I understand that this is no joke, that real men are dying in Libya as we speak (but hopefully Gaddafi regime will soon be gone), and you cannot belittle the Freedom Fighters (now National Libyan Army) accomplishments against a very well armed (he had military bases full of equipment near every population center, and stockpilies of oil-wealth to hire mercenaries, which is the main reason why the civil war has continued for as long as it has).
That said, I wonder how soon till the Gaming world rushes to cash in on this - if they haven’t already. Anyone could easily envision a Call-of-Duty like campaign based on this, there is urban and desert warfare and numerous battles - many of which have been recorded and posted on the web (I have cringed at some of the Freedom Fighters tactics - sometimes you see them just walking along urban streets with little regard to cover (Brega, Misrata), standing in fields while Grad rockets crash nearby, and their most common tactic, sending the infantry armed with light weapons over the berms and across the fields while backing up pick-ups to position, firing the anti-aircraft or heavy machine gun mounted on the back, and then scooting back to reload, seems almost 18th century firing line style). You really couldn’t rely on Air Support (NATO more or less bombs the targets it wants, and the NTC has to beg them to concentrate on specific areas/targets).
So, is the great ‘cash-in’ coming, or will the companies at least wait until Gaddafi is toppled (or escapes to South Africa)?
Games need not be FPS, but I figured that’s a very common war-game style now.
Most FPS games need to involve Americans as major playable characters. Perhaps a game centering around special forces covertly helping Lybians would work, but then it wouldn’t offer much that’s new compared to Clone of Duty.
An FPS mainly about playing Muslim Arabs involved in guerilla just isn’t that likely to happen. I wish it did but it’s unlikely.
I guess you are right, the funny thing is there are many videos on-line where you can see actual fighting & tactics by each side (the Freedom Fighters predominate, of course, but there are some videos taken from captured Gaddaffi soliders cell-phones and the like). And the fighting is still predominately infantry-based, with support from light truck mounted heavy weapons, not that many armored vehicles anymore (at least on the Gaddaffi side), and shelling from Grad rockets and mortars…seemingly ideal for FPS war-games and the like, but I have to agree that too many FPS already have used these scenarios, so reality probably pales by comparison.
And as you mentioned, it does seem there has to be an American (or maybe a Brit) for a game to sell. After all, there was (AFAIK) no mass market game concerning the Tamil Tigers rebellion in Sri Lanka, which had very nasty and intense fighting especially toward the end.
There’s a bajillion FPS games where you get told “Go kill that guy with an RPG using this pointy stick” so the asymmetric aspect doesn’t seem like it’d support a game on its own.
It might make an interesting RTS style game (capable infantry with no air support vs. light ragged infantry with sporadic NATO air support) but it still sounds as though it’d be a better game mod than something that would support a core game through repeated plays.
I agree though that the “Libya-what?” part of it is an immediate drawback.