be proud of watching. Go you. You went and watch an animated movie about a middle-eastern soldier who’s trying to regain his memory and you read the subtitles. Well done!

To earn its gold, Hurt Locker had to break what producer Greg Shapiro called “The Iraq War Curse,” referring to every movie touching on that conflict that had failed to find an audience [Reuters 08/03/2010]. Is this true? For every Hurt Locker I do watch are there a million other great films that tell a story that I need to hear but haven’t? To be honest it was actually persistently seeing Hurt Locker advertised on the Xbox dashboard, which finally pushed me into renting it. The dashboard has actually been surprisingly avante-garde in its selection of films available. Along with Hurt Locker, they have the aforementioned Waltz with Bashir and The Soloist on display. Having said that, they do also have another awful Vince Vaughn crapathon entitled ‘Couples Retreat’ and the classic – I haven’t got the internet so I’m going to have to use my sister’s copy of – ‘Mean Girls’.

This brings me on to my next point however. Even games at the moment seem to focus on war. How massive is Modern Warfare 2? Huge! It is amazing and plays more like an interactive Hanz Zimmer accompanied movie but still tries to be gritty and realistic. Remember the first time you played the level where you got in the Humvee and patrolled the streets of an undisclosed Middle Eastern city? And then the shit hits the fan?

Now I know there are loads of great war games out there at the moment and there have been for a while – but there has been a massive explosion in the demand and, thus supply, of combat games available in the past ten years. It seems to me that there may be a trend between the amount of games, books, TV shows and films around at the moment, and the fact that we’re involved in conflict abroad. OK, there’s no evidence to prove a correlation, since the last time we were involved in such a long and ongoing operation was probably the Falklands – and games weren’t really as immersive as they are now. Arguably.

Do the media see things such as war as an opportunity to capitalize on a subject that is always at the back of people’s minds? Or do they see it as their moral duty as part of the fourth estate to remind us of what others are sacrificing and facing every day? COD and Hurt Locker may be both similar and very different. On the one hand, the movie does nothing to glamorize war, whereas the game allows you to become the hero and win in the end, no matter how many times you get shot along the way. But on the other hand, both offer a gritty and immersive opportunity for the Average Joe to have as close an experience to real combat, as they’ll probably ever get in their living room. I think movies have always followed the trend of persisting current affairs, but now more than in any other generation are they doing so from a more informative and journalistic approach rather than as propaganda. Maybe games are only now starting to be recognized as a viable medium through which to tell a profound story as well. I can only hope to see what the best games of the future have to say when Gulf War 3 starts. No wait; make that WWIII (when China invades America).

I want to dwell on this idea more, but I’d love to hear what you think.

*Don’t get me wrong – I really liked Avatar but it’s nice to see the cool war movie that was done on the cheap beat the big fat flowery blockbuster.