World War 2

Duke · 02-14-2005, 10:47 PM

For some reason I just can't get enough of this era. I'm currently downloading Medal of Honor Pacific Assault and Call of Duty United Offensive , I'll be getting Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30 when it comes out and can't get enough of Saving Private Ryan and Band of Brothers. Not to mention all of my arial combat games are WW2 related as well as most of my other first person shooters.

I don't think it's so much that some of these games/movies romanticize the era, it just seems like the last fair fight the world ever experienced. These are by far the most challenging games to play online as you get close enough to the enemy to knife em in some cases or get hit by debris from the plane you just pwned. I don't know what the reasons really are, but I seem to be infatuated with WW2.

By the way, Brothers in Arms is actually a true story based off of the 101st airborne fighting their way through Normandy. The characters are all skinned from the real men who fought in the war, it looks awesome. Much of the landscape has been measured and reproduced to the exact yard and looks as it did in WW2 aerial recon photos.

IL 2 Forgotten Battles is a WW 2 aerial combat sim that is modelled after the actual planes with stalls and spins, blackouts, fuel, mixture, prop pitch, etc. The real deal and thats what makes that game so invigorating. To actually sit in the cockpit of a plane flown by some kid with less than 100 hours under his belt into combat and trying to stay alive is a feeling I can only guess at.

Games these days are truly amazing.

darkangelism · 02-14-2005, 10:50 PM

call of duty is good

Duke · 02-14-2005, 10:53 PM

I played some of the beginning of Pacific Assault this weekend and it blew me away, really looked real.

Wapwap · 02-15-2005, 08:27 PM

So that means we'll be seeing you more online? (TS that is).

Duke · 02-15-2005, 09:07 PM

Not this weekend but maybe the weekend after next.

YellowLioness · 03-09-2005, 01:11 PM

I bought my dad both of those games.

He LOVES call of Duty.

What is it with the whole WWII thing? It was a terrible war- I just don't get the fascination.

Vautrin · 03-09-2005, 02:05 PM

YL, it is men who play this game almost exclusively.
Don't try to make much sense of men. That is an even more hopeless cause than men trying to make sense of women

.

The whole WWII setting is almost irrelevant. How many people were killed? How many soldiers were killed? They don't come to the fore, in human perception. In a game the damages and losses don't count.

And as long as the game remains a game, there is not much to worry about. However, and this seems to happen, when the distinction between game world and reality fades, these games can be dangerous.

Duke · 03-09-2005, 03:13 PM

I'm not sure why WW 2 is so fascinting, maybe to me it is because it was a war based on wits. Sure each side had it's strength and weeknesses, but overall I think they were pretty evenly matched. It just seems to me like the last great war where it was the men that made the difference, not the weaponry. The cool thing about the games their making now is that you're a member of a squad and you get some sense of what it was like simply because you see your squadmates die. I don't know how many times I've replayed missions trying to save my men but if their scripted to die then they die.

The newest one coming out is called Brothers in Arms and it's supposed to be a very realistic and accurate depiction of one squads battle through Normandy from D-Day -1 as part of all the 101st airborne misdrops. It looks a lot like Band of Brothers and is a squad based game where you can actually get your squad mates killed with dumb decisions. Gamespy calls it the new standard for WW 2 games due to it's realism.

I disagree with the game being dangerous, it's not the game that's responsible for the persons distinction between fantasy and reality, it's the persons problem. If you kill yourself or others due to a game, a movie or a song lyric it's not the fault of the medium, it's the fact that you're an unstable lunatic who refuses to take responsiblitity for the fact.

Vautrin · 03-09-2005, 03:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vautrin

And as long as the game remains a game, there is not much to worry about. However, and this seems to happen, when the distinction between game world and reality fades, these games can be dangerous.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Duke

I disagree with the game being dangerous, it's not the game that's responsible for the persons distinction between fantasy and reality, it's the persons problem. If you kill yourself or others due to a game, a movie or a song lyric it's not the fault of the medium, it's the fact that you're an unstable lunatic who refuses to take responsiblitity for the fact.

The game becomes dangerous, because of the user; the user loses his sense of reality for one reason or the other.

For instance, if someone confuses a game with reality, it would probably not be as dangerous if it were a business sim, or a game of backgammon.
Unless he was the CEO of a big corporation ...

Duke · 03-09-2005, 03:47 PM

I honestly believe that person didn't have a sense of reality before purchasing the game not because of the game.

Vautrin · 03-09-2005, 04:17 PM

You can lose the sense of reality by playing the game a lot. Or doing any activity for that matter. If you would work 100 hours a week, every week, you could lose your sense of reality.

Consider checking the mental health reports on people working 16 hours a day. It was shockingly common in 19th century Europe for women to kill their young children, or let them simply die of neglect. They simply could not care about them.

It seems likely that whatever it is that is occupying you so completely, will have an effect on what the person who is engaging in behavior is going to do.
But of course the game should not be blamed.

Duke · 03-09-2005, 11:17 PM

That's really the only point I was trying to make. If it's in our nature to become unstable due to repeated stimuli then thats just a human characteristic or flaw that we need to be aware of and react accordingly. To single out one form of entertainment is simply unfair.