TaboriHK said:
There are a ton of Vietnam games. The fact that we didn't win the war didn't slow us down from making games OR movies about it. In fact, that seemed to have encouraged it.
I wouldn't really say there's a ton of games. There were a significant number last generation (but not alot of good ones) and this generation, aside from the concept of nazi zombies put in vietnam and then gone horribly, horribly wrong offering of shellshock 2, A few levels in black ops and the BC2 vietnam add on are the only ones I can think of.
I think it comes down to videogame's current position as a artistic medium. America will gladly handle vietnam in movies, where it can be seen as artisticly justifiable, even when it isn't (I'm looking at you, air america. You...you weren't that good) but in videogames, if someone makes a game about vietnam, there's so much more risk of people blindly calling it disrespectful without even playing it, and to be honest, in this occasion, we can't usually give any examples to fight back with. Sure, aside from possibly shell shock 2, No games have been directly disrespectful of the losses of the vietnam war, but they've hardly been as thoughtful as say, full metal jacket or platoon.
I'm not saying BC2 vietnam, black ops, or any other game mentioned would be instantly wrong to set themselves there, far from it. If it makes a good game and isn't directly aiming to offend, then go for it. I'm just saying that I would like a game that covered the conflict with the same sort of depth as some of the films about it have, as I would for any conflict.