What Ethnic Group Will Replace Nazis?
- Thread starter Yahtzee Croshaw
- Start date
you know what would probably sell a lot of games here in the ol' US of A? A game where you fight American forces. Not as a Nazi, or a Russian, or a Muslim extremist, because going that far and/or revisiting those old tropes would be a waste of time. I'm kind of tired of this neutral violence (PMC's, South American and African Warlord Militas and so on). I know publishers don't have the balls anymore to take a risk, but why can't games be about anything. An intriguing storyline, good mechanics, and a semi-lengthy campaing and NO QUESTIONS ASKED.
It would be an absolute, mini van sized, shitstorm. Can you imagine what even the 'balanced' news groups would have to say about it? Also how would you be able to make a situation wherein killing american troops would make you the moral superior? Whilst you could play as a bad guy it would be difficult to explain exactly why you should care about your scumbag. \it would make for an interesting premise but right now, in america at least, it is totally unthinkable.BrionJames said:
Not to mention that it's already been done, the whole "Opposing Force" contreversy not to mention a lot of games with conspiricy themes where you wind up fighting the US military. Heck in Prototype the US military is one of the primary enemies. If this guy just means fighting the military, and doesn't intend it to be based around any other nationality, we've already been there both in the fairly serious (Prototype) and the ridiculous (Destroy All Humans) and lots of things in between.Stripes said:
That said, with anti-Americanism on the rise you see a lot of people bringing up this point, you generally don't see it though even in limited releases (as there are games that never leave their country of origin or get translated for the global market) because in general cooler heads prevail, and at the end of the day I think most people realize we're the good guys in the big picture, and the world is better off with us around and doing what we do.
A good example would be how people QQ about "American Agression" in The Middle East, but when asked if they would prefer Saddam Hussein to have remained in power, most will say 'no' or admit that was a good thing to remove him. Yes, there are exceptions, but really most people realize that say having a Saddam loyalist fighting a last stand against US forces or whatever isn't exactly going to be either tasteful or sympathetic, no more than say having a WW II game where you play as a Fanatical Nazi.
White supremacists in general make for some pretty easy targets. Plus you have the added amusement of barging into a Klan meeting and mowing down what look like ghosts. In fact, put all of them in KKK outfits, even when they're in the field doing vile racist operations as part of their evil PMC which they will no doubt have in whatever game they show up as the villains in.
Not a race, and not a party. Racial and political divides come and go, arising over usually trivial disagreements and hopefully burning out after their time. It's socioeconomic lines, as old as life itself, that have cut the really deep wounds in humanity.
I'll take on rapacious robber barons, money-mad mafia, crooked corps, and evil empires quite literally any day. And maybe I could more often, if not for the substantial segment of developed (economically speaking) population that would side with those types (whether out of dependence on them or out of their own ambition), and the threat of class action against whoever dares push such "communistic", "anti-family", "anti-prosperity" propaganda.
I'll take on rapacious robber barons, money-mad mafia, crooked corps, and evil empires quite literally any day. And maybe I could more often, if not for the substantial segment of developed (economically speaking) population that would side with those types (whether out of dependence on them or out of their own ambition), and the threat of class action against whoever dares push such "communistic", "anti-family", "anti-prosperity" propaganda.
Well Yahtzee, I'm Russian and I kinda get mad when my nation is demonized. That said, the only game in recent memory I've played that had Russian antagonist was Vanquish by Platinum Games. And it was kinda awesome - because antagonist won.
Depending on your perspective either USA or China are moving into real-life arch-villain territory, so use that (also Korea). As for the good guys, Canadians or Australians are the way to go.
Depending on your perspective either USA or China are moving into real-life arch-villain territory, so use that (also Korea). As for the good guys, Canadians or Australians are the way to go.
Why not cultist of a deity of the Cthulhu Mythos? or better yet! Lets people from Optimology, the front of The Order of The Blessed Agonies 
Shut up. Please shut up. Or go torture someone and go to prison like you deserve. Because you are that guy, and you are still terrible.Rogue 09 said:
The thing about robots and aliens was pretty interesting. What if you instead played as robots or aliens against other aliens or human beings? I always thought for example that the Geth and the Aliens were way more interesting than the human characters in Mass Effect.
Edit:
This is also a good idea. Make the "enemy" a class of people that most people hate. It's a bit cliche, but I think I prefer the classics over more games on killing people that are not American.Iori Branford said:
Why not make everyone the bad guys, and flip between the various sides of the same war? Obviously not WWII - no-one wants to be a Nazi, after all - but a more ambiguous war, such as the First World War, or the Napoleonic Wars, or the War of 1812.
One of the good things about Civilization is that you can kill whoever you want. So at least you get the option.
Also, how about killing prison inmates or something like that? Nobody likes them and there'll probably be a bit of diversity. Although, the idea of fighting ancient civilizations like Mongols or Vikings is a good one. It'll be fresh and interesting, though it'll probably lead to me getting very angry when developers start giving them horns on their helmets.
Also, how about killing prison inmates or something like that? Nobody likes them and there'll probably be a bit of diversity. Although, the idea of fighting ancient civilizations like Mongols or Vikings is a good one. It'll be fresh and interesting, though it'll probably lead to me getting very angry when developers start giving them horns on their helmets.
OK, Vietnam was Frances mess. Don't blame America for trying to fix what France shattered. The US hasn't killed hostages, and while there was limited torture in the form of water boarding and sleep deprivation, it was never the norm, nor were they invented by the US. I won't deny the coups, but the US hasn't assassinated anyone in 40 or so years. At least not officially. Well, I guess you could claim the drone strikes/Osama, but I dunno.rapidoud said:
...What. You can't be serious. The mongols were obviously pretty nasty, but they progressed a *LOT*.Evil Alpaca said:
@Topic:
The vikings...people, you do realize that technically, both vikings and mongols are villains in a ton of fantasy games already? You just don't realize it.
Orks/Darkspawn/the Horde.
That's a combination of vikings and mongols, but mostly vikings.
Most people these days think vikings mostly raided. This is true - thats what vikings did early on. They raided monastories, villages, the like. But eventually, they formed armies.
It was the apocalypse - in the eyes of the mainland europeans. Cities burned, people were slaughtered in scores, or dragged away, never to be seen again. Entire areas were depopulated, and people fled. Eventually, they marched on the cities too - Paris, for example, survived against them quite a while, valiantly defended by a few scattered defenders under bishop Joscelin (yes, a bishop that fought) and Count Odo (think Aragorn). All the while, Karl the fat (yes, really), then king, tried to bribe the invaders - showering them with gold, only for them to take the gold and keep on plundering a few months later.
Sounds familiar? Quite a generic fantasy plot, isn't it, if you replace vikings with orcs.
The entire "evil army" thing is based on stories that in turn are based on tales from the viking invasions. The europeans then really considered them to be the biblical apocalypse, both due to the brutality the vikings attacked with, the language barrier, and because the early viking raids focused on raiding churches and monastories (easy prey, lots of treasure).
So yeah. We already have vikings as the generic fantasy villains. And I'm 100% serious here. Check out some old contemporary reports on viking attacks and how they described vikings and their methods. These stories are practically blueprints for how fantasy stories usually go, complete with the inept king, bad advisors, and a few valiant defenders holding out against the odds.
(If you wonder, Paris actually held out, mostly because the people of Paris were so extremely angry about the vikings that they refused to budge an inch, and kept blocking the vikings (who couldn't pass the town easily, because it controlled the river). So much for french people surrendering!)
Actually, studies have shown over and over again that you do get pretty bad information from it, because the prisoner answers what he believes the torturer wants to hear, not what the facts are. It's why systems that try to find out truth based on torture never worked in human history.
Not once. There are individual situations where torture may have worked, but these are all of the same type: The tortured person is directly involved, and what they are doing is imminent.
Torture fails for everything else. Torture fails even harder because if you are unlucky and get a innocent person (usually, about 3 of 4 tortured people are entirely innocent, including victims of american torture in torture camps - rofl if you still think Americans "only" used waterboarding or think waterboarding is "harmless), your results are now complete garbage because you forced an innocent person to tell you things that aren't true so the torture stops.
Base it on any of the coups where Americans destabilized a democratic country and installed a brutal dictatorship. There's several possible examples for this.
Fighting americans and their goons would indeed be morally superior there.
France started the mess, but the US made it far worse. Check out how the US handled it, particularly how they pushed a completely insane dictator. This supported the north vietnamese a *LOT*, especially after the suicide of the monk and the way the american-aligned government reacted to it. "BBQ". Need I say more?
Oh, America definitely made it worse, but the US wouldn't have gone in there if France hadn't come begging for help. Why would we? A foreign colony was revolting/being invaded, who cares? But our good friend France wants our help, so we send in some advisers and the like (Green Berets, covert ops) and help out. Then France leaves and we are stuck in a proxy war against Russia/VC/NVA much like Korea, minus the UN.zefiris said:
Truman supported France true. I'm not saying France's colonial attitude was justified either. It was repugnant. France was a former colonial power trying to keep it's territories.Sean951 said:
Truman did provide assistance. When things escalated, however and France pulled out, the U.S stayed in because they feared that Vietnam would turn Communist and join the Chinese. Afterwards, however came Eisenhower, Kennedy, Lyndon and Nixon. Five presidents in total. So don't spin it as the U.S being completely blameless. The U.S fought an imperialists war. That was what was outrageous for a supposedly democratic country.
Like many events in the Cold War, America intervened in a proxy war.
I think you lost the point on torture. France used it during the Algerian War too. There's however a reason it's called "La guerre sans nom", the war without a name. It destroyed any credibility in France, and is still a taboo subject up to date. Torture destroys any amount of moral fiber you have. It's a crime against humanity and I'm surprised those responsible for the Torture weren't prosecuted for breaking the Geneva Convention. It doesn't matter if it was "new" or "innovative" torture. The fact that it happened is despicable. It also happened Abu Ghraib as well.
The U.S isn't explicitly evil,in fact it's one of the nicer countries. It has done some nasty things however. I'm guessing that if it had continued under leadership like Bushe's, it would have certainly become an "evil empire". So, in intent for a game, a future where the U.S has turned twisted is possible.
I think you could do it, take an average American, Hell lets say he's a retired veteran of a past war and put the player in his shoes. Then we conjure up a story around Big Government(?) and Corporations distracting the populus with meaningless entertainment, poverty, etc. and slowly leaching away their freedoms supposedly in their interest. Then somehow the conspiracy is blown, riots blow up in every major city. Our protaganist works with a group of American freedom fighters to overthrow the US government and military. Please don't tell me the logistics of this being impossible for a video game. It's a fucking video game. That aside I think it's something that in the right hands could be a very compelling game.Stripes said:
Nice article this week.
I don't think mongols are completely ignored like what you seem to be implying, just check any fantasy game with centaur in it. they almost always have mongol features and are presented as a ruthless faction with no redeeming qualities.
I don't think mongols are completely ignored like what you seem to be implying, just check any fantasy game with centaur in it. they almost always have mongol features and are presented as a ruthless faction with no redeeming qualities.