Britain in videogames

[Ca3zar416]

Now thinking about it I can't think of any British developers. You hear about foreign film and everything and while you may not watch it it's very well known to exist but, with gaming the ONLY countries I can think of that make a largish number of games are the US and Japan.

Gorram double post.....

 

[Chibz]

How many WW2 games have actually had the british feature in though?
I can't even think of one!

Could be worse. The only Canadian character I can think of in a video game is a villain. (Villain of Metal Slug). Be grateful, could be worse.

 

[Iwata]

How many WW2 games have actually had the british feature in though?
I can't even think of one!

Could be worse. The only Canadian character I can think of in a video game is a villain. (Villain of Metal Slug). Be grateful, could be worse.

95% of the cast of Scott Pilgrim VS The World: The Game is Canadian. Plus, Call of Duty 3 has a Canadian campaign.

 

[Magicmad5511]

We may not have a good role as the protagonist but we get an excellent job as the villain. I say just role with it and lets be evil. It's much more fun to be villainous evil. It will also mean it will be all the more awesome when I eventually become a super villain.

 

[Alexander Cunningham]

also ive yet to see a single game made outside of the UK that has Welsh accents

I think the obligitory sheep shagging minigame would cause too much contoversy. XD

(sorry couldn't help it)


besides? why no norn irish?

 

[Baradiel]

I think the use of the SAS in Modern Warfare was pretty cool. In fairness I can't think of any games where we're portrayed badly, we show up well in all the ones I've played with main characters that are British. All, what, four of them?

What about Killzone?
Sure they weren't ACTUALLY British, but they had the accent!
And the ties with Nazi's which i found odd.

I'm going to be a prick here, and just point out that the Nazi Party was welcomed in parts of Britain before the Second World War. We even had Hitler speak in Parliament if Im not mistaken (which I might be). Just saying

OT: I think the lack of games concerning Britain is a bit disappointing, but understandable. Most of the games industry is in the US, Canada and Japan, so naturally many games will be targeted towards those countries.

However, in the games where Britain or Brits are portrayed, we're usually portrayed well. In Call of Duty, there's the SAS (I refuse to acknowledge the Task Force which was supposed to replace them in MW2) and they're so badass is incredible (to quote Yahtzee, "just like real life!")

Then theres games like Killing Floor, which was developed by Brits, and while the voice acting is slightly dodgy ('I'm tryin' ta heal you, nawt tickul you!") I think it presents Britain quite well, with its dark humour and ravaging hordes of monstrosities.

But sure, I'd be happier with more games focused on, or involving, Britain and British characters. I have high hopes for ME3, and I hope we get to have the sniper.

 

[Yopaz]

Call of Duty have had a lot.
Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts had some pretty badass Brittan soldiers.
Red Alert 2.
Professor Layton.
Killing Floor.
The Fifa series.
Winter Olympics.

Daniel, the protagonist of Amnesia: The Dark Descent is English.

I think Professor Layton might be as well (although you could just as easily argue he exists in another universe).

Lara Croft is British, Cammy and Birdie from Street Fighter, the protagonist of No One Lives Forever was British, Everyone in GTA: London 1969...

A harder challenge would be some Australian characters. With the exception of Under a Steel Sky (which was set in a future, distopian Australia where everyone speaks with an American accent), there aren't many other games set in Australia, or featuring Australians.

Professor Layton The Lost Future is set in London and what is made out to be future London so I think that should count, but the other games so far (as far as I can tell) are set in other fictional parts of England.

it always feels like we're just being lumped in with 'the rest of the world'.

Um...is it so unfair if it's also happening to the "rest of the world".

As mentioned last time this came up a few weeks ago, Giants: Citizen Kabuto features a bunch of English space thingies and Scottish aliens. And one French alien.

Precisely.
I only feel it more on Britain because I'm British.
But it annoys me that there is America, Japan and then 'the rest'
We all need individual identities as a country, which is why it annoys me when i say I'm from Britain and people go 'Oh, you mean Europe?'

Try telling someone you're from Norway and get the question "is that in Florida or anywhere near it?", at least being a Brit they know you're from the pond east of New York.

How many games are set in Luxembourg? How many games are set in Azerbaijan? Most countries are never represented in anything but sport games.

 

[pejhmon]

What about all the badass British Imperial Guard characters in Warhammer 40K games?

Warhammer was originally made by Games Workshop which is an english company so that's kinda given that there's a very english race.

OT: Release dates in England are not too bad. With Steam and all most games are released within about 2 days (up to a week for consoles) of the US if not on the same day anyway. Movies are practically released at the same time although I have noticed MovieBob giving me very very early reviews sometimes (and very occasionally, very very late reviews such as 4 Lions). Mainland Europe gets delayed moreso, I live in Spain for 4 years and they get some films about 4 months after england (normally the not so popular ones, like I remember "The Hurt Locker" coming out in September in England and January in Spain).

On the topic of Britain in games themselves, it's not too surprising that the list of british themed/inspired games is few when there are not so many british devs out there. Killing Floor is made by Tripwire who are American, for example (I was very shocked when I found that out, especially with the knowledge of cockney slang and the char models (chav, footie hooligan etc))

 

[Dragunai]

What about all the badass British Imperial Guard characters in Warhammer 40K games?

To be fair, i have never played that game. Are they evil?
And i only said most games, which i've found to be true.
Especially WW2 games.

How are British people in WWII games shown badly, they're usually shown as brave, witty soldiers.

As for Warhammer 40K, well everyone is a bad guy in their own way. The Imperial Guard have good intentions, it's just the way they go about it that can be questionable.

Brave witty soldiers in the 1 or 2 battles the Americans will admit the British participated in.

Company of Heroes was originally America vs the Wermacht and then a while later they went "Oh hey! Weren't the Brits in WW2 as well? We need some material for our expansion pack so let's put them in."

Imperial Guard are front line tank mulch.
They have an amazing array of armour to choose from but the actual soldiers, unless specialist, are just there to stand between the enemies guns and their own tanks to provide a meat shield.

Think "Operation Get behind the darkies" from south park and you're on the right lines.

 

[pejhmon]

Doctor Who is Britain centric, it treats the rest of the world as secondary in importance to Britain. Which is terribly inaccurate Britain is not even the most important state in Europe let alone the world. Doctor Who should represent every nation equally based on their population and importance.
I'm joking of course I would hate to see Doctor Who change to be more PC

Bear in mind that Doctor Who started in the 60s when people still had the post colonial sense on national pride, "Britania rules the waves" etc etc. That and TV shows from england then had no chance of being broadcasted elsewhere due to the limitations of the medium so they could be as patriotic as they liked

 

[dimensional]

Bloody hell man, we're not that important
Just do what I do, feel represented whenever Europe is mentioned. That way at least our continent is being acknowledged

NO!!!
We are UBER-IMPORTANT!
Why?
Because we have DOCTOR WHO!!!
...

Doctor Who is Britain centric, it treats the rest of the world as secondary in importance to Britain. Which is terribly inaccurate Britain is not even the most important state in Europe let alone the world. Doctor Who should represent every nation equally based on their population and importance.
I'm joking of course I would hate to see Doctor Who change to be more PC, but I'm getting tired of hearing Brits yell "I'm important(cried the dust speck) why is my country not portrayed as I wish it to be." Sometimes I think the BBC must be filling your heads with delusions of grandeur.

Woah back up youre going into a different argument there, dont want to start disparaging folks homes also importance is measured differently by different people just look at the news people upset because `unimportant` country X has invaded `unimportant` country Y and killed loads of people in short you dont have to be large ,rich,powerful,famous etc to be important everything is equally important and unimportant because it has no acceptable/appropriate measure, end rant.

OT: Britain is represented in video games its just most games arent made there I have no problem with the majority of games being Americanised or Japanised (or whatever the hell its called) I play for fun and dont care if some supposed American or British character only speaks Japanese or any other way around and as for it not being accurate in games pretending/claiming to mimic scenarios i.e WW2 well its a game its for entertainment if I wanted accuracy I would read factual books/articles and seek specialist opinions you know do research try and uncover what really went on not play a game or watch a film then deride it for an unrealistic portrayal or if I know nothing about the events in that game/film I wouldnt accept what it told me as fact even if they did have experts of the event on board or/and I liked what it was saying. (phew long sentence curse my grammar)

 

[Sinclair Solutions]

Amnesia: the Dark Descent is in England, is it not? At least, it's main character hails from Mayfair.

Yes, Britain is under used in video games, but so are a lot of countries. Even I, as an American, would like to see some video games outside of America, but what are you going to do? Saboteur did Paris fairly well, and I think they showed that we can do cities besides New York.

 

[ExodusFlame]

Sure there is not many games out there with a great diversity of country's in them because they mostly revolve around America and they're obsession with they're own history and trying to constantly kill Russians Japanese people German people and basically anyone else. But i do find anything outside of America is usually blatantly ignored or hardly ever featured as a main character excuse me if i am wrong.

 

[TheModWolf]

Australia features in video games as either crocodile dundee rip offs or....that's it.

Britain is usually lumped in I agree but you guys do get easily the best character in Reach, Jorge. I'd take that.

Jorge is Hungarian

Technically Jorge was born on reach so he's not anything, and he speaks with a british accent so that's good enough for me.

http://halo.wikia.com/wiki/Jorge-052

 

[Chibz]

95% of the cast of Scott Pilgrim VS The World: The Game is Canadian. Plus, Call of Duty 3 has a Canadian campaign.

D'OH! How could I forget about Scott PIlgrim vs the world the game?! That game's awesome, too!

However, you could probably forgive me for not knowing that CoD3 had a Canadian Campaign. I'm not in the habit of playing trash.

 

[ChupathingyX]

How many games are set in Luxembourg? How many games are set in Azerbaijan? Most countries are never represented in anything but sport games.

There's a level in Resistance: Retribution set in Luxembourg.

There are two levels in CoD 4 set in Azerbaijan.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Bear in mind that Doctor Who started in the 60s when people still had the post colonial sense on national pride, "Britania rules the waves" etc etc. That and TV shows from england then had no chance of being broadcasted elsewhere due to the limitations of the medium so they could be as patriotic as they liked

Actually, though, when it started off, it wasn't very British centric at all. Although stories set on contemporary Earth would be set in Britain, they spent most of their time on alien worlds, or mucking about in the past. They dealt with French and American history before they did British history, which was at the end of the second series.

Imperial Guard are front line tank mulch.
They have an amazing array of armour to choose from but the actual soldiers, unless specialist, are just there to stand between the enemies guns and their own tanks to provide a meat shield.

Think "Operation Get behind the darkies" from south park and you're on the right lines.

There might be some argument there.

But...the IG don't seem very British. Of the regiments GW has ever done much with, you have Mongolians, Russians (both Soviet era and Tzarist era), a Middle Eastern one, a Vietnam era US one, a WW1 German one, a WW2 Afrika Corps one, a generic modern weatern one, a USMC in dress uniform on the parade ground one...yes, there's an obscure Zulu Wars era British one, and the MkMarty Sue Tanith one, which maybe sorta is scottish, a bit.

GW seems to think that foreign (or at least foreign sounding) influences would be more interesting. It's Blood Angels, not Blood Angles, after all.

 

[Sizzle Montyjing]

Doctor Who is Britain centric, it treats the rest of the world as secondary in importance to Britain. Which is terribly inaccurate Britain is not even the most important state in Europe let alone the world. Doctor Who should represent every nation equally based on their population and importance.
I'm joking of course I would hate to see Doctor Who change to be more PC, but I'm getting tired of hearing Brits yell "I'm important(cried the dust speck) why is my country not portrayed as I wish it to be." Sometimes I think the BBC must be filling your heads with delusions of grandeur.

All countries represent them selves as the center of the world, if Britain wants to be in games more they need to make more games. Also there are far more important countries that get ignorred way more then Britain. If you want to play games where everyone is represented play stuff like Europa Universalis III: Divine Wind, it does not have everybody but it has a lot.

That was a joke.
You do know that right?
I seriously don't think that Britain is TOO important, i mean, we are important, because we have some nukes!
But i don't think that we're to important, just like to get A BIT more media attention on what we do...

 

[spartandude]

Great Britain/England is overpowered as hell in Medieval II: Total War and Napoleon: Total War.
>_<

In Medieval they have armor-piercing Longbows, which are the best missle units besides the French Scots Guard (Which you'll probably never get anyway :l), and in Napoleon they have the best riflemen and light infantry in the entire game. Tain't fair. ;_;

Go play Victoria 2

 

[Sizzle Montyjing]

Amnesia: the Dark Descent is in England, is it not? At least, it's main character hails from Mayfair.

Yes, Britain is under used in video games, but so are a lot of countries. Even I, as an American, would like to see some video games outside of America, but what are you going to do? Saboteur did Paris fairly well, and I think they showed that we can do cities besides New York.

Thank you for bringing you're point across in a calm and well-mannered way, without trying to kill me.
I agree with you, what i was trying to get across in this thread is that everywhere else other than America is under used it games, i used Britain because i live in Britain, therefore i feel it effects me more.
But i would really like to see games based elsewhere, places like Russia, Germany and yes... Australia...