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'Six Days in Fallujah' aims for a realistic game experience

If one new combat video game seems particularly realistic, there's a reason.

Six Days in Fallujah, scheduled for release next year for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and PC, was designed in cooperation with the Marines and with input from those Marines who fought in the November 2004 Iraqi battle, which involved some of the most intense urban combat ever.

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"This is the first opportunity anybody has had to get this level of insight into an actual battle," says Peter Tamte of Atomic Games. "The missions are re-creations of real firefights, mapped out by the Marines in the actual firefight."

Dane Thompson, a corporal during the battle who ended his service as a sergeant in June 2005, says the game is "a way to get a small taste (of battle) without any of the danger or potential life-changing events. (The battle's) first week was hell on Earth."

Thompson, who helped capture a train station to use as a headquarters during the battle, says he and other Marines discussed tactics and even sketched out homes they had secured. Some of the Marines also had their likenesses digitized to appear in the game.

"Something that most people don't realize, there is this huge battle going on and we are getting shot at, there's buildings blowing up next to us, and we're still making jokes," he says. "That's how Marines are. I think they are going to try to bring that to the game, too."

Atomic Games, which had designed simulations for combat and intelligence personnel, had collaborated before with the 3rd Battalion, 1st Division of the Marine Corps, who fought in Fallujah. "They said, 'This was a historical battle,' " Tamte says. "They wanted their story told."

Atomic's developers pored over maps and plans, after-action reports, thousands of photos including satellite imagery, and hundreds of hours of video.

The Marines noted a shortcoming of many military games to the developers: destruction of the environment. "Marines try not to enter through the front door because the enemy typically aligns its fire on the front door," Tamte says. "Marines will typically make their own entrance. They'll blow a hole in the wall. Sometimes you have to take down an entire building. You cannot do that in any military shooter so far. So we built our own game engine from scratch to enable this destructive capability."

Some may wonder if a game about an ongoing conflict is appropriate. "Is it exploitive or gratuitous? I don't think so," Thompson says. "I'm all for it."

Konami marketing executive Anthony Crouts says: "We want to be crystal-clear. We're not into making social commentaries. We're not saying the war is good (or) bad. We're looking at making a game experience based on historical events, tying into the actual Marines who were on the ground, telling their story."