Before I make any further point I would like to say as someone of Jewish origin but has no religious views that I think your argument is misinformed although I appreciate your honesty over the Palestinian situation. Yes anti-Semitism is still a problem for Jews, as anti-Islamic behaviour is for Muslims and anti-Creationism is for those people who believe in evolution. But in many cases Israelis who are attacked are attacked over being Israeli as opposed to being Jewish. I remember on my visit to the death-camps (my grandfather was among the British soldiers who discovered such places and so it's important to the family that we go and see it)I saw barbaric things: the collections of shoes, glasses, hair, lampshades. It was sick. But I also saw large groups on Israelis touring, waving their flags and banners. That is also not on as the image of the Israeli flag have negative connotations for many people, given the behaviour of their government and armed forces towards Palestinians who are experiencing a less industrialised and smaller-scale but very similar system of oppression that was visited on the European Jews. I think that is the key issue here.darfvader said:
Moving on to the game topic (sorry to blacken the mood but it's something I need to get off my chest as I feel strongly about it) I support this article as it mirrors my own feelings at a certain point when I was reviewing my shelf and noting how many WWII games there were. It's a complicated problem. In these days where discriminatory behaviour is a minefield issue for everyone, a concrete form of bad guy is necessary and seeing as no one can protest against the portrayal of Nazis without removing the front lobes of their brain or being an ignorant troll, they make ideal enemies. WWII was a war that was universally supported by the populaces of the triumphant nations which cannot be said for any war since. Wars are never simple bad and good which is why I think more sci-fi shooters need to be made because at least then when you're dealing with aliens their moral scale is removed from ours. Some subjects are too touchy, Vietnam shooters never made it the same way as WWII ones.
But the whole repeated set-pieces for WWII games is relentlessly biased. I remember the first level in CoD2 where after the tutorial you are present as a Wehrmacht soldier is 'persuaded' into talking and you are dispatched to rain down some hot lead in the name of Mother Russia; if you wait around the Commissar shoots the captured soldier in the head. The indications made there ignore some key facts about the suffering in Russia while the Allies (represented by Americans in most games, yes everyone says this all the time because it is sodding TRUE!) were deliberating on if it made tactical sense to open up the Western Front before the Nazis had been beaten in the East. That was a colossal dick move that is always hushed up because history is always written by the winners because they can hide their nasties by showing the loser's nasties.
Representing the Holocaust in game format would be tricky, in an action-soaked adrenaline-pumping shooter, developers want to gloss over the bits that would get sticky, like ALL MEDIA FORMS. But in a game following the lines of say ArmA or OpFlash where realism is praised, such a level might work.
In the end, we must do our best to learn about and honour those who died in one of the most horrendous struggles that has ever been dramatised by game media, and we must try not to let the ignorant "them and us" situations that ever politician, power-broker and fool try to put us into.
Tolerate, Understand, and Compromise my friends, Wolfshrimp out
