On Nazis

[ReverseEngineered]

I swear the Nazi's are pure laziness. Not only are they immediately recognizable as "evil" (as Yahtzee said), but when a game designer says, "What's something 'evil' that we can use for the antagonist?" Nazi's spring to mind first. It might be harder to think up a scenario such as a megacorporation selling toy cars with lead-based paint to unsuspecting American kids to make them stupid, and perhaps even harder to use that as justification for mass murder.

The sad thing about the Nazis is that not all Nazis were evil. In fact, many of the people, especially those who fought in the war, were forced into it for fear of being killed for not being a Nazi. You have to remember, even breathing word of not supporting the Nazis would be a suicide note in Nazi Germany. Also, Hitler didn't get his start by being a Jew-hater -- his fascist government actually did wonderful things for the economy -- it was only once he had a strong grip over the country that he started killing everybody who didn't agree with him and invading neighboring countries. Absolute power and all, I suppose.

Overall, I'm sick and tired of Nazis, and especially of WWII. Especially since nobody seems to remember the significant role Canadians played in winning the war (Vimy Ridge? Yeah, that was our baby. That's why they call us Crazy Canucks.) Instead, it seems the US, Britain, and France were the only ones on the Allies' side. (Oh yeah, and the US initially refused to be part of the war; they only joined after one of their ships was supposedly bombed by the Nazis. Turns out, the Nazis weren't responsible.)

Let's stop killing Nazis, zombies, orcs, aliens, and all other automatically-bad characters. Let's start writing real narratives using real-life bad guys: gangsters, drug cartels, terrorists, and megacorporations. We should be able to come up with new, interesting plots, rather than repeatedly replaying WWII.

 

[fenwick]

The most recent Bard's Tale took typical fantasy elements and made fun of them. Every few seconds you ran into the "chosen one," and smashing barrels got you yelled at. What if they made a game in which the instant you shot a zombie the entire town decided to hate you for killing the poor thing?

 

[CuddlyCombine]

Star Wars' Storm Troopers themselves were based off of Nazis, the Taliban are the modern day version

Hold on.

Wait. Just one second.

Can you say that again?

 

[Rainboq]

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?
My late grandmother could protest that.

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..
and that is?

I don't get all the hubbub around the Holocaust, yes millions got slaughter, yes it was unjust, yes it was a tragedy but why prohibit people from showing all the sides, if one was too make a game based on the nazi's they could show that the majority of the Nazi's didn't like what they were doing an most of them tried to opt out of it or show sympathy towards the prisoners but if they did they would be killed. It would also help to dispel the idea that ALL Nazi's were bad/evil, a wound that runs deep in Germany, actually it is illegal to show anything related to World War 2 there.

 

[BusDriverMan]

actually it is illegal to show anything related to World War 2 there.

False.

 

[D_987]

Well, to quote Will Smith "I doubt Hitler woke up every morning and said to himself 'I'm going to do something evil'"

Of course he wouldn't - historical records indicate he was infact a very lazy man who would often sleep until the afternoon...

 

[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?
My late grandmother could protest that.

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..
and that is?

I don't get all the hubbub around the Holocaust, yes millions got slaughter, yes it was unjust, yes it was a tragedy but why prohibit people from showing all the sides, if one was too make a game based on the nazi's they could show that the majority of the Nazi's didn't like what they were doing an most of them tried to opt out of it or show sympathy towards the prisoners but if they did they would be killed. It would also help to dispel the idea that ALL Nazi's were bad/evil, a wound that runs deep in Germany, actually it is illegal to show anything related to World War 2 there.

I should've pointed out that I was talking of a historical memory's point of view, in that case 60 years is not long enough, even more so since there are still WW2 veterans alive out there. But, to make it relevant to the topic, let me add that WW2 makes for easy game scenario writing..

As for which game showed the Holocaust, I think it's Velvet assassin.

 

[darian Nenith]

Actually, there is a game about how awful Mcdonalds is. It's a flash game, but it does exist.

 

[awatkins]

I liked the Zombie-Nazis in Modern Warfare. They were scary cuase they they didn't want Jew brains, so this was one time that they got away without the punishment they deserve...
On a nother note, maybe a WW2 game would benifit if the FPS-ing part was done through the eyes of a band of rebel jews who are sick of being oppresed and living in constant fear.

 

[ItsAPaul]

Wow, that last bit is a really good idea.

 

[combat90]

I actually really like the idea of being allowed to choose whether you want a game 18+ or lower, and still have the same (kinda) game. My little brother always comes asking if i got a game he can play, but all the games I have are bloody, and I dont think it is fit for a 9 year old to play Bioshock.

 

[NeoShinGundam]

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

I agree. It's an absolutely BRILLIANT idea!!

 

[NPC]

As much as I agree Nazis are overused, and that the Edgar-Allan-Poe-Stash was ruined.
I disagree with a lot of comments saying "oh, they were just following orders, most of them weren't bad." Lots of recent evidence shows how many people did in fact turn over their friends as being traitors only to tell reporters "oh, I don't know how my signature got on there."

I think that if we pump out another "Nazis are bad" game every year, it will be okay.

The problem isn't the Nazis, it's the fact people want to make their games for the point of making games, not to tell a unique story. If a guy yells out "hey, I really think that the fact Britain ended up making a fake army of inflatable tanks was cool... let's make a game where your a spy and you hunt down and kill people who are leaking information to Nazi Germany so that Allied plans are not discovered and stuff like that" let him, sure the game would probably suck, but it's better then "guys, we need another game... you have any spare Nazi sprites?"

 

[SachielOne]

There's probably another reason Nazis are used so frequently: There is literally no one (outside of a handful of extremist groups) who will get angry at you for making a game killing Nazis. They may get angry at the violence in the game, but you won't have another Capcom/RE5-type fiasco on your hands.

 

[sueyed]

the Taliban are the modern day version (and yes I know they're not fictional.

I'm pretty sure this man just compared the Taliban to Nazi Germany. I shall now attempt to resist jumping on the opportunity to call him an ignorant, short sighted American that couldn't tell the difference between the holocaust and a newscast.

Yeah I failed.

 

[SextusMaximus]

the Taliban are the modern day version (and yes I know they're not fictional.

I'm pretty sure this man just compared the Taliban to Nazi Germany. I shall now attempt to resist jumping on the opportunity to call him an ignorant, short sighted American that couldn't tell the difference between the holocaust and a newscast.

Yeah I failed.

I'm British I'll have you know, and I know nothing about The Taliban, I thought I'd throw it in there and hope I was right, clearly I wasn't.

I'll now go cry in shame...

In fact, it's probably best if I stop posting in threads with even a hint of Historical background.

 

[whaleswiththumbs]

WEll, The SAboteur can get away with using Nazis, the game is set at the invasion of Paris, and then the overthrow. So it's not like they could have replaced the baddies with another to make up for it. As fa as I know it was Nazis, not Russian mercenaries who invaded Paris in 1940.

 

[Vinticore]

Censors are just being silly, buying the game to begin with is a choice by the dude/dudette

 

[Eversor]

Nazis are indeed an overused sort of bad guys. Helghast are cool though. I haven't played any of the Killzone games, but to me, they come across as soldiers that fight for the cause they see is right, even noble in their own rotting-zombie-like way. This [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_W1_WbvufQ] theme of theirs might be a large impact, of course. Ruthless to their enemies, fighting for a cause they see is right (as far as I understand, they were somewhat forced to live on their extremely hostile homeworld, being exiled there by the ISA oppressions, the role of which you assume in the games, so their hatred is more than justified) - eliminating the traitor human race. Hell, drop the space-nazi entourage, switch their flags to red, blue and white, and there, now they are the ultimate good guys that were wronged and crippled by their oppressors in the eyes of the media. That's how easy it really is to demonize your enemy - throw nazi entourage on them. That's how deep this whole thing has sat in.

Maybe Killzone has taken the right approach in this, where both conflicting sides can be related to. On the battlefield, the enemy is always evil. But when looking from afar, the two armies clashed into a conflict are often enough exactly the same. But that is thought provoking and difficult to understand, therefore it has no place in the mass media. Nazi Germany should be held as a good example of what happens, when the victors of war go too far in their self-righteous thirst for loot, not the symbol of great evil.

 

[Something Amyss]

Ever played any first person shooter that had Nazis in it and thought to yourself : "I wonder if this guy has a family. Maybe he's doing this to feed his kids. Maybe it's his last day because tomorrow he'll have enough of this mindless fighting and BOOOOM there goes his head..."

Do people really wonder this sort of thing in an action game? I don't even wonder this about the 80 year old lady whose oxygen tank I snipe in Saints Row 2, and she's not a Nazi or even a bad guy. It's not because I'm a sociopath or a coward; I just know they're not real. I rarely concern myself with their lives, their race, religion, belief system, or whether or not they brush their teeth. I don't think this is a bad thing, either.

Regarding Nazis: I wouldn't be bothered if they weren't so overdone. Nazis in video games are even more evil in most respects than their real world counterparts. They're only rivaled by the fact that no fictional holocaust can trump the real one, even if you remove all humanity from the characters. If one is really worried, perhaps one should focus a touch more on worrying that we end up trivialising one of the most monstrous acts in modern history.

Regarding T, A, and Cooking Mama: This will replace Cthulhu in my nightmares. Cooking Mama aside, I'm not particularly a fan of the opt-in, but I have to wonder if this is the best sort of solution to placate the whiny people who want to make our world PG. At least the parts without Nazis, terrorists, wars, gang violence, AIDS, cancer, and the depletion of vital resources. You know, because living in a good world isn't as important as pretending we live in a good world.

I don't really "get" the deal with T&A. Both the people who seem to need it in video games and those who think it's so horrible. I tend to err to the side of opposing censorship, though, especially with how unhealthy our cultural views of sex and our bodies are. If you're actually disturbed by body parts roughly half of us have, don't pretend I'm the sick one because I'm not.