Finished Demos: The Ideal

I don't know how much else is left to say. I think this game (Six Days in Fallujah) is going to fail. I think it's too big for the development team. I hope it doesn't, but there's too much other shit going on around this game. Case in point: I doubt that the dev team and the bigwigs are on the same page when the bigwigs say that "We're not trying to make social commentary...We're not trying to make people feel uncomfortable" and one of the stated goal of the game is to give players ethical dilemas in the shoes of real soldiers.

But, before the game finds a life in the hands of Papa Bear and his ilk (not that I'm singling out Bill O'Reilly here), I wanted to talk about it in tones that are respectful and distant, if not hopeful. I'm pessimistic. This needs to succeed in a way to shake up gamers, the press and eveyrone looking over the team's shoulder. There's an outside chance that the people making this have that kind of a game in them, but I'm not holding my breath.

Not that my two cents carries much weight.

Anyway. The title is a song by the Explosion, off of their near-perfect Jade Tree full length called Flash Flash Flash. Go buy the CD right now and listen to one of the best punk rock records put to tape this decade. The Ideal starts with the lyric: "There are no good Samaritans. There are no proud Americans. This isn't my idea of success."

Perfect.



“Six Days In Fallujah” is a third-person shooter game set to be released sometime in 2010.

I usually don't get too concerned when I hear titles, but when I heard about the game I seized up. The president of Atomic Games, the company producing the game in conjunction with the Marine Corps and Activision, says they want “Six Days In Fallujah” to be the most realistic military shooter ever.

As a genre, shooters are not known for careful examination of their surroundings. Look at Gears of War 2. That game was as deep as a dog's water dish, but is a fantastic success, not just because it's executed nearly perfectly, but also because it didn't really challenge players. (Okay, Dom tried to find his wife and players complained that he was "too bitchy" during the game.) So a game based on a real-life six-day battle is going to be a tough sell—not to mention a difficult thing to write, script and program.

“Six Days In Fallujah” is based on a careful recreation of one of the longest instances of close-quarters combat the U.S. Marine Corps has been involved in since World War II. To get it right, the developers took the extra step of talking to some of the insurgents involved as well as Fallujah’s civilians.

Read that last sentence again. That's gonna be a sticking point.

Even ignoring the inevitable public outrage over the background work (which in any other medium would be reasonable), there is the larger issue of whose interests the developers are looking out for or sweeping under the rug.

The civilians are going to have a different perspective on the fighting and the tactics employed by both the insurgents who came to Iraq to fight the Jihad and the indiscriminate use of firepower by members of the United States Marine Corps. Oh, and both the irregulars fighting against the Americans and the Marines are going to have different (and truthful) perspectives that are going to skew how the game ought to be portrayed.

The Marines aren't going to be happy if the creators mention the pre-attack bombings Fallujah was subject to or the military’s offensive use of white phosphorous. The insurgents who risked their lives to talk to the game’s developers aren't going to be happy if the fact that members of their group used the civilian population as shields for their indiscriminate attacks is revealed. Oh, and let's not forget a coherent, well-designed game has to be made out of this, one that will make Activision and consumers happy.

“Six Days In Fallujah” has a lot of external hurdles ahead of it — a public suspicious of videogames and commentators looking for an easy topic to boost ratings.

But I think the biggest problem is internal. There's a lot of conflicting, accurate representations of those six days, so how do you pare down the experiences from all these different perspectives to something that resembles the truth? How do you put an ESRB rating on it?

“Six Days In Fallujah” frightens me because this game’s going to be in the spotlight and the creators have the time and money to dig themselves into a pretty big hole. To get the experience right, “Six Days in Fallujah” needs to set a milestone in storytelling. Frankly, I doubt the team is up to the challenge. I want them to succeed, but everyone looking over their shoulder has a different measure of success. And these are just the thematic concerns.

How, exactly, do you make a scripted third person shooter that acknowledges the claustrophobia of high density urban combat and still remains fun? Realism is hard to acknowledge when the actual soldiers can only clear buildings for an hour or two, tops and regularly pass out from heat exhaustion. If it's going to be realistic, then there is going to have to be an imposing penalty for using heavy automatic weapons on the map and huge bonuses for using less heavy weapons, which runs counter intuitive to the expectations the traditional player base.

The parallel that leaps to mind is Rainbow Six videogame series, which was realistic enough to dictate that when of the members of your unit got shot, they were pretty much down for the count if they were lucky. If they weren't, they're dead. Unfortunately, Fallujah isn't a series of three story office buildings or flat surfaces and building clearing is nerve wracking, when your enemies choose where, when and how the fight is happening is not what gamers are used to.

Gamers (I include myself in this) are used to having nigh-invincible, emotionally vacant, masculine demi-gods as their avatars, ones that have exquisite fire control and never empty a clip of ammunition to a room of people or prisoners because they've just been psychologically broken by seeing their friend's head explode in front of them. Are the developers of Six Days really going to digitally wrest control from the player at times and possibly alienate the players and force them to acknowledge how far removed our digital heroes are from flesh and blood?

Sherman said war is hell and I'd be willing to bet that with that description most gamers would expect "Doom". Let's hope I'm wrong.

Finished Demos: It's A Pretty Good Song, Babe, You Know the Rest

We're not dead. We just don't update regularly and my normal columns don't have an easy parallel here. So. I gave this to a college writing magazine at the end of January, and that issue still hasn't been published.

I eminently dislike sitting on writing when the only thing that's keeping from being seen is sorority obligations, which are things that do not hold a large amount of power in my life. Anyway. This piece (whenever it comes out) will be called Let Me Take You Out and it is about, well, girls and boys presuming there is a right time and place to go back to for authentic romantic expression.

Fuck that. (Oh, the title comes from a Gaslight Anthem song.)

What makes romantic expression authentic is the intent behind it, not when it was expressed and if that gets obscured, then I think we're in a world of trouble. Whenever this gets published on paper, I hope, I hope, I hope that the introduction below gets printed with it.

Romance, like love, might be beyond verbal expression. I don't even know if it's appropriate to say I'm grasping in the right direction, because that would suggest a Platonic form (look it up) of romance, which is not an idea I currently want to commit to. Remember: I don't know romance and I never will.

Hugs/Kisses,
Charles Victor Szasz


There's this little thing that's clawing away at the back of my mind: Romance isn't dead, but there are some people that are pretty determined to pronounce it dead on arrival despite its steady breathing and lively EKG.

Before I even begin, let's make it clear who I'm not speaking about. The kids (and adults) who go out to places where they can drink alcohol and orgasm mutually are not really a part of this discussion. if you want to complain that they're killing romance, this isn't the venue.

It's the kids who are trying to "go back" to an earlier era of courtesy and social cues that have been overly romanticized. (These people may be related to the people who think World War II was the Good War. I loathe the Holocaust, but there is no good war Ever. [More crimes were averted, I'll grant you that.] Over 40 million died in over World War II. To put that in perspective, go to a beach. Now imagine each grain of sand is a naked, ruined corpse, pale from malnourishment and smeared with the excrement of the lifeless vessels on top of them. That's war.) You know the type. Cynically, they're the douchebags who think that with a fedora and an antiquated dress code, they're somehow being gentlemen or ladies. They seem to have mistaken being romantic for being suave. I have no words for them, but then again, I've constructed them as an easy target.

Less cynically, but more pointedly, there's the people who genuinely believe that there is some golden age for romance to go back to and closely adhering to that standard will make them romantic. It's this group that's more worrisome to me, since they're more authentically disposed towards the idea, but are heading in a direction which avoids the problems that they claim to have a solution to.

Some say Victorian England, some say it's the period before the Second World War (1920-1940), some go to France, but all say that Romance is dead with a seriousness that makes me smirk. Romance, as I characterize it, the crossroads of concern, humility, sentiment and action, can't ever die because there's always going to be something genuine there. Modern Life is War got it right with "Fuck the Sex Pistols": The grass was never green. There was never purity. Some say it's all over. Stupid fucking jaded burnouts...You don't get to decide. It's ours. Go away. Shut up. Little else in my mind needs to be said. It is the genuine emotion that can never be a product of a particular time and place that makes love and the expression of it romantic.

It's the why and less the how, and that's where I take umbrage with this group of well-meaning kids who want to go back to something else. They want it to be codified, written down and definitive. There aren't many hard and fast rules to go by and for a lot of people, that's frightening. That's their prerogative, though, as is the focus of this submission, I believe they're barking up the wrong tree. I do not mourn the death of labyrinthine social codes around romancing the people of your desire. I don't think it's a good idea to go back to a time when the idea of romance was limited to straight white people. I am supposed to show you how much I care by giving you a rose or dancing slowly? How disappointingly limiting, not to mention exclusionary.

Going "back" to something lacks the ability to grow and blossom with the different intersections of gender, desire and sex, that are finally acceptable to express in public in the college's bounds and in some large cities. Our traditional dances are gendered for men who like women and women who like men. But you know that already. Remember, people are left out by these universal romancing ways. The reason why things like putting your jacket down over a puddle so the girl doesn't have to step in the water are supposedly romantic is because it comes out of a desire to make the person's life a little easier, cost be damned. Just to see you smile, as Tim McGraw sings, is the essence of the idea.

Romance is (Did I just type that? If you ever see the phrase "something is" without any kind of background, your bullshit detector should go off loud and clear.) an ideal that is meant to be reached for and never grasped, I believe (Phew.). You, I or anyone else can never ever think of ourselves as romantics, because at that point where I think I've got it, I've lost it. It's in the humility of knowing you would give up what you have for your lover but knowing that your lover would never ask it of you. It is crucial now to mention that I do not submit myself as any kind of answer to the questions I pose. I will feign suggestions but I am far too suspicious, neurotic and unreasonably paranoid to be a model for anyone, except in what not to do. (Did I mention the low self-esteem and depression?)

If you want to be romantic, I think you ought to first figure out what romantic means to you, and apply those ideas to a modern context. I initially compared this to Batman, but somehow, using a fictitious character who is almost completely incapable of sustaining a meaningful adult relationship (sexual or emotional) seems wrong here. You will make mistakes. I will make mistakes. It hurts. It breaks. But, in making the mistakes you are acknowledging the ever-expanding possibilities of modern interaction and expression that didn't exist during a fictitious Golden Era, whether it's comic books or Americana.

I don't feign to understand romance. I just see people looking in one direction and I think I see what they're describing in a different direction. I'm very, very distrustful of the desire to go back or say anything is dead. But then again, I'm a white heterosexual male, I've hardly ever needed help raising my voice.

Finished Demos: I Am Just Waiting In a Room

Edit: Sometimes I'm completely wrong. I am just waiting in a room comes from the A Wilhelm Scream song "the Horse", which itself, echoes Fugazi's Waiting Room, in terms of lyrical content. The character in Fugazi's Waiting Room is patient, waiting for his moment. Function is the key inside Fugazi's waiting room.



I've always thought of this as an Eleven Names post, but it just had to go through the school newspaper first. Here, then is an expanded version of my latest column. It's about knowing when to leave and who to leave the group to.

Happy Valentines Day. For some of us, it's good. For some, it's not good. I will have a significant other on some Valentines Days and I won't on others. From this perspective, Hallmark and Hershey's fingerprints on the holiday seem far more tolerable. If you must call it Singles Awareness Day, go for it. There's a girl I ought to kiss tonight, but never will, despite the fact that I have her phone number and instant messenger handle. Sigh. Beyond all that, I went to bed at 7 a.m. last night, flushed after finishing a bottle of Absolut Vodka with a group of friends, just talking and playing videogames. I would have never seen or expected that kind of a wonderful night/morning the night before I arrived on campus in 2005.

Maybe four years ago, the night before I arrived on campus, I lay on a hotel bed somewhere in Northwest PA, staring at the ceiling, wondering what my first day would be like. I wanted then to find a group of people that I could relate to and grow with. What I found was not at all what I expected. I was initially disappointed. Shit, I've played so much Dungeons and Dragons it's wonderful and disgusting. Never thought I'd do that. I initially resisted. Now, I look forward to those roleplaying times. In this group, I've found (and hopefully) help found a place where conversations, stomach turning, high minded and honest can happen. I've found that and help keep that group going.

The title is a line from Fugazi's song Waiting Room. If you don't know it, then learn. In a manner like Fugazi, four years ago, in 2005, I was also waiting in a room for the next part of my life to begin.

So. This isn't my goodbye to the group. That will come in a couple months, and even typing that phrase sends shivers down my body. But it's my, it's your's now lecture. Just go for it.

I'm far too cynical.

As many of you have guessed, I am a member of the social group. I'm also a second semester senior and, in theory, know when it's time to go. Parents and recent grads tell me that if the college has done a good job you'll want to get out. And I do. I want to leave and achieve things. I'm reasonably scared but there's also something less fashionable to admit: I hope I can bow out gracefully and acknowledge that my time has come and gone.

This occurred to me when I realized I was being unbearably haughty to a new kid who wanted to join the cluster of overlapping Venn diagrams that is my extended social circle. He's excited about the possibilities of the social group and the fact that it is not like where he came from.

My friend and I chastised him for being so excited.

I'll repeat that: I chastised him for being excited. Seriously. That was ridiculous. I mean, sure, it was kind of to be expected, both my friend had graduated last year and I'm hopefully on my way out in May and we were on our way to Wal-Mart, which we all understand is something that is kind of evil. But in retrospect, it just seems silly. I was more awkward than I currently am once and not giving him the benefit of the doubt is disappointing to me personally. I didn't want that to happen to me when I was young and a freshman and now I'm keeping the process going? Bad James.

Having lived in the group for a good six or seven semesters of my tenure here, I'm no longer enthusiastic. I'm beaten down and have stories of trying to get a social group to move on something that's based on apathy and a healthy distance from more productive members of campus.

But him? He sees possibilities I dare not contemplate because I believe I know what is possible and what is out of the question. (ASG will not refund our money in a remotely timely fashion. I accept this.)

Oh, I've been there. I wanted to organize something. I was a part of another initiative that went for a couple months and then petered out. I can tell him that it won't work and to stop being so unbearably positive.

I can tell him this, but the truth is that the future of the group is for the juniors, sophomores and freshmen to mold as they see fit. I'm not needed—I've done my part. Now, I ought to enjoy the fruits of my labor, which (so far as I can tell) is being a thorn in the side of everyone trying to eat lunch in the Campus Center. But there's something else.

There's a larger and more inclusive community in the group than when I joined and that is the real reward. That's what I want out of college. I want a circle of friends. I want to grow. I want to leave in an almost mechanical cavalcade of good wishes and wistful memories. I want a diploma that says I earned a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy.

Soon, all that will be mine.

I've seen this club grow, and now isn't the time for me to be cynical or pessimistic. It's winter. Those emotions just get me in trouble and I'd like to spare the kids that set of experiences. The future, if I can use Joe Strummer's language, is unwritten. It will be their hands on the pen.

As part of a larger group of others, I have kept the pen safe and scribbled as best as I can on my future. This pen was handed down to me by other members, regardless of whether I agreed with what they wrote with it.

To those underclassmen I say, “Here take this pen. Write on the page of Allegheny, whether it's in the margins or over the letterhead. Oh...And write opinion columns. Please?"