On Nazis

[BusDriverMan]

There are games where you can play as WW2 German combatants - off the top of my head, the Silent Hunter submarine sims, and Il-2 Sturmovik where you can fly most of the Luftwaffe's aircraft (and everyone else's too)

Yes, the Third Reich is overplayed. But there are alternatives. How about a game where Hitler is averted and the Nazi party never rises, and Germany rebuilds and defies the harsh Versailles treaty peacefully and without much blind ideology, and then Bulgaria invades Yugoslavia to recover the Southern Dobrudja region it lost at Versailles?

Or how about a WW2 game where you play the flag-waving Allied troops as normal, but you're fighting Hungarians or Italians or Romanians somewhere in eastern Europe?

 

[Kollega]

...responsible human beings, as alien a concept as that might be to the Australian government.

I thought this concept was also alien to Yahtzee himself, but whatever. I guess he just spouts nihilistic bile because it makes him popular.

The Australian government deserves all the bile it gets for their attempts at Chinese style internet censorship and for no R18 (admittedly that last one is mostly Atkinson but still).

You misinterpreted me.

I meant Yahtzees's constant "OMG PEOPLE ARE SHIT I HATE THEM" projectile vomiting.

 

[Fensfield]

Well, Yahtzee bashing aside, the article makes a fair point that many videogames set in the Second World War go the easy route, setting Nazis up as the villains and just having done with it.

But that aside, the Second World War is also one of the most powerful storytelling backdrops in history, and Nazism is a fundamental part of it. The trick with Nazis, if you ask me, is unlike - as Yahtzee put it - having to actually portray them as bad guys, you have to deploy them very carefully as part of a larger setting.

I think a very compelling game set during the war would be one that focusses on something entirely other than the Nazis, and merely lets their sheer, overwhelming influence, power and control during that period of history speak for itself. There was very little at that time 'could be done without the Nazis being involved in some way after all. Then they'd go from a cheap badguy to another part of the flavour.

I guess an example might be Indiana Jones.. at least sort of. In those films, it was less a case of 'Nazis are badguys because Nazis are evil' and more a case of 'Nazis are badguys because during the period when pulp-style archaeological adventuring was even vaguely possible, they were all over the freaking planet and interfering with everyone and everything'. Or of course, there's 'Allo 'Allo, where the Nazis were everywhere, but the story never shot one of them, ever - it was a simple fact that, comedy though the series may be, should the character ever go one step too far on their oppressors, they'd all be dead, end of story, and that was a necessary part of the setting and the series' success.

 

[Carlston]

What kills me about Nazi's...
Back when "Toy Story" yes toy story was made on ps1. The Mexican population of America had a fit when you had to defeat a toy "Bandito" with sumbrao and all with nerf darts. And they called it "Virtual Genocide"

Yet we allow generation after generation pretty much the AOK to kill a german because of Nazis 60 years ago.

You know that in it's own right disturbs me the most. The ultimate murdered enemy, and it's ok because a long long time ago they did bad things to people. So we need to keep a steady history of killing them back...

 

[Elf Defiler Korgan]

This was an excellent little essay on Nazis.

Especially liked "I'd say they were pretty flat characters, if they hadn't actually been real."

Yep. Games need depth, games need less Nazis. I always liked Gal Civ 2 for providing that. Questioning of actions and motives along with the course of galactic conquest. Seeing two cultures bleed into one-another's air space and then inevitably into conflict. Trying to secure peace and stability without killing billions. Asking those questions of am I doing the right thing by spreading the culture of my peadophile federation to multiple star systems, and causing civil war and hostility. Big questions.

 

[Naheal]

Spoiler: For you, Yahtzee.

 

[Nunny]

Am i the only one who thinks it is weird to label the entire German Army as Nazis"?
No one goes around labeling the Americans by thier current Government group.

(if something similiar has been already said, my bad.)

 

[cannonfodder666]

Censors can't complain about corrupting the children because installing the adult content becomes a choice made by responsible human beings, as alien a concept as that might be to the Australian government.

Instead of choosing it install "adult" DLC into a game. How about people choose to not buy the 18 rated game for their underage childern.

instead of blaming things on the game why not jail the smacktard parents who bought the ineproprit game for their spawn?

Or is this just wishful thinking on my part?

 

[SpcyhknBC]

Am i the only one who thinks it is weird to label the entire German Army as Nazis"?
No one goes around labeling the Americans by thier current Government group.

(if something similiar has been already said, my bad.)

I actually read the entire thread to make sure it didn't, and you beat me to it. One thing people forget is Nazi was a political party. It's like calling all American soldiers democrats. Not every German soldier was a member of the nazi party, and for all you people who didn't know, Charles Lindberg, yes the great American hero famous for being the first man to fly across the Atlantic, praised Hitler for his manufacturing techniques and economic policies.

 

[Quoth]

If anyone has ever watched the Mitchell & Webb show then you may find this funny!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FsNLbK8_rBY

This is exactly what I thought when I read this.. a small amount of plagourism in this editorial perhaps?

 

[Mushroomfreak111]

Never had a problem with nudity in videogames, never felt the need to have it tho. As long as the game is going to be 18+ anyway, why the heck not?

Nazis... How tired am I of Nazis. I read up on everything I could find about them back in the day, before I discovered WW2 games. Now I'm sick and tired of the era and am not likely to ever play a WW2 game again unless it's insanely good... If only game makers could do their badies a little bit better...

 

[Rainboq]

Big question for anyone still obsessed over world war two, why do you care anymore? it happened over 60 years ago, every aspect of it has been analyized to death and its tuime too let it all go away. In short, it happened, let it go and learn about it in school.
Off topic: Isn't making world war 2 games war profiteering?
P.S. why doesn't anyone make a game where you play as the nazi's?

 

[chessmasterhex]

Best Extra ever.

 

[Galad]

Considering how much resources and time graphics take from the making of a game, that explanation about why nazis are the perfect video game baddies was spot on..

Big question for anyone still obsessed over world war two, why do you care anymore? it happened over 60 years ago, every aspect of it has been analyized to death and its tuime too let it all go away. In short, it happened, let it go and learn about it in school.
Off topic: Isn't making world war 2 games war profiteering?
P.S. why doesn't anyone make a game where you play as the nazi's?

60 years is not THAT long, you know?

Because it would cause too much of a negative uproar. You and I might not care, but the millions of Jews certainly would. Hell, only one game I know of would dare to show the holocaust..

 

[Metal Brother]

I love the "Free DLC opt-in" idea. Bring it on.

 

[GodKlown]

At first, I was a little distracted by the humor of this article before my brain really started to kick in to gear on this topic. Let me lay a concept on the masses here...
I will grant you that nearly every culture in today's society will overwhelming agree that Nazis = evil. No question, hands down... aside from the small population of Neo-Nazis still running through high schools and killing kids on Hitler's birthday (tasteless observation, but true). But the thing is, who else can developers cast as the token "bad guy" anymore? Middle Eastern people? Irish people? Religious zealots? Here is where the problem lies... it seems as though every other group other than Nazis has a support group that will sue game developers for insinuating they are ALL possible for being bad, even in a fictional setting. Take for example the movie "District 9" and the firestorm that created in Africans because of how they were portrayed in a fictional movie loosely based in their country. They were fine with housing non-hostile aliens, but to portray them as hording guns and prostituting female aliens seems to be too offensive... wtf? Movies don't stray too far away from video games in the genre of fantasy, and you can't even use a broad stereotype in either without possible stepping on someone's culture unless you do it in a way that is such a broad stereotype that you make them out to be a parody of them.
There aren't a lot of support groups for Nazis these days, regardless that history is written by the winners. I'm certainly not going to defend the Nazis (current or historical), but it is too easy to pin anything bad in a video game on them. They have an established backstory that developers don't need to develop, their obvious evil needs no definition or explanation, and they always seem to be working on some master plan to take over the world. No one ever questions whether or not to kill Nazis, they are pretty much like modern history's version of a whipping boy that takes all the abuse and no one has to feel bad about using them over and over again instead of developing something new. That's where modern society has failed us frankly... we don't have the freedom to pick on anyone, even in a fictional manner. You rarely ever see the United States cast as a villian (regardless of how the world at large views that country from time to time), or really the Chinese (outside of a World War 2 context).
Take Halo for example. Popular title that became the trademark of Microsoft... no Nazis. We had to travel to the future in a fictional set of events to create an enemy that no one could be offended by. These dumbass protesting hippie freaks that get pissed about every little damn thing in the world have made it so that you can't enjoy shooting anyone other than a Nazi, a zombie, Nazi zombies, or some weird-colored alien politically correct. So why in the hell aren't we shooting these picketing douche-muffin hippies instead of Nazis? Oh right... stupid pacifists. Even still, unless the violence takes place on a distant planet in the future or in some weird-ass time travel experiment (looking at you, Assassin's Creed!), you're going to piss off some special interest group and get a media backlash that will somehow affect the bottom line of making a profit without negative publicity. The answer? Throw in some Nazis, bad scripting (both in story and AI), slap some uniforms on everyone and call it a World War 2 shooter... works for Call of Duty.
I completely agree though that Nazis should be left out of future games. I'd really like to say that 2009 was the last time we saw any Nazis in video games, regardless of their role in the game. It is time we came together and decided what the new hate group was going to be for the next 60 years, but frankly, who else has the track record of bad deeds than the Nazis? Come on vigilante groups and religious weirdos, start pulling your weight so I have a different face and set of uniforms to aim at in FPS games!

 

[Sheo_Dagana]

A lot of people tend to lump the German people and it's army in with the Nazis because Hitler was elected to power. But the thing of it is that people make mistakes... granted more people tried to correct that mistake than others...

Yahtzee is completely right when he says that making Nazis the enemy is poor writing. It is. A good portion of the world see the Nazis as the ultimate evil (although we Americans are now being led to believe terrorists are) so you don't even have to question what a soldier was doing when he was standing around and you sniped him. He had a red armband with a swastika on it, so he must have deserved it.

I think it would be interesting of a game of any genre were made where you played as a German soldier during WW2 that ends up switching sides about halfway through. I'm sure a lot of people think that, though. Personally, if they don't do something like this I'd rather not see another WW2 game. I'm tired of killing Nazis... and lately, I've gotten tired of killing Russians.

 

[AssButt]

I do find it interesting that the Nazis are always singled out (They should be if elected dictator of the world for life I shall instate a White Power/BNP/Other Morons shooting gallery. If they take more than a minute to die you win ducky) but they seem to forget about the horrors of the East and the Japanese.

Stalin wasn't a sparkling example either.

Most German soldiers weren't members of the Nazi Party. Even then, the Japanese committed similar atrocities (read up on Unit 731) and Stalin killed much more people than Hitler did.

Most WW2 vets don't hold a grudge against the Germans, a lot of them do against the Japanese.

Only 200 000 deaths have ever been recorded that could be blamed on Stalin any other figure is an approximation as no other evidence survives to this day (or so we are told)

OT: People always seem to just use Nazis as an excuse for lots of things like Yahtzee says people often just stick a man in a grey uniform with no prior explanation in fact throughout various games you are expected to assume that they are bastards!


Lets face it if the airport scene had men wearing grey uniforms at any point or perhaps a german or austrian tourist people would not have cared!

It depends on how you measure it, some figures range as high as 60 million, which is likely a gross exaggeration, other figures give around 20 million which is much more likely.

 

[fenwick]

I agree that the use of the Nazi as a villain is rather lazy. It lets a designer avoid giving details as to the enemy. They use a paint brush of evil and call it a day. Look to the game Freedom Fighters and Turning Point: Fall of Liberty. Now game play aside- in which Freedom Fighters wins hands down- the handling of an invasion of America by two large ?evil? Empires is handled very differently. In Turning Point the Nazis just invade, and throughout the game no effort is made to show them as more then thugs with guns. You throw on some steel helmets, an airship, and the swastika then that?s it instant villain. Freedom Fighters had the ?evil? Soviets invading but it took the time to show them acting evil. It did not just put the hammer and sickle on the enemy and let you have at them. You got to see the Soviets arresting people, murdering, and things that in the context of the story made them the bad guys.

Of course one has to give the Saboteur a little credit for going a little beyond simply throwing the Nazi?s on a map and saying ?kill them.? The game tried in some way to give a reason for the player to fight. Although in the story I wonder if anything would have occurred if that Irishman never saw his friend die. That would be a fun message, ?Hey unless the Nazi?s kill someone you love, just lay low and drink a lot.? Makes me wonder how much effort would be needed to make a game not using stock characters like the Nazi?s. If the Purple Alien Empire took over Paris how much back story would we need to know they are bad?

 

[YoUnG205]

Even if Hitler had not had that tash I do not think that it would have been popular now. I have to agree though I think that their are to many games that have Nazis in.