The Problem with World War 2 Games...

[Mistermixmaster]

How about the Battle of Caen (1944) during Operation Overlord, where British troops got bogged down in armoured fighting in the ruins?

Call of Duty 2 had a few missions set in Caen, and Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts had a great big campaign about the British and their fight to get to, and fight for, Caen.

Guadalcanal, Peleliu, Tarawa, Guam...

Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault has Guadalcanal and Tarawa as about half the game. It's great. Heroes of the Pacific also has a majority of the Pacific War, in a freakin' stellar WW2 arcade-airplane game.

Seriously, between Heroes of the Pacific and Blazing Angels: Squadrons of WW2, you'd go from all over the pacific, to London, Norway, Dunkirk and Paris, to name a few. Add in the Company of Heroes games and expansions, and you suddenly got a large chunk of the war in France from D-Day to the closing of the Falaise Pocket, Operation Market Garden and a chunk of the eastern front.

Those of you saying there's a part of WW2 not covered in games just aren't looking hard enough

 

[Gethsemani_v1legacy]

Call of Duty 2 had a few missions set in Caen, and Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts had a great big campaign about the British and their fight to get to, and fight for, Caen.

I had totally forgotten Caen in CoD2, but I intentionally disregarded OF since it is a strategy game. The ire that WW2 games usually get is mostly aimed at FPS-games so that's what I focused on.

Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault has Guadalcanal and Tarawa as about half the game. It's great. Heroes of the Pacific also has a majority of the Pacific War, in a freakin' stellar WW2 arcade-airplane game.

Rising Storm also has Guadalcanal and Peleliu as two maps, but Rising Storm is also the odd kid on the block because it is entirely pacific centric, has two asymmetrical teams and is multiplayer only. As far as they go, Rising Storm is probably the best example of a WW2 game done right, because it manages to present the PTO in a fairly realistic manner while still keeping decent gameplay balance.

Seriously, between Heroes of the Pacific and Blazing Angels: Squadrons of WW2, you'd go from all over the pacific, to London, Norway, Dunkirk and Paris, to name a few. Add in the Company of Heroes games and expansions, and you suddenly got a large chunk of the war in France from D-Day to the closing of the Falaise Pocket, Operation Market Garden and a chunk of the eastern front.

Once again, flight sims/arcades aren't really what most people consider when they say "WW2 games", even the OP only discuses FPS games. IL-2 Sturmovik covered pretty much the entire eastern front, but sitting in an aircraft above the battlefield provides a certain sense of detachment.

Those of you saying there's a part of WW2 not covered in games just aren't looking hard enough

Find me a game covering the Finnish Continuation War or the German retreat through Finland and Norway in 1944-1945. Or the Soviet Manchurian campaign in August 1945. I dare you =P

On a more serious note, it is not that some parts aren't covered. It is more that some parts are very spottily covered whereas others are so saturated with games that you can easily get the impression that the war went something like Stalingrad->D-Day->Berlin. Theaters like the Pacific or even a majority of the Eastern Front still have plenty of potential for great games.

 

[Bertylicious]

"Bomber" Harris was a frigging murderer and he should have been put in prison. He had a lot of public support though. I remember my Father telling me about a memory when his mum called him and his sisters out into the garden to watch the bomber formations flying towards Germany.

"Now it's our turn!", she said, utterly delighted. Sickening really.

Wasn't Harris responsible for Dresden? Because I remember Bomber Command was pretty damn awful about selecting military targets in the wake of the Blitz.

Amongst other cities. Apparently he used to keep little blue folders with 'before and after' photographs of all the cities he'd ordered bombed.

I think it was Hamburg that was the first city he ordered fire bombed. Like Dresden, the mixture of fires and high explosive created a tornado of fire. The wind got up to hurricane speeds and the city became a furnace. Apparently the tarmac melted, glueing the feet of civilians trying to flee and boiling the flesh off their living bones.

It was super effective! Horrible though.

All the tens of thousands (not to mention the 12,000 or so air crew who died on his incessant raids) he killed was a drop in the ocean compared to China, Japan and the Eastern front though. This is what is so difficult for WW2 games to capture; the sheer scale of the thing.