I'm generally sick of World War II games. I could probably go the rest of my life without playing another and be happy. The well of ideas from that era has more or less run dry. Persistently killing the Nazis from WWII is time-worn, but it's not just the WWII genre. The Nazis have become a generic fallback for developers lacking ideas for enemies. I'm curious, if we have any German gamers floating around here, about how you feel about the game industry using Nazis as their general punching bag? Obviously, the actions of the Nazi party in WWII are not to be forgotten, but has the game industry gone too far to epitomize them for all that is evil?

Also, my family is completely Jewish/Israeli, so please don't think I'm ignoring the loss of life to my people in making this topic.

I don't killing them, since I realize that I am not killing real people. And as for the whole "Nazis are the ultimate evil" thing, I am extremely apathetic, and don't care in the slightest.

The problem with WW2 is the same problem as with the civil war in the US. We fought the war because we needed to stop the enemies' surge of power. They were getting overly powerful and were causing a lot of problems, and needed to be stopped. Later on in both wars our enemies were demonized as we used their racism as a means for justifying the war. The more we skew said racism, and our enemies, the more it looks like we did the world good. I guarantee you less than 1% of the Nazis killed in WW2 or the confederates killed in the civil war were responsible for the genocide or slavery. In fact the grunts doing the fighting were too far to be involved anyway, and often too poor. It's unfortunate, but it's just the way it is.

"history is always written by the victor" (or something like that)

the only good ww2 games are blazing angels

Since most Germans these days aren't Nazis, I doubt they mind much... but don't take my word for it.

Canadianwookie:
The problem with WW2 is the same problem as with the civil war in the US. We fought the war because we needed to stop the enemies' surge of power. They were getting overly powerful and were causing a lot of problems, and needed to be stopped. Later on in both wars our enemies were demonized as we used their racism as a means for justifying the war. The more we skew said racism, and our enemies, the more it looks like we did the world good. I guarantee you less than 1% of the Nazis killed in WW2 or the confederates killed in the civil war were responsible for the genocide or slavery. In fact the grunts doing the fighting were too far to be involved anyway, and often too poor. It's unfortunate, but it's just the way it is.

"history is always written by the victor" (or something like that)

Dead on

The same thing as I mentioned before is happening to iraqis and afghans who are fighting to defend their homes from invaders, they're made out as terrorists, and we are led to believe they all had a part in 9/11. It's hard to justify a war, or a shooter video game, without a direct reason to be killing the bad guy.

But I still don't get why america hasn't made an american revolution shooter yet....Seems pretty obvious, and it could be fun.

Fire gun, watch bullet completely miss target and hit the helpless little drummer boy. Do minigame to reload, fire again, watch same process occur, rinse dry and repeat.

When you get close quarters you attack your bayonet, or draw a melee weapon and the true fun begins in duel style fighting to the death. (bludgeoning opponent with rifle butt, stabbing him in the eye with your bayonet etc) It could be a quite visceral, educating and exciting experience.

Besides, who doesn't love themselves a good couple of English baddies, and some clever and sneaky Frenchmen fighting alongside the powerful and righteous american soldiers?

Surely not I.

Given that they are not Nazi's, i imagine they care very little.

Not all Germans are Nazis. Generalization killed the you.

Canadianwookie:
The same thing as I mentioned before is happening to iraqis and afghans who are fighting to defend their homes from invaders, they're made out as terrorists, and we are led to believe they all had a part in 9/11. It's hard to justify a war, or a shooter video game, without a direct reason to be killing the bad guy.

But I still don't get why america hasn't made an american revolution shooter yet....Seems pretty obvious, and it could be fun.

Fire gun, watch bullet completely miss target and hit the helpless little drummer boy. Do minigame to reload, fire again, watch same process occur, rinse dry and repeat.

When you get close quarters you attack your bayonet, or draw a melee weapon and the true fun begins in duel style fighting to the death. (bludgeoning opponent with rifle butt, stabbing him in the eye with your bayonet etc) It could be a quite visceral, educating and exciting experience.

Besides, who doesn't love themselves a good couple of English baddies, and some clever and sneaky Frenchmen fighting alongside the powerful and righteous american soldiers?

Surely not I.

That kind of game could, if done correctly, be very brutal... and would certainly be worth playing.

I know a few Germans, and they make a very basic yet important distinction, which I think you should keep in mind.

They are not Nazis.

EDIT: Beaten by Ultrajoe.
Edited EDIT: Who in turn was beaten by OurobosChoked. Oh the humour.

Graustein:
I know a few Germans, and they make a very basic yet important distinction, which I think you should keep in mind.

They are not Nazis.

EDIT: Beaten by Ultrajoe

And I beat Ultrajoe :P

Graustein:
I know a few Germans, and they make a very basic yet important distinction, which I think you should keep in mind.

They are not Nazis.

EDIT: Beaten by Ultrajoe

It's strange though, I had a German foreign exchange student in my school and one of my friends asked him how he felt aboout Hitler. The German got very angry and said something in German (a swear I assume) then left the room and avoided my friend for the rest of the year.

Germany has some quite stringent laws regarding the depiction of violence, the original Call of Duty has an 18 rating, for example. In addition to that, depicting swastikas outside of historical contexts is banned. It wouldn't surprise me if German gamers have killed far fewer Nazis than you might think.

EDIT: Incidentally, there is no need for an apostrophe in the thread title.

Eldritch Warlord:

Graustein:
I know a few Germans, and they make a very basic yet important distinction, which I think you should keep in mind.

They are not Nazis.

EDIT: Beaten by Ultrajoe

It's strange though, I had a German foreign exchange student in my school and one of my friends asked him how he felt aboout Hitler. The German got very angry and said something in German (a swear I assume) then left the room and avoided my friend for the rest of the year.

I'm not surprised. The whole thing is a bit taboo in German culture.

Canadianwookie:
But I still don't get why america hasn't made an american revolution shooter yet....Seems pretty obvious, and it could be fun.

Actually, I made a topic about that. http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.70888#707186

I realize that not all Germans are Nazis obviously. Many people enlisted in the German army in WWII to fight for their country and feed their loved ones, not to kill Jews. But the gaming community makes no separation between the two. Many German people today probably have grandparents who thought they were just doing what was best for their families. I'm just wondering how the generalization is perceived by current German gamers.

BleachedBlind:

Canadianwookie:
But I still don't get why america hasn't made an american revolution shooter yet....Seems pretty obvious, and it could be fun.

Actually, I made a topic about that. http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.70888#707186

I realize that not all Germans are Nazis obviously. Many people enlisted in the German army in WWII to fight for their country and feed their loved ones, not to kill Jews. But the gaming community makes no separation between the two. Many German people today probably have grandparents who thought they were just doing what was best for their families. I'm just wondering how the generalization is perceived by current German gamers.

Oh, you're talking about that generalisation. I thought you were on about Germans being upset because we overuse Nazis as a villain, which somewhat perplexed me because most of them see the Nazis as villains too.

I'll have to ask my friends about that, but there's the chance that they don't even know it. I'm not sure how strict they are exactly, but the Germans are pretty big on censoring games, and I don't think any game in Germany would have Nazi trappings in it.

I'm from Austria, if it makes any difference to you, and I don't give a damn. I don't concur with the national-socialistic system and think of them pretty much like you do. They are what videogames would consider villains and there's nothing wrong with depicting them as the such.

The reason I still don't like the fact that they are so overly present in video games is the simple lack of variety or ideas. Game developers often use them as an excuse for not having to create humanly flawed villains with evil goals but humanly understandable motivation. It often gives you a general example of what the story will be like.

As for the whole censorship issue, Germany does censor for violence mostly. Most of Hitlers crimes however are so insanely violent that realistically depicting them would serve for a clear ban from Germany and Austria most likely as well. The reason swastikas and the like aren't present is because it would infringe with the law against reenaction. Not only the national-socialistic party was banned forever by the german and austrian constitutions, but also the "propagation of national-socialistic ideas". Wearing swasticas, raising your right
hand for saluting or verballizing "Heil Hitler" can now lead to a short prison sentence.

Eldritch Warlord:
It's strange though, I had a German foreign exchange student in my school and one of my friends asked him how he felt aboout Hitler. The German got very angry and said something in German (a swear I assume) then left the room and avoided my friend for the rest of the year.

It might have been because we are sick of being associated with him. Especially the younger generations around here start to think it is a bit unfair to shun them for the crimes their grandparents commited.

Or it might have been because he was just sick of the topic. It may seem strange to someone who didn't grow up here, but many are just don't want to talk about it any longer. As part of working through the past, World War II and the third reich form a huge part of our curriculum. Talking about the reasons for World War II, the holocaust and other crimes of the third reich takes about a semester in our history lessons and in german, we are very often reading prose or poems by Brecht, Dürrenmatt, Frisch, Böll or Borchert, all of which dealt with the NS-Regime mostly.

It seems even millionfold mass-murder gets old after a while and then it suffers from the same fate as other topical issues like aids or globalisation. Every time the teachers mention them you will hear us moan because we have already talked about them umpteen million times.

Canadianwookie:
The same thing as I mentioned before is happening to iraqis and afghans who are fighting to defend their homes from invaders, they're made out as terrorists, and we are led to believe they all had a part in 9/11. It's hard to justify a war, or a shooter video game, without a direct reason to be killing the bad guy.

But I still don't get why america hasn't made an american revolution shooter yet....Seems pretty obvious, and it could be fun.

Fire gun, watch bullet completely miss target and hit the helpless little drummer boy. Do minigame to reload, fire again, watch same process occur, rinse dry and repeat.

When you get close quarters you attack your bayonet, or draw a melee weapon and the true fun begins in duel style fighting to the death. (bludgeoning opponent with rifle butt, stabbing him in the eye with your bayonet etc) It could be a quite visceral, educating and exciting experience.

Besides, who doesn't love themselves a good couple of English baddies, and some clever and sneaky Frenchmen fighting alongside the powerful and righteous american soldiers?

Surely not I.

Yes, it's certainly difficult to understand how people who strap bombs onto retarded women and then detonate them in crowded markets could become labeled as terrorists. Personally I blame the right wing extremist media-industrial complex.

For the American revolution, there's a couple of reasons. The first is that the biggest developers of, and the biggest market for, video games are in the USA. Great Britain is our closest ally, and American gamers don't like the idea of shooting Brits. Germany is a big ally as well, but the field is a bit different - Americans think of Nazis as completely separate from today's Germans, but Great Britain is still the same old constitutional monarchy (albeit a severely weakened monarchy.)

The second is that muzzle loading combat would be, well, boring. It has the action of neither modern rapid fire weapons nor melee weapons. Only when the action gets hand-to-hand would it be frantic and exciting.

The accuracy isn't quite as bad as you make it out though, at least on the American side. If you've ever shot muzzle loaders, you know that a well-built Kentucky or Pennsylvania long rifle has a very long sight window, allowing precise aim. A well-formed ball is accurate enough to reliably strike a man-sized target out to a couple hundred yards. For the military muskets it's closer to what you described, but the Brits relied on volley fire, and were the best in the world. When your side fired a volley, you'd see a whole wave of troops go down.

Canadianwookie:
The problem with WW2 is the same problem as with the civil war in the US. We fought the war because we needed to stop the enemies' surge of power. They were getting overly powerful and were causing a lot of problems, and needed to be stopped. Later on in both wars our enemies were demonized as we used their racism as a means for justifying the war. The more we skew said racism, and our enemies, the more it looks like we did the world good. I guarantee you less than 1% of the Nazis killed in WW2 or the confederates killed in the civil war were responsible for the genocide or slavery. In fact the grunts doing the fighting were too far to be involved anyway, and often too poor. It's unfortunate, but it's just the way it is.

"history is always written by the victor" (or something like that)

Except the American Civil War was not fought over slavery. I do agree that war propaganda, especially look at the stuff from the World Wars, is used to dehumanize the enemy.

I imagine that Germany and German gamers take the same approach the rest of the world does. No one likes to be reminded of their wrong doings, so the topic is generally avoided.

werepossum:

Yes, it's certainly difficult to understand how people who strap bombs onto retarded women and then detonate them in crowded markets could become labeled as terrorists. Personally I blame the right wing extremist media-industrial complex.

Yeah, it's even more difficult to understand how US soldiers who raped/killed civvies during the vietnam war, and in Iraq too, are hailed as heroes, fighting for freedom and democracy.

Sigh, back to the topic at hand. This is one of the biggest reason I won't play any other WW2 game after CoD5:WaW, mainly because, I want new settings, fictional settings, not the reharshed stories/history we have seen over and over again.

Canadianwookie:
"history is always written by the victor" (or something like that)

"History is written by the observer. Propaganda is written by the victor."

German's don't avoid the legacy of WWII. In fact from my conversations with a friend of mine who lived in Berlin for several years, the legacy of WWII and the Nazis is a huge part of German politics and their everyday discourse. So make no mistake, the burden of that horrible time in their history looms large over modern Germany.

I think Americans have this notion that after WWII Germany emerged fully formed as the progressive European nation we know today. In truth, both the legacy of the Nazi party and a divided Germany are still huge topics they engage with everyday, much as Americans have dealt with the issues of civil rights over the past 40 years.

I'm german and played my fair share of WW2 Games, and i don't mind...and none of my friends either.

For me, it's just pixels, so i don't feel like i'm killing my grandfather or something. Then again, my grandfather wasn't a Nazi solider, so that can't apply anyways.
And despite that...do Americans mind shooting other americans in Games like...i don't know, GTA4? Thought so.

I don't know what my friends think, but another thing is: We aren't Nazis, actually very few Germans are, and given that we are constantly bashed for our "rich" history, i think germany despises Nazi "Traits" like racism much more than other countries.

I for myself am pretty much fed up with all that "Never forget" thinking, since i am born long after the second World War (1986), never met a former Nazi in my life, but been indoctrinated in Schools for a decade or so how evil the Nazis were.
I think germany has a pretty unhealthy relationship to this dark chapter of the past, since we cannot seem to shut up about it (There's a Nazi-related Mayor Motion Picture produced every year, there are countless Documentaries over Hitler, and history class overs the "third Reich" over multiple years), but at the same time distance our self from it rather extremely.

In another (german) Forum i actually had a discussion with someone else about it, and he talked about the whole thing as if the Nazis were evil Aliens in german Form, tricking the country into hating Jews with thier evil mind control rays. I guess that happens when people tell you constantly about that "you people" being Nazis once.

As i said, we tend to distance ourselves from all that (to different degrees), and as such, i don't think anyone minds shooting virtual Germans.

joethekoeller:

Or it might have been because he was just sick of the topic. It may seem strange to someone who didn't grow up here, but many are just don't want to talk about it any longer. As part of working through the past, World War II and the third reich form a huge part of our curriculum. Talking about the reasons for World War II, the holocaust and other crimes of the third reich takes about a semester in our history lessons and in german, we are very often reading prose or poems by Brecht, Dürrenmatt, Frisch, Böll or Borchert, all of which dealt with the NS-Regime mostly.

It seems even millionfold mass-murder gets old after a while and then it suffers from the same fate as other topical issues like aids or globalisation. Every time the teachers mention them you will hear us moan because we have already talked about them umpteen million times.

I dont know how long a semester is but if its similar to a term in england ( a third of a year) then you spent a whole heap less time than we did discussing the holocaust and the crimes of the third reich.

Not that im getting on a high horse, our history covers very little of the British Empire.

OuroborosChoked:
Since most Germans these days aren't Nazis, I doubt they mind much... but don't take my word for it.

I was gonna say that, and even in WW2 a lot of Germans were not Nazis.

I expect Germans enjoy killig Nazi's, since they had to suffer tehir rule for several years. Not all Germans were Nazis, and that a stereotype most people resent- including myself.

nilcypher:
Germany has some quite stringent laws regarding the depiction of violence, the original Call of Duty has an 18 rating, for example. In addition to that, depicting swastikas outside of historical contexts is banned. It wouldn't surprise me if German gamers have killed far fewer Nazis than you might think.

EDIT: Incidentally, there is no need for an apostrophe in the thread title.

I wonder what people first think of when they see this:

EDIT: picture resized.

corporate_gamer:
I dont know how long a semester is but if its similar to a term in england ( a third of a year) then you spent a whole heap less time than we did discussing the holocaust and the crimes of the third reich.

Not that im getting on a high horse, our history covers very little of the British Empire.

A Semester is half of a school year here and that was still a bit of an understatement.

As part of the Austrian school system, if you attend a secondary school you are given the opportunity to leave school and get a job once you have completed the mandatory amount of years. So the teachers try to teach you everything before that day, in case you will be gone afterwards. What this means is that anybody who stays in school will be going through it again, this time dedicating even more time to WW 2, about an entire year. And that's only the time we spend discussing it in history. The amount of time we spend discussing it in German is hard to evaluate since it's not clearly seperated from the rest of the curriculum. However, since poems or books that at least remotely deal with it are oftenly read, it's an almost omnipresent theme. Then there's a short time discussing it in Psychology, Philosophy and English.

Syntax Error:
I wonder what people first think of when they see this:

large picture

Look carefully before reacting.

That's the wheel of the sun, an aztecian symbol for their highest deity, the god of the sun.
It is said that the Nazis have been influenced by it when creating their swastika. The only difference being that the endings extend counter-clockwise.