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MasterChief's This war of mine (PC)
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| [May 7, 2015 10:15:00 PM]
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One of a man's first jobs has always been to survive, at least until the last century when we have become so comfortable that we forget what is is like to have to fight and scavenge for survival. We are so comfortable that a child is traumatized by actually being subject to the baser conditions of war and grows up to make a game about how traumatic war and survival and scavenging and having to work together is. Yes, war and death and terror absolutely is traumatic, but is that a function of how weak our lifestyles have made us, or is it just life?
This War of Mine reminds us that survival is personal. War is personal. War puts a fire under the civilization that has grown used to comforts and conveniences, the way losing your cell phone for a day drives you nuts until you get used to it, except war has blood and bombs, and the limb we call a cell phone only has batteries.
What is it really like to subsist? To scavenge, to make the best of what we have. That This War of Mine is presented as a traumatic and depressing event for the people in this world might suggest just how far we've come and how much we have lost as a civilization of life in becoming civilized.
War does us a favor. It returns us to our mortal roots and teaches us how to live again.
In this sense, war is like camping while leaving our cell phones at home. It is like hunting without a gun, maybe just a knife. It is about being on equal footing with nature instead of lifted up into our own worlds.
I’m not saying I am in a hurry for more war, but is there a price for peace that goes on a little too long?
As a soldier in Iraq, I lived in a palace complex with no running water because we were afraid turning on electricity would cause electrical fires. We had gold plated toilet seats but had to carry bucket loads of water from the lake in order to flush.
We didn’t have cell phones. Sometimes we legitimately worried about the mortars that were fired blindly over the palace walls.
The book and film The Book Thief explores the idea that the idea of war is actually far scarier than war itself. Once a bomb lands in your back yard and you survive, you learn to live with the bombs, until one day the war ends or your personal war ends.
I’m not saying the game overhypes anything. I do think we might find ourselves more afraid to look in the mirror and see who we are without our guns and our technology than we might be startled by bombs if war ever comes home to us.
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| [January 28, 2015 02:56:10 PM]
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Second and Third Plays. 01/27/2015 and 01/28/2015.
My second time through I ran into more ethical dilemmas. Apparently these are based on real life (and death) situations in war. Do I open the door to do business with people? Do I help an old woman board up her place so people don’t get in and kill her overnight, endangering my own (character’s) life in the process? Tough questions, made easier by this being a game where I can experiment.
The first time I die reminds me of the ending of The Book Thief, but more final feeling. The real cost of war is life. It costs everyone a piece of their lives, and it haunts what we have left. From some it exhausts the ultimate price. I am grateful it did not cost me the ultimate price.
This entry has been edited 1 time. It was last edited on Jan 28th, 2015 at 14:59:16.
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| [January 28, 2015 02:55:48 PM]
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This War of Mine
Jed Merrill
First play. 01/23/2015
I played This War of Mine for the first time today. The graphics were stylized and nice to look at, and it took me a while to realize I could play with any or all of the characters simultaneously. Once I did, the game became more meaningful.
I have been to war as a soldier. I spent a year in Iraq, Qatar, and Kuwait as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom.
I am not as experienced as a civilian in a war zone, though I have had one experience similar to what is depicted in the game.
I was teaching English in Russia with ILP, first in Moscow, then Ufa, Russia’s oil capitol. We were on a one week trip to St. Petersburg when we were told about the Yugoslavia bombing. The embassy told the program I was there with, along with everyone else with a visa that came from America, that we should stay indoors for a few days, as the Russian Orthodox church had been preaching in services that the Americans were attacking their Slavic brothers and that meant we were at war. No one knew if we were going to be in World War III, and I’m sure the US news was not reporting what we were experiencing on the ground. As volunteer teachers/tourists, we were locked for three days in an elementary school, and only left once or twice for food and supplies, nervous that we would be found out for being Americans and killed by Russian “patriots.” We used our best English-Russian accents to order food from kiosks and only said a few words the one or two times that we did go out.
My first time in This War of Mine venturing out for supplies, I was similarly nervous. Was it worth risking my life to go into a burning building to dig for the kind of buried treasures that sustain life?
I also think there is a kind of bonding or brotherhood that comes from going through an experience like that. People who were not family before become family through the fires and fears and tremors of war.
I am looking forward to playing more. I am not looking forward to being in a war zone again.
This entry has been edited 1 time. It was last edited on Jan 28th, 2015 at 14:58:38.
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MasterChief's This war of mine (PC)
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Current Status: Playing
GameLog started on: Friday 23 January, 2015
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