“It’s 34 degrees Celsius in the shade and my eyes are stinging from the salt of my sweat pouring into them. I can just about hear my radio over the wind blowing onto my earpiece and everything that I can hear is barely audible due to the poor range of my secure radio; it seems that a patrol is under fire not far from our position.

Part of me wants to get there as quickly as possible; the other part just wants a cold beer and a shower back at base. My ankle hurts, maybe from jumping off the Chinook fully laden with kit, or maybe from leaping to cover when we reached the perimeter of the Drop Zone.

While we move cautiously towards the location of the contact, we can hear shouting and the occasional round being fired off. Uncertainty kicks in – who are the enemy? Where are they? What are they shooting at? Is my rifle going to jam again like last time? How long until reinforcements arrive?

Oh wait... we are the reinforcements!”


Movie?
A question that’s often asked is how much of what we might experience in a real life situation is reflected in those games that claim to be as close to real as possible?

Having spent most of my working life in the Armed Forces and spending most of my spare time fragging in ‘realistic’ 3D environments, I believe I’m in a position where I am pretty qualified to answer that question. So, bearing this in mind, I thought I’d put metaphoric pen to paper and see if I could come up with an answer.

In fact, I plan to explore the blurring of realism in the gaming world in a series of articles as this particular subject is one that is close to my heart.

The quandary facing the games publishers has only become more apparent as gamers have become more demanding for perfection and more realism thanks to more advanced graphics. Should the publishers make a game that is a reflection of fact or one that is based on perceived fact? To explain this, we will be talking about one of my favourite genres: the First Person Shooter and, more specifically, ones that use history or current events to set the scene for the action.


Game?
If you’ve ever watched a war movie, you will have undoubtedly and probably unknowingly been subjected to what I call “Hollywood Reality”. This is where a director adapts history or realism to suit the flow or storyline of a movie to make it easier to watch and or believe.

Did you ever wonder how many rounds a pistol can fire? How people seem to shrug off a shoulder wound? What about how a highly trained and entrenched unit of soldiers can easily be taken down by one man, a sharp knife and some string? This is a bit of an extreme but I think you probably get my point – the gaming industry relies the same warping of the truth to make games more enjoyable, and to give them longevity. This is where Medipacks, infinite ammo and unrealistically reliable and accurate weapons come into play.


Or real life?
The first target that’s in my line of sight eye is an all time favourite of mine and one that has proven to be very popular amongst gamers looking for their modern warfare fix. That’s right, I’m referring to Battlefield 2.

On the whole, I think the guys at EA/DICE have churned out a pretty slick FPS, with true to life weaponry, accurate locations and a multiplayer platform that claims to bring you the closest to a real battlefield as you’re ever likely to be in a game… but does it? From personal experience, I can tell you that it is far from what you would experience in any kind of ‘theatre’ of war. Allow me to explain why over the page...

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