A while ago, when hanging out at my place with a few friends, we we’re checking out the different games I had download on my Playstation 3. As I eagerly demonstrated them one by one, I didn’t really succeed at enthusing Battlefield 1943 (BF1943) for what I think it is: a blend between an arcade shooting game and, much less, a war simulation. When one friend stated that he a priori disapproves any shooter with a historical settings, I began to wonder how this game deals between the fantasy and the factual.

For those who don’t know the concept: In BF1943 (which was re-released for the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 online stores), you play as the United States Marine Corps (USMC) or as the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN). There’s only one gametype, conquest, in which you capture checkpoints (flags) and defend them with your team. The matches are held in one of three Pacific locales.

Now, the first and foremost aspect to take in consideration when discussing BF1943 is how much it simulates, or rather the historical accuracy. It must be said that the game doesn’t try hard on outlining the actual war between the two nations, there’s no political or diplomatical backdrop, no motivation, to introduce what you’re actually playing for. The loading screens are mostly filled with gameplay tips, instead of a clear description of the historical situations. Avoiding these burdensome topics raises a crucial question: does it do so for promoting war without noting the obscurities of WWII, or is there another possible consideration? I’ll come back to this question later.

The second aspect would be how much biased the game is. For instance, you could look at the team balancing. I would say that the game doesn’t accept much preference of one team over another. On what side you play is completely random, and the classes and strenghts are evenly balanced. Here, the simulation part is again mainly non-existent. Of course, the warcries and looks of the avatars are modelled to the two opposed nationalities, but this could be defended from a gamedesign standpoint; you need the opposed team to look different to keep the play effective. Sociologically, this is completely banal argumentation, and it reaches to the most basic objections about warfare. But maybe there’s some comfort in the final game aspect.

Thirtly, I would like to discuss the self critique in war-based shooters. As there’s a great array of ludic shooters like Timesplitters, Team Fortress, Battlefield Heroes, Duke Nukem, or even Quake, they all take the morbid subjects and transform them into a cultural products. As with Battlefield Heroes (a free-to-play spinoff of the original Battlefield iterations), the opposing teams are based upon the Nazi’s (National Army) versus the Brittish forces (Royal Army), presenting itself as a colourful parody instead of a gore warsimulator. I think that a large segment of today’s First Person Shooters (FPS’s), have a sound self-awareness when combining (real) violence with fantasy and gameplay conventions (exceptionally, this is relation is more skewed with i.e America’s Army).

Beyond these points, it’s probably a good thing to stay alert on how biased wargames are presented in modern times, and what the actual ‘play’ consists of. I also think there’s a great diversity in the depiction of conflictual events that can be attributed by different factors like consequence (as a moral tool), team balance or the overall depiction and semiotics of the game. In this perspective, there’s a wide grey area in which violence and play blend together in sometimes controverse or otherwise creative ways. After all, I think BF1943 in its core, is enough of a abstracted shooter to enjoy as a game, rather then one to argue the controversy of.

(Please don’t hestitate to start a discussion; I just wrote some quick thoughts down )