Poll: Why isn't Australia in any shooters?

[Slim-Shot]

I've actually thought about this a bit myself. It wouldn't be difficult to do a Call of Duty: ANZAC. We, the ANZACS, were regarded as the best allied soldiers in North Africa. Rommel's reasonably well known quote was: "If I had to take hell, I would use the Australians to take it and the New Zealanders to hold."

There are also a ton load of battles to chose from in WWII. You could swap between and Aussie and Kiwi soldier. Start with the retreat in Greece, then the Kiwi's defending Crete against the German paratroops. Then you have all the N.African battles to chose from, Tobruk and Alamein just to name two major ones. The last part of the game could be set in Italy (mind you, the aussies had packed up and pissed off by this stage - but this only opens for some pacific missions). The attacks on Monte Cassino would be a great mission.

I agree that it won't happen though. Most games are marketed for the American audience... and Americans only seem to be happy playing as a white middle class male killing Arabs, Nazis, Russians or Koreans.

Edit: Ok, just saw the poll results... and what a laugh. New Zealand, because we are a member of the Commonwealth, The UN and allied with the US have been involved in a crap load of wars and conflicts. You can chose anything from the Boer war, to Gallipoli or Passchendaele. We fought for 5 years in WWII cutting a lap round the Mediterranean from Greece to Crete, Egypt, Lybia and Tunisia before heading up Italy. Straight after WWII we were in the Malaysian Emergency with the English. We fought in Korea and Vietnam and are currently deployed in Afghanistan. Our SAS have been there the entire time, and they haven't lost a single man. You can bet your arse they're in a full combat role too.

Australia's military history is similar - but much worse. Those poor bastards had to fight drinking weasel piss beer.

 

[ultimateownage]

Because no one but Australians give a shit about Australian history. No one but Americans give a shit about American history either, but their wars were often international and publicised by the media. My only quarrel is when they replace soldiers from non-American battles with American soldiers or American voice actors, like they do in so many World War II games.

Also, that was post was really hard to read, OP.

 

[distortedreality]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxZiae16Ry8

That's brilliant.

 

[Korolev]

Because there's only 23 Million of us and over 300 Million Americans. Plus, I am a bit ashamed to admit this, but I know far more about American History than Australian History. Quick, how many US presidents can you name? I can list almost every single one of them off the top of my head, and I stress that I'm not an American. As for Prime Ministers, I can name.... maybe 7, and I know almost nothing about the ones that were around before I was born.

Australia's Military history is also not exactly one of victory and glory. We have brave, brave soldiers who have fought against tremendous odds with valour and skill... but we've won precious few big battles. We held out for ages against the Japanese Imperial Army, and we should rightly be terribly proud of that - but we were playing defence the whole way. If the Americans and the Brits hadn't been there.... Australia couldn't have lasted out. We would have lost.

Also, our army is... well, regionally we are strong. We are one of the strongest armies in Asia and the strongest in Oceania. But if you stacked the Australian army up against the Russian Army or the UK army or the Chinese Army or certainly the American Army, we're small fries. Our navy is an absolute joke - we have no capacity for force projection. Oh sure, we can sail to Indonesia and beat a few rag-tag Indonesian militia men. Oh sure, we can give the Fijians a nasty fright with our, what, six function warships? Which are old and ageing? And our barely functioning, continuously-needing-upgrades-never-quite-fixed-joke of a submarine fleet?

Australian soldiers are good soldiers who fight well with what they have. But our military is small fry compared to almost anyone else's. We've got a pretty good airforce (consisting ENTIRELY of American Jets), we've got a pretty good ground force (Consisting entirely of American tanks), and we have pretty good infantry (Armed with Austrian guns), but I can tell you, if we went up against China alone, they'd frickin' eat us alive. We could barely hold off the Japanese during WWII, we'd have no chance against the Chinese, what with their nuclear weapons and thousands upon thousands of tanks and planes and Anti-air missiles.

We are the side-kicks to the US. Sad as that is, that is the truth. We could probably hold our own against Indonesia if it came to blows (Indonesia doesn't even HAVE a navy as far as I'm concerned). But against anyone else, we'd be in trouble. We need the US. Our troops couldn't have even got to Afghanistan if it wasn't for the US airforce.

I'm not bad-mouthing the Australian armed forces. They are brave, capable and they do their job quite well, GIVEN WHAT THEY HAVE, which is to say, not much. We simply don't have the money or the equipment, or the technology to be a major military power in the region. Our Military history is filled with grand hold-outs, death-defying struggles and unbelievable tenacity in the face of overwhelming fire-power. Australian troops are tough to kill, but they aren't well equipped enough to be a major attacking force. Grand hold-outs are never as grand as grand victories. You go to most people and say "Hey, do you want to relive the holdout at Kokoda? Or the flag raising on Iwo Jima?" Most people have never heard of Kokoda, and the victory of Iwo Jima sounds much better than the hold-out of Kokoda.

Simply put, we're too small. Not enough people know of our history and our history, let's face it, is less glorious than that of the Yanks. They've got The Battle of Iwo Jima, the Landings at Okinawa, the Battle of the Bulge, the D-Day landings, the Liberation of France, the Vietnam war, the US Civil War (which is still their deadliest war in all of American history ya know!), the Korean War (we helped, but let's face it, it was the US that held the line against the Chinese), the current Afghan and Iraq war, Desert Storm, the Invasion of Panama. Culturally, America is this huge giant that affects pretty much everyone. Everyone knows who Abraham Lincoln was. Who else outside of Australia knows who Menzies is? Or Bob Hawke? Or Edmund Barton!?! Hell, I had to just now look up who Edmund Barton was (our first Prime minister and an all-round boring fellow by all accounts).

It's sad to admit but Australia is still culturally in the backwater. America have IBM, the Moon Landings, The Wild West, the Mexican-American war, Wall Street, New York, Hollywood and all that. Australia has.... well... we've got Uluru. And a great big barrier reef.

Now before you go saying "if you love the US so much, why don't you live there!?! Traitor!", I will say that although America is a far more interesting place than Australia, Australia is a far, far, far nicer place to live with a nicer, if less-glamorous culture. Australia is a far safer, friendlier place to live. In terms of equality, life-expectancy, distribution of wealth and just sheer beaches and sunny days, we've got the americans beat. America might be where the action is, but it's also where the hate, the anger, the dirt, the grime, the crime and the nastiness is. Australia might be weaker, poorer, less well known, but it's also nicer, just as developed, and, frankly, a more beautiful country. Yes, our history is mostly dead boring, even to us. Yes, we're out of the way and no one pays much attention to us except to make cracks about Crocodiles and Pavlovas. But we've got the best beaches and the friendliest smiles in the whole world. They can keep their over-blown military.

 

[SweEscaspist]

I'm gonna a little offtopic here and ask, why isn't there a FPS set in Switzerland (not sweden, learn the differnce boys and girls). Switzerland has a kinda cool army. Yeah I know Switzerland is a neutral in war but they do have an military system. For example every household in switzerland has to go to an army checkup every year. The household have an rifle wich they check during that checkup. This system is basicly to make it easier to gather the army quick IF Switzerland would be attacked by someone... say for example UN or the European Union. But it's not like that is gonna happen. Ever..

 

[SomethingUnrelated]

I'd love to see a game based in Australia, or as has been said in this thread, Canada. They're both interesting landscapes, and if you integrated gameplay which complimented those landscapes, I think it'd spawn a great game.

 

[ParanoidAndroid]

I was thinking the exact same thing about Ireland. We have enough military history, but no-one gives a crap if it doesn't involve America. I think it's due to public interest.

 

[Slim-Shot]

There was a big idea from some of the indies in Aussie/NZ to do a WW1 ANZAC FPS game. But it seemed a little to offensive, and rather boring. Remember 95% percent of WW1 fighting was down sitting in a trench, waiting for a moment to charge, and then dying. It wasn't exciting at all. You didn't fight trench to trench like they show in movies. It was just a waiting game mostly until either you went up and over, or artillery zoned in and you had to move.

Only way I could personally figure it working would be perhaps as an annual event where you used great big servers to power massive battles of 1000's of players in a gigantic "One shoot kills" war reenactment of battles. Maybe where people purchase a code to access the battle at a specific time, the money going to ANZAC fundraiser. But again, it would be a huge drain on servers, internet and such. In the end, WW1 on the ground was just not that exciting.

Now maybe a multiplayer game based on WW1 with alternative technology to offset the lack of moving armor to hide behind, that might work. Maybe something like automatically trench diggers so you can move up and up quicker.

No, I agree. I can never really see a WW1 game working. We were suffering like 95% casualty rates at Gallipoli. It just wouldn't work. What I would like to see is a commonwealth game from WWII.

 

[googleback]

FOSTERS: MODERN WARFARE

CRIKEY SOAP!

 

[Jakub324]

I hadn't really thought of it either, but I suppose they could easily be the focus of a WW2 game, perhaps the siege of Monte Casino?

 

[Puzzlenaut]

The fact I can't name a single battle Australia has been in means the average American CERTAINLY won't (what with their education skipping over everything outside of their own country and all.

That is why.



Honestly, I'm surprised that Modern Warfare has been so heavily based around British characters when it seems the type of game to play solely as a big patriotic hoo-hah for the "Amerrrica, fuck yeah!" breed of yank (i.e, the dumb republican stereotype)

 

[ParanoidAndroid]

I was thinking the exact same thing about Ireland. We have enough military history, but no-one gives a crap if it doesn't involve America. I think it's due to public interest.

Now Ireland would be awesome. But unfortunately you could imagine the backlash since the IRA are considered terrorist to most of the international community. Unless it was from the view of Northern Ireland soldiers, it would be considered offensive. Then it would simply be one of the millions of shooting games that did the same thing.

Still, gotta say, the idea of a game based from the viewpoint of an IRA solider in the earlier days of the group, back when they where more open and less "Blow up innocents" would be VERY interesting. Sadly, unlikely to happen.

I think it would be interesting to see the Easter Rising, the Civil War, and the early IRA (the ones who weren't terrorists) but, that's never going to happen.
Also, it would probably be full of drunken leprechauns, 'cause that's pretty much how the rest of the world see us.

 

[ryai458]

Because America is actively picking fights, where as everybody loves Australians

by all means Australia doesn't have to be the good guy australia can join up with many other contrys that want america taken down a few notches.

You can't beat America if we start losing we would nuke you till you glow.

 

[Roxor]

You can say the same thing about alot of countires. I live in England and im quite surprised at how few games we feature in even though weve got alot to do with American history. We aparently make a few preatty bad ass cameos in COD but I never played them. Were the bad guys sometimes which is cool but often its not stated whether theyre English or just posh.

Cameos? Hell, it was the Brits who saved the day in both Modern Warfare games.

OP, while it would be interesting to see a made-up conflict in Australia, (idea: Let's put Homefront in Australia, with better gameplay and more varied shooting, because it would be a lot more believable) remember that most games aren't made in Australia. Most people who make things would rather set them in their own country for the sake of ease. Oh, yeah, and you could forget any notion of "blood effects".

You could do a "what if" scenario covering Australia kicking out a Japanese invasion during World War II. The government at the time did consider it a real possibility and planned to let everything north of Brisbane go if things got bad enough. There are also the remains of tank traps in some areas, built for an invasion that never came.

As for the style of gameplay, it would be guerrilla warfare. Our boys are very good at it. How good are they? Well, read the TV Tropes article about them [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/UsefulNotes/AussiesWithArtillery].

 

[jFr[e]ak93]

The States could annex Australia as they did Canada for the next Fall Out game.