Destineer, Atomic Announce Wii Shooter, Still Pushing For Fallujah

Atomic Games says it hasn't given up on its military quasi-documentary game Six Days in Fallujah, even with the game having been dropped by its publisher -- but in the meantime, sister developer Destineer is staying in the Marine combat game with a Wii version of 2005's Close Combat: First to Fight. According to Destineer and Atomic president Peter Tamte, speaking in a Marine Corps Times report, Atomic Games "remains committed" to Six Days in Fallujah, which was the subject of considerable controversy before it was dropped by publisher Konami. As of August, the game had still not found a new publishing partner. In the meantime, Destineer plans to release Marines: Modern Urban Combat, a squad-based Wii first-person shooter. The game is actually a port of the 2005 PC and Xbox game Close Combat: First to Fight, also developed by Destineer. That game, in turn, had its roots in two precursors developed by the previous incarnation of Atomic Games: Atomic's technology created for military simulation games, and the developer's long-running Close Combat series of PC tactical and strategy military games, which it handled through the 1990s before delegating duties to third-party studios. Unlike Fallujah, Marines: Modern Urban Combat is not based on a specific real-world conflict, although it is set in in a realistic take on modern-day Lebanon. And while no Marines consulted on the game, as they have on Fallujah, Tamte told the Times that dozens of Marines contributed significantly to previous versions of the title. Some of those same consultants later participated in the Second Battle of Fallujah, and returned to work with Atomic on Six Days in Fallujah, which is based on that specific operation. "One of our objectives with First to Fight that also carried forward to this project is to celebrate the values of the Marine Corps -- honor, courage and commitment," Tamte said of the upcoming title. "We view this more as an opportunity for the average consumer to understand more about Marines than they might get just by reading the newspaper." Destineer has slated Modern Urban Combat for a November 10 launch in North America.