When you run out of ideas, go back to Russia!

[SckizoBoy]

Huh... I suddenly thought of a Hellsing based game... as Seras Victoria, running around with Harkonnen/Vladimir shooting the hell out of Nazi vampires/zombies... though they're probably not German, they all weirdly spoke Japanese...! ¬_¬

That'd be amusing wouldn't it? -_-

 

[Saladfork]

I always thought a game wherein you played as one of the people typically portrayed as villains in a game. Wouldn't it be kind of neat to play as a German soldier in the later days of WW2, knowing that you're probably going to lose but ordered to fight to the last anyway? You want to be an underdog, there you go.

Anyway, the go-to villains in any given piece of art will generally reflect people's opinions and events of their time. You got Germans and the Japanese during and for awhile after WW2, you got Russians throughout the cold war, and even after the Soviet Union fell, our hack writers had nobody to replace them with until arab terrorists came into the public eye, so they stuck with Russia anyway.

You can really tell that nowadays they desperately want to use China, but anyone who wants a piece of the bohemoth of a pie that the Chinese market represent will veto it, so they have to use a stand-in like obviously Chinese robots or aliens or even more laughably, North Korea.

 

[Frission]

Why not going back to monsters? "Realistic" games are a joke, and at least the game might be more interesting and original if it's set in a more fantasy or sci-fi oriented universe.

I think deliberately using a single nationality as a target post, to be rather reprehensible. What if the victims were American troops then? That's horrible right? Then why are German, Russian, the Chinese or Arabs considered acceptable.

Huh... I suddenly thought of a Hellsing based game... as Seras Victoria, running around with Harkonnen/Vladimir shooting the hell out of Nazi vampires/zombies... though they're probably not German, they all weirdly spoke Japanese...! ¬_¬

That'd be amusing wouldn't it? -_-

Like this for example. A cross between Witcher, Castlevania and Dark Souls with a bit of Call Of Cthulhu mixed in would be awesome.

You can play as a hunter/inquisitor/grand poo-bah, fighting monsters. Alot of it would be based on preparing yourself, since you're a simple human being fighting against monsters. You can have the nerve wracking experience of fighting something so much stronger than yourself. Although if you wanted it to be more like a shooter, then you could give the main character gigantic weapons to "even things up".

Unless, of course you decide to become like the monsters you are fighting. That could go like a working sanity/morality meter, since if you try to remain completely human, you would have a much harder time. Hmm, the more I think about it, the better the idea.

 

[BrotherRool]

I can get a lot of people not wanting to play games with monsters in them. I figure you should either pick a country that's not actually picked on for this sort of thing, USA, Britain, France, Canada whatever (Admit it, French-Canadian bad guys would be amazing) Or have a multi ethnic super team of terrorists. Or pick a real conflict, or pick a situation kind've reflected in real life but make it complicated. So don't just shoot middle easterns, maybe have middle easterns be the protagonist, same for Russia. Don't go for the low target of North Korea etc

You should always be intelligent when picking a bad guy and never lazy because it has a serious cultural impact and I'm not talking about any of that violence stuff, I'm not a scientist, I mean every time you shoot a Russian or Muslim it reinforces the cultural perception that Russia is a weak almost-dictatorship or the middle east is just full of violent degenerates. Yeah its just a game but this is how we form these stupid baseless impressions of these countries, we watch films, read books, talk to each other although we're all ignorant and feed reactionary newspapers and politicians. Game developers have a duty to be responsible instead of reinforcing stereotypes

 

[the clockmaker]

I think it is because world war two put our idea of war through the lens of pretty clear good and bad. What we need are more war games in the vein of world war I, where the matter is mostly over political grievance or economic concerns, rather than a stated casus belli of 'they're gonna nuke us'. I want, for example, a war game where the conflict is a split in the EU as France and Poland try to wrest economic dominance away from Germany, or Spain and portugal fight a brief border conflict. Both sides should have campaigns. I want a game where both sides are just professionals conducting the job that they were trained for and neither side is 'evil'.

Operation Flashpoint dragon rising did a fairly good job of this, the Chinese were not demonised at all, it was simply a matter of disagreement between the US/Russia and China in which the diplomats failed to de-escalate the situation.

 

[sunsetspawn]

Russians don't mind. They understand that their government was dicky for awhile during the cold war and this old antagonism towards the US will continue to make them the occasional bad guy in our media.

On the other hand, there are some groups that could get offended if they perceive that they're being made to look poorly in western media and that's when fatwas get issued and guys start yelling about jihad while shooting AK47s in the air.

 

[RicoADF]

You know, I am very surprised game makers haven't decided to tap into the undercurrent of disdain for the US harboured by pretty much everyone else on the planet, the closest games have come in the modern generation to doing anything less than making the US military look like the shining example of human integrity, how could you possibly suggest we are anything but?! Are Spec ops (obviously, since you actually, you know, FIGHT American soldiers) and CoD 4 Modern Warfare (wherein the Americans are shown up as being anything but effective in their strategy of "HURDUR LETS SHOOT BROWN PERSONS", even as you play them throughout some rather significant and eye opening portions of gameplay.

There is something to be said for making a first person modern warfare game in which you actually go up against the overpowered, ridiculously nationalistic and somewhat terrifyingly technologically advanced military force of the age, as opposed to simply BEING that force and shooting non-whites or non-American whites, and still being hailed as the defenders of "world peace" and the "free world" when, most of the civilised world has kinda figured that that is not what the US represents.

Hell a game wherein you play a UN peacekeeper would be kinda interesting, as opposed to the stock of games we currently have, especially when you consider the fact that intervention in other nations by the UN is roundly opposed mainly by people who are actually BAD GUYS.

(of course you mention the UN around Rick Scott and he will tell you that they want to make all American citizens live in hobbit homes and Obama is selling the country piecemeal to the UN for some reason, and he says that with a straight face!)

What would be VERY interesting for me as a political science student is a FPS set across the US, wherein you play, homefront style, with two factions facing off against the US military after someone decided to kickstart a revolution, on the one side you have the 99% movement, with not too many guns (because, liberal) engaging in small scale guerilla warfare against specific targets, bankers, arms company executives etc, and on the other side is the tea party guys, who, naturally, are armed to the teeth (because, conservative) who engage in less structured area defence style combat, wherein the fighting is more focussed on killing as many of the "opressors" as possible. A twist in the gameplay that would be interesting is "friendly fire" in which you, based on the character that you are playing for the mission, can also "accidentally" terminate fellow rebels, who happen to belong to the other side of the political spectrum, without drawing too much attention to your action, the implication being that, after the revolution is completed, a further civil war will break out, and removing members of the other side will benefit you after the White house has fallen.

Of course that game will never be made, what do you guys think?

It's ingenious, shut up and take my money!!!! Oh wait it was an idea not a real game? You got my hopes up...... jerk