Every month or near as damn it The Games Ingredients will publish a feature called Gossipmonger. Gossipmonger will focus on one or two internet rumours that have been started over the past year. In our first ever episode we look at EA Games Medal of Honor franchise and recent comments by EA Games FPS Community Manager, Matthew Pruitt that the new of Medal of Honor game looks ‘simply stunning!’

Medal of Honor: Operation Anaconda has been thrown into the internet cauldron and stirred considerably, but with all the huff kicked up by do-gooders regarding Atomic games and former publisher Konami’s Third Person Shooter: Six Days In Fallujah. A huff that saw Konami hastily withdraw from the project in April of this year leaving Atomic games all but dead and buried after having to lay off numerous staff. Simply put, people got made redundant because they like making video games for people who like playing video games characterized by violence and bloodshed, who probably listen to the likes of Def Leppard, Guns N’ Roses and Alice Cooper once in a while instead of playing scrabble, solitaire and singing the odd hymn or two.

Understandably, Six Days In Fallujah is based on the second battle of Fallujah; Operation Phantom Fury in which both  soldiers and civilians lost their lives, but look it from other perspectives, firstly, and without sounding callous or disrespectful, don’t soldiers enlist of their own free will and get paid to do a job? I know it’s not like working in a factory or delivering mail and I have a lot of sympathy for innocent civilians caught up in what seems to be these days either a fight for oil or simple retribution, either way it’s a big earner and ultimately it’s the wrong people who pay the price, which takes me to another perspective, Hollywood!

A thriving empire that has made many films based on various conflicts and glorified them to the point of disbelief. Are films not just another form of entertainment, like the video games industry? You come home from a hard days work, sit in front of the 42” HDTV with 5.1 surround sound with a can of beer or glass of wine in hand, a plate of spaghetti bolognese to devour and put Sky movies on to watch the atrocities of war unfold, in glorious high defintion if you can afford it; Saving Private Ryan, The Great Raid, Platoon, Full Metal Jacket, Home of the Brave and Stop Loss are just a  few of Hollywoods offenings that spring to mind. Pretty visceral films might I add, films made to entertain and enthral, like video games.

Yes there is the argument that there is more interaction with video gaming than there is with simply watching horrific war films, yes there is, I’m not disputing that! But video gaming should come with common sense like most things. Video games have age ratings and if certain individuals used some braincells for a change and better policing methods could be applied to such video game services as XBL, PSN and STEAM as well as all the other online retailers and high street stores the video games industry might not be ruled by the voice and actions of a small minority. Rant over for this month!

Back on topic:

Now many a gossipmonger has fuelled the fire, stirred the internet cauldron and ultimately if Medal of Honor is to compete with other notable First Person Shooters of recent times they need to update. EA Games already publish the very successful Battlefield franchise which has seen conflicts in World War 2, Vietnam, modern day and the future and no doubt Medal of Honor is going all out M16 with 40mm grenade launcher instead of the M1A1 and panzerschreck! And if EA decide to revamp the Medal of Honor franchise based off Operation Anaconda, a codename for a mission carried out in early 2002 by the United States military and CIA Paramilitary Officers working with allied Afghan military forces it would no doubt hit levels of extreme controversy.

Medal of Honor: Operation Anaconda coming soon? Maybe.

More infomation on Six Days In Fallujah and Operation Anaconda click the links below.

Six Days In Fallujah

Operation Anaconda

**04/12/09 New Medal of Honor website launched**

Medal of Honor