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Medal Of Honor - Rising Sun Readied For Japan 132

Posted by simoniker from the you're-hitting-yourself dept.
Thanks to GameSpot for its coverage regarding EA's imminent launch of Medal Of Honor - Rising Sun for PS2 and GameCube in Japan, and the correspondent's observation that the game's "portrayal of [the] Pacific campaign, where Japan suffered losses, [is] politely overlooked, but not by all." A review in Japanese publication Softbank Games is referenced, which reads: "This game is set in the Pacific, where deadly combat between the Japanese Imperial Army and the American Army unfolds", and GameSpot's correspondent finds "no indication that the reviewer finds anything unusual about playing as a U.S. soldier trying to defeat the WWII-era Japanese army." Other Japanese gamers surveyed had other opinions, with one suggesting that "...this is a game in which you play as a foreign soldier and try to kill troops from your own country. I bet that you couldn't even sell a game like this overseas."
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Medal Of Honor - Rising Sun Readied For Japan

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  • ...soldier and try to kill troops from your own country. I bet that you couldn't even sell a game like this overseas."

    that woudl certainly explain all those germans i see playing battlefield 1942 as allied soldiers

    • Re:"...this is a game in which you play as a forei (Score:5, Insightful)

      by eht ( 8912 ) on Sunday November 23, 2003 @07:16PM (#7544450)
      Or Return to Castle Wolfenstein where you can play as German vs US forces, or Battlefield 1942 again where you can play as a Japanese attacking US forces, yeah, those kind of games don't sell at all.

      Gamespy stats [gamespy.com] seems to indicate other though. By the way, the second most popular mod for Half-Life is a WW2 mod where you can play as Germans.
      • or online part of vietcong.. play as vc, shoot the americans.

        or a game where you battle against the british royal air force over the english canal, flying experimental nazi planes? secret weapons of luftwaffe didn't do that bad and iirc a rehash of sorts is coming out pretty soon. or a movie about a german u boat? or a book that pretty much told about how fucked the war was, and didn't glorify the army it told about, could become a classic in a country that lost the war?

        most people aren't fanatics, comptu
      • If I log on to a Wolfenstein:Enemy Territory server where there's only room on the axis team, I'll drop.

        Sure, I only get to play half the game, but my experiences with the holocaust survivors I've known make it impossible for me to to play as the Germans.

        • I'm kinda the same. I have no qualms playing as terrorists in Counterstrike. In fact I actually prefer it (mostly due to this bogus war on imaginary terrorists threats around the world). But in WW2 games, no, I agree with you. It's tough to get any enjoyment playing murdering bastards.

          Call of Duty has it right. I'm in the Russian phase of the game, and it's very moving. The opening mission is terrifying if you stop to think that it actually happened! (Which it did, the retaking of Stalingrad.)

          I say give t

          • Re:"...this is a game in which you play as a forei (Score:5, Informative)

            by zulux ( 112259 ) on Sunday November 23, 2003 @08:29PM (#7544808) Homepage Journal
            There Japanese were nowhere near as monstrous as the Third Reich.

            The Japanese were *WERSE* than the Third Reich.

            From sjwar.com [sjwar.com]

            Killed over 35 million
            Massacred over 300,000 civilians in 6-8 weeks in Nanjing
            Forced hundred of thousands to become slave laborers/sex slaves
            Committed biochemical warfare in labs and battlefields over 2,700 times, causing countless deaths, and intentionally flouted the Treaty of Geneva
            Dissected over 3,000 live humans without anesthesia for biochemical experiments
            Never punished most war criminals; they became key government, business, and academic leaders

          • Re:"...this is a game in which you play as a forei (Score:5, Insightful)

            by 0x0d0a ( 568518 ) on Sunday November 23, 2003 @09:38PM (#7545095) Journal
            I have no qualms playing as terrorists in Counterstrike. In fact I actually prefer it (mostly due to this bogus war on imaginary terrorists threats around the world

            +1, True. Sigh.

            But in WW2 games, no, I agree with you. It's tough to get any enjoyment playing murdering bastards.

            I dunno. I guess that on a leadership level, perhaps the Germans were nastier (at an individual level, as nicely illustrated in Saving Private Ryan, everybody was busy playing hardball). The US imprisoned mass numbers of Japanese US citizens...but they didn't kill them. The Nazis imprisoned, and toward the end of the war, began mass exeuctions of Jews.

            However, nobody's hands were exactly clean in WWII, either. The Japanese did some awful things to territories they conqered. The Allies (I believe it was Britain and the United States) were the ones to begin strategic mass killing of civilians on the opposing side by carpet-bombing nonmilitary, purely civilian areas. The United States developed the atomic bomb and dropped it on two cities, obliterating everyone. There's a pretty reasonable argument that these bombs were dropped more to benefit post-war negotiations than to win the war -- Japanese politicians were trying to figure out a graceful exit strategy, and Russia was considering entering the fight.

            That being said, I don't see any problem in playing a video game as either side -- I prefer playing the Germans to the Allied forces in Close Combat because of the different play style. It's a video game, and people shouldn't lose sight of that. In various games, I've played a mad leader starting atomic wars, a demon, a vampire, a human-slaughtering horde of aliens, and an undead voodoo warrior. In the majority of video game plots, there is no (or very little) regard for human life. Characters get killed, generally in unpleasant ways. The thing is that people should simply keep sight of the fact that you are *playing a video game*. You should be able to watch Das Boot or play the DM in Dungeon Siege without problems -- you're changing the positions of some polygons and manipulating a bit of memory. Folks would do well not to lose sight of that.

            Remember the original Brothers Grimm fairytales. Before they were prettied up for a more modern audience, they were quite gory. Cinderella's stepsisters, for instance, deliberately and on the spot cut away large pieces of their feet to shove their feet into slippers...and when (the spirit of) Cinderella's dead mother notices the blood pouring from the shoes, she rips the stepsisters' eyeballs out. Somehow, parents didn't have a problem telling their kids all this (until recently). Today's society is not more violent that it once was. Our sensibilities have just been tightened a bit.

            • The Nazis imprisoned, and toward the end of the war, began mass exeuctions of Jews.

              It's a small part of your point but an important detail to get straight -- that is an extremely, extremely sanitized description. The "Final Solution" plan to kill every last Jew on the planet was established in 1941 and specialized SS and SA killing units were following German troops in Eastern Europe that year. (Killing, among others, my grandfather's parents and all 11 of his brothers and sisters.) The death factories in

              • It's a small part of your point but an important detail to get straight -- that is an extremely, extremely sanitized description.

                Mmmff. I'd like to add comment on your answer, as well.

                The "Final Solution" plan to kill every last Jew on the planet was established in 1941 and specialized SS and SA killing units were following German troops in Eastern Europe that year.

                While I'm sure you'd consider it a technicality, Jew within the bounds of the new German-held lands. I don't believe that there'd be an

            • Re:"...this is a game in which you play as a forei (Score:1, Interesting)

              by Anonymous Coward
              source about Cinderalla please. I went to the brothers grimm webpage that linked to the text, translated side by side with the original german text and they didn't have anything on this.
              • Here is a link to the original Cinderella story along with a link to the collected works. He is right they do cut off parts of thier foot and the bird peck out thier eyes. I had no idea the original was this bloody. Just goes to show you how mores change.

                http://www.ucs.mun.ca/~wbarker/fairies/grimm/021 .h tml
                http://www.ucs.mun.ca/~wbarker/fairies/grimm/
                • My favorite part is where the prince discovers that the stepsisters have cut off their heels to fit in the shoes: They're riding in a carriage back to the castle, and they pass by a field. The wind picks up and rustles the field, which whispers to the prince, "Yo, dude, check the shoes."

                  It's obviously a story to help prepare kids for dating transvestites.
    • Yeah, we American's are too proud to play a game as an invading army killing American soldiers.

      we prefer playing american citizens, mindlessly murdering our fellow americans: private citizen, public employee, and soldier alike.

      Vercetti for President!

  • rising sun - behind the scenes (Score:5, Informative)

    by hookedup ( 630460 ) on Sunday November 23, 2003 @07:08PM (#7544417)
    on EA's official site [eagames.com] they have a couple 'making of' videos here [eagames.com] which were kind of interesting.

    I saw the commercial the other day and coulnt believe my eyes, quite the impressive looking game.
    • there was a game in development which would have had the protagonists cast as terrorists, doing guerilla assignments, bombings, etc.

      Of course, once the US became the victim of such an attack, it was considered in poor taste. Oh well.

      However, its not like Rising Sun goes into poor taste; Im sure the subject of wartime attrocities is glossed over, just like the true brutality during WW2 is now; one generation's hell is another's entertainment. Even Vietnam has a video game. As a gamer, I could say its bad,

    • From the bit I caught, the commerical shows rendered action -- not indicative of the actual game. Real in-game graphics and action is like the videos you referenced.
  • Over here in the US, we're used to being able to play as the bad guy. Lots of games let us play the bad guy, or let us become bad as we play (in the case of RPGs.)

    But on the other hand, I don't recall playing many games where you play the Nazis and you attack the US. We need more games like that!

    What can we learn from all this? If you want games made in the future about your current war to be playable as your side, make sure you win the war! There's not too many games out there that only let you

    • Re:Playing as the bad guy is nothing new ... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Txiasaeia ( 581598 ) on Sunday November 23, 2003 @07:40PM (#7544581)
      "If you want games made in the future about your current war to be playable as your side, make sure you win the war!"

      This shit got modded interesting? We're talking about a war filled with atrocities on BOTH sides of the conflict, we're talking about buried caches of chemical warheads still being found in China, we're talking about thousands of Korean, Chinese and Dutch women forced into prostitution for the sake of a war, and you're freaking telling me that people should win a war because of a VIDEO GAME?

      Perhaps you would like Japan to start a war with the US and win so that they can portray Japanese soldiers brutalising American women? Would you like to play a game like this, Doug?

      I'm fully prepared to get modded as troll or flamebait for this post. After all, people who would mod the parent post as "interesting" would definitely have a problem with my statements!

      • He was just stating the simple truth that it's the winners who write the history books.

        • He was just stating the simple truth that it's the winners who write the history books.

          Well, yes and no. I'm sure Japan has written it's share of history books. But that's only possible because the US didn't utterly decimate Japan after they surrendered -- the sort of thing that has happened in the past.

          But there's not many games out there based on real events (or static books, movies, etc.) that only let you play the losing side. Some will let you play both sides, but even then, if you play the

      • Give me a break. By your argument, we shouldn't have war themed video games at all! That would kill at least 2 whole genres.

        A knee-jerk emotional response is not insightful. These are games we are talking about here, the original poster was joking around.
        • No. Wrong. Nothing war with war vid games. The problem was the attitude of the grandparent. "If you want to have different video games, next time win the war!" Sorry if most of /. readers are American, but this kind of ignorant attitude is completely inappropriate. Is insulting a defeated combatant an accepted activity in the US now?

          The Japanese screwed up and did a lot of things that they're still paying for. The Americans in the Pacific war were no better. This is not a joking matter. Video gam

      • Perhaps you would like Japan to start a war with the US and win so that they can portray Japanese soldiers brutalising American women? Would you like to play a game like this, Doug?

        I enjoyed Carmageddon for about 15 minutes. Close enough?

        Postal would probably come close as well.

        I still stand by my statement --

        "If you want games made in the future about your current war to be playable as your side, make sure you win the war!"

        I made light of war, talking about a game about war. I'm a bad

        • If Japan and Germany would have won WWII, we wouldn't be chatting about the ethics of videogame makers, we'd be slaving in some labor camp chatting about which group has the best gruel.

          No, wait. I'm German, so I'd be telling you all to shut up or spend the night in the box. Arbeit! Macht schnell!
      • If only I had a portal to an alternate universe's game store in which Hitler conquered the world all video games were about blowing up Americans.

        That would rule.

    • Notice that you say "playing as the bad guy." AFAICT, I think that that's what has observers (justifiably) worried is that the Japanese are depicted as the villains...

      And they're right, it would be completely impossible to sell this sort of war-FPS in America in similar circumstances. Imagine an FPS or thereabouts set in the Second World War, made by Japanese, with, say, the U.S. Marine Corps as the bad guys. The developers would be burned at the stake if loyal red-blooded Republicans had to swim across th

      • Notice that you say "playing as the bad guy." AFAICT, I think that that's what has observers (justifiably) worried is that the Japanese are depicted as the villains...

        Well, weren't they? We're not talking about now -- we're talking about WWII. Japan was allied with Germany, and together they were doing all sorts of bad things to the rest of the world.

        They were trying to conquer the world. Isn't that a `bad' goal? Isn't that what villians are always trying to do? Yes, the individual soldiers pro

        • No, the Japanese of today (except those damn right wingers in their f***ing noisy black trucks (yes, I live in Tokyo)) think of the US being on the "good" side, though they aren't too happy about Hiroshima or Nagasaki (and the more educated ones are probably a bit pissed about the Tokyo firebombings). But I think the key is, and Germany might be the same, that the average soldier had no fricking idea what was going on. It was the top that was really pulling the strings (this is true everywhere, but nowada

        • Well, weren't they [in the wrong]? We're not talking about now -- we're talking about WWII. Japan was allied with Germany, and together they were doing all sorts of bad things to the rest of the world.
          They were trying to conquer the world. Isn't that a `bad' goal? Isn't that what villians are always trying to do? Yes, the individual soldiers probably weren't `bad', but were instead just doing their duty for their country, but either way, when somebody attacks you, you fight back.

          On the other hand, Britian

  • Exactly! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by GeorgeH ( 5469 ) on Sunday November 23, 2003 @07:27PM (#7544520) Homepage Journal
    "...this is a game in which you play as a foreign soldier and try to kill troops from your own country. I bet that you couldn't even sell a game like this overseas."
    I couldn't have said it better myself. Now I'm going to go play SOCOM (or Counter-Strike) and hope that I don't get stuck on the terrorist side.
  • In the case of whether you can play both sides, it would be fair to cite the case in which counterstrike, one of the most played online games, allows the player to take both sides. It would also be fair to say that some people DO like the bad side. About that is the previously cited Star Wars Galaxies, in which one of the most played characters resembles the sith warrior of the movie. Going further, consider the other great half-life mod Day of Defeat, where you can play both sides (and I like to play naz

  • The Japanese have long had a history of whitewashing WWII in their history education. The books basically go from Midway to Hiroshima.

    Christ, only Austria is less willing to admit any sort of wrongdoing in that war.

    • Re:Not too surprising (Score:3, Interesting)

      by zulux ( 112259 )
      The Japanese have long had a history of whitewashing WWII in their history education.

      We had a Japanese exchange student who never even knew that his country was responsible for the murder of 30,000,000 Chinese people. I think he probably thought "RAPE-OF-NANKING" was a Famicom game.

      Christ, only Austria is less willing to admit any sort of wrongdoing in that war.

      No kidding. In Austria, you can *still* find people who thing that "we would haf won ze var if is wasen't for ze Jew, und zat kriminal Jew-lov
      • No kidding. In Austria, you can *still* find people who thing that "we would haf won ze var if is wasen't for ze Jew, und zat kriminal Jew-loving Rosa-velt."

        Bah, go down to Alabama, you can plenty of the same right there...

        Mumble mumble indians mumble genocide...
        • Yeah, but in America kids are taught about it and we don't ignore it, I think that was the author's point.
          • Yeah, but they arent taught about equally if more fundamental things like evolution, or the big bang. A decent proportion of the worlds most powerful nation growing up thinking the world was made in 7 days? Don't get me wrong, ive got no problem with people beliving in it, but when people dont even know theres anything else because they arent taught it in school? Surely thats pretty bad?
            • Oh, gee, I grew up in public school. To conform to your stereotypes, I'll now drop out of college where I'm doing very well in an engineering program. Sorry to be a bother.
            • You're changing the argument here, and I'm not sure why. But the theory of evolution and the big-bang theory are taught in schools. And as far as I'm aware, the creation story is not taught in public schools anywhere in the US.

              So what was your aguement again?
              • But the theory of evolution and the big-bang theory are taught in schools.

                Maybe thats just me being misinformed then. I imagined that stories like this [guardian.co.uk] and also this [cnn.com] were correct.

                the creation story is not taught in public schools anywhere in the US.
                What? You don't have religous studies classes? That disturbs me somewhat, though it would explain americas attitudes to other religions. I mean if you dont get taught about the of more than 75% [teachingab...ligion.org] of your population what chance have you got of knowing about t
                • Again, I don't know why we're talking about this in a thread about a videogame, but I'll humor you.

                  Please read those articles again. They do not apply to the whole country. Plus, the first clearly states that one such anti-evolution effort failed.

                  I never said we did not have relgion classes in school, just that the creation story is not taught as fact in schools -- this is prohibited by the requirement of separation of church and state. US schools do teach on the cultural and religous beliefs of other sys
    • I think everyone does that. Russia, the United States, Britain...nobody focuses on their own past sins, and magnifies those of the bad guy.
  • I think it would be neat if they included an option to play as japanese forces, but still play out the story of a losing war. Although the war as a whole was lost (by japan), i'm sure there were personal victories. These could be portrayed to appeal to japanese audiences...

    me...i'll be playing for the allies, and probably enjoying it immensely.
    • Why not allow them to win the war, to me a person born 2 generations after world war II sees no matter of dishonor of allowing the japanese and germans victory so long as the monstrous side of each (as the americans are so whitewashed, dresden anyone?).

  • We do it better... (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    No, in the USA, we make games that let us shoot cops [rockstargames.com], escape jail [rockstargames.com], be terrorists [ubi.com]...

  • And this is a surprise? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Guppy06 ( 410832 ) on Sunday November 23, 2003 @09:04PM (#7544978)
    Does nobody remember how well Capcom's (a Japanese company, for cryin' out loud) classic shooters 1942 and 1943 did in Japan?
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • You mean the Japanese version, where you piloted a Zero and tried to take out the US Navy? Yeah, they did pretty well. What's your point?

      --
      Evan "I spent hours in front of 194* games" at Duke

      • You mean the Japanese version where you piloted a Zero and tried to take out the US Navy?

        Never heard of that one. I think he was talking about the real Japanese version, where you piloted some American plane or other and tried to take out the Japanese navy, just like in the American version.

  • The losing side... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by MMaestro ( 585010 ) on Sunday November 23, 2003 @09:13PM (#7545010)
    I think this game helps show that games should let players play on the losing side more often. We've all played as the super hero space marine that takes on the forces of hell single-handedly (Doom), we've played the anti-social kid turned hero (FF8), and we've all played some faceless, mysterous, nameless, gender undefined, jack-of-all-trades, appeared out of nowhere person who ends up saying the world (text based games, Ultima, and countless others).

    What I'd like to see is a game where you're a U.S. soldier during the early stages of the WWII Battle of the Bulge and you're actually running away from tank divisions rather than cutting through hundreds of mindless, deaf guards. I wanna play as a German soldier during WWII trying to get to the western front to avoid being captured by the Russians. I think games like this would be a nice change of pace from the standard "one-man army" type of games we've been seeing for a while (yes Call of Duty featured a large number of allies to help you but you ended up doing most of the work anyway.)

    • Good concept! In reading Churchill's account of the evacuation of Dunkirk I was suprised how much action and action and heroism appears in the course of a protracted retreat. You sometimes get to play the "last man on the wall," buying time for others to escape, but I can't think of any games that really took the concept of a large scale retreat seriously. i need a what at the end of my message?
    • I think games like this would be a nice change of pace from the standard "one-man army" type of games we've been seeing for a while

      What about the US Army's [goarmy.com] An Army Of One [washingtonmonthly.com] slogan? Besides, if it's not the one man army thing, then you end up directing stuff, tanks, fighters, supply stuff, etc. Then it's a strategy game. If you want that, try Starcraft.

    • What I'd like to see is a game where you're a U.S. soldier during the early stages of the WWII Battle of the Bulge and you're actually running away from tank divisions rather than cutting through hundreds of mindless, deaf guards.

      How about the Close Combat series, including: Close Combat III: The Eastern Front, or Close Combat IV: The Battle of the Bulge - games in which you can play either side (Russians or Germans in the former, Allies or Germans in the latter) and whichever side you play, you have ups

  • The simple facts are:

    1. History says United States "won" the war, but there aren't really any winners anyway.

    2. Business Marketing 101 says cater to as large of a demographic as possible.

    Game developers have decisions to make. There has never been a game that has made everyone happy. Nor do I expect I will ever see one that will. If a developer wants to be historically accurate, then the game should be fairly straight forward. If a developer wants to cater to as many people as possible, then it will co

    • "1. History says United States "won" the war, but there aren't really any winners anyway. " Explain that statement. Logically, if there are no winners, there are no losers, and if there are no losers, there are quite a lot of Japanese and Germans who have questions for you.
      • Think about it...

        Who really is victorious in a war when hundreds of thousands of people are killed? Many of them innocent civilians...

      • I think his point is the side that sets the terms of the peace agreement can afford to be magnanimous, and assert that the war was good for no-one. Just because there is a victorious side in a war does not mean the victors have to think of themselves as "winners," as if there was some sort of prize that could make up for the loss of life on both sides.
  • As an American, I've never really had a problem playing the Germans or the Japanese in WWII games. As someone said, you get a joy out of playing the bad guys. The thing about playing the bad guys is, you know you're the bad guys. It's pretend. You're really good, but you're just pretending to be bad. I imagine, there's an identity issue when you know, deep down, you are the bad guy. You're not necessarily bad yourself, but you're one of the bad guys, and that's unescapable.

    I'd like to hear from some
    • In what way have the Germans admitted what went on? This kind of thing isnt taught in schools. And even now it has laws in place to prohibit anybody talking about nazism. I know this [hagalil.com] is about Austria, but IIRC Germany has in place similar laws.
    • Well, let me share my (simplified) view on things:

      Germany has officially accepted their atrocities, and lives in personal denial, while Japans lives in collective denial of its atrocities.

      In Germany, the atrocities of the nation under the dictatorship of the Nazis are tought and anyone in goverment denying these has a short-lived career.
      Still, most people living at that time deny any personal responsibility. The seperation of the Nazi-regime from the "ordinary people" became more visible as there was a ex
    • From what I know about Germany, they just seem to look past the Nazi era. It seems like they all know that it happened, but act like it didn't. I have even heard of it not being taught in schools. I am not sure if this if fact or just hearsay, though.

      On a trip to Germany, i did have a chance to meet an old fighter pilot in WWII. My and my father talked with him and learned that he was stationed in Italy, and told him that my grandfather was also stationed there. We all just sort of looked at each oth

  • Sickening... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by dancingmad ( 128588 ) on Sunday November 23, 2003 @11:58PM (#7545633)
    The level of racism that's come up because of this discussion is, to say the least, mildly disturbing. The story is about Japanese gamers and their take on this FPS. So what if Japanese people don't want to play it, it's their preogative.

    Did the Japanese do awful things during the war? Of course; I'm from Bangladesh and my grandparents ran on foot from from Burma back to Bangladesh, leaving most of their wealth over there. My girlfriend is Okinawan and her grandparents had to hide in caves during the Battle of Okinawa. She's a part of the Japanese education system and she knows went on during the war, more than most American kids know about anything their beacon of democracy has done (Hello, Iranian Revolution? Wheeling and dealing in South America? Killing civilizans in Iraq and Afghanistan? Atomic weapons in Japan?). But American and the west have done PLENTY of horrible things in Asia (and there's a line of thought that Japanese involvement in WWII is a direct response to brutal Western colonialism in the East).

    History is written by the winners; no one's saying "Damn, we don't get to burn May Lai to the ground and rape Vietnamese women in games from that war." But that stuff happened (American vets would be as mad as Japanese people would be). If you want to talk about white washing, let's go play some America's Army or some other piece of crap where the brave American solider protects us from those dirty brown people.

    I'm not some anime fanboy saying Japan is the perfect society; it's not and the Japanese government should apologize for war time atrocities, and the government should do more for the desdendants of Korean laborers. But a lot of bigoted people here on ./ seem to forget how badly Americans have treated and do treat Native Americans and Africans, how the Brits treat former subjects from the Indian subcontient.

  • Forgotten Soldier (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Shihar ( 153932 ) on Monday November 24, 2003 @12:12AM (#7545716)
    One of my favorite books of all times was Forgotten Soldier. It is about a guy in the German army during WWII. Yeah, he is the 'bad guy', but the truth is, he isn't. He was some stupid young kid who went off to war and any sort of political ideology he might have had was crushed under first wave of Russian soldiers.

    I would absolutely kill to play a German soldier on the eastern front in a video game. Hell, I would love to play a Japanese soldier. It is a game, and if the game does well, in the end you will feel sympathy for the 'villains'. No game is going to make anyone regret that Germany and Japan lost during World War II, but they can instill that it wasn't the hordes of Nazis and brutal suicidal Japanese verse the virtuous allies.

    If someone wanted to make a powerful video game, they would make a game from the axis perspective. They would start out with a bunch of your buddies all under the age of 19. You would go through some training together, get the usual propaganda stuffed into your head, then hit a real battle field and forget it all. You would huddle with your buddies in a fox hole and fight your way forward, then back in retreat, with long time companions who have saved your life countless times dying one by one. That is the reality of war. Celebrate the ideological victory and that horrific atrocities were ended, but don't forget that the enemy was human and that those humans felt the entire range of emotions that we do. The overall war was a just victory, but there were a million small tragedies on both sides to get there.

  • Rubbish (Score:2, Insightful)

    by kzadot ( 249737 )
    Japanese of today dont even relate to the murderous imperial japanese army. I cant imagine any Japanese thinking "oh my god, im killing my own people". If a Japanese DID feel that way I would be suspicious, but could only see that happening if they were actually supporters of the imperial army.

    Its like in Germany, Return to Wolfenstein is real popular (even though its banned, everyone bought their copys over the nearest border).

    Germans dont think of themselves as Nazis playing Americans killing their own
  • "...this is a game in which you play as a foreign soldier and try to kill troops from your own country. I bet that you couldn't even sell a game like this overseas."

    I don't think there are any sacred cows left in the west.

    Command and Conquer: Generals [globetechnology.com] came out a year ago. Its set 20 years from now and one of the playable sides is the "Global Liberation Army", who use chemical and biological weapons against US and Chinese forces, as well as suicide bombers, car bombs, etc.

    So here you have a game which i
  • I dont think many people realise, but a lot of people around the world are not as 'flamboyantly' patriotic as the Americans (the US is the only place in the world perhaps that wears its national flag as part of popular fashion). I'm not saying that this is bad, but a lot of people are not as 'touchy' about their culture's history as you might think. I'm part Japanese, British, American and Polish and to top it off my surname is originally German. I've spent a fair few years in all of these countries (excep
  • Look, I really don't see the problem here, evr ery day, we hear abou thow videogames affect our kids and us ourselfves, and we say that "no way, they don't", and yet, here you are, discussing the morality and whatnot of a videogame.
    If videogames don't affect us in our daily lives, why should an issue like this even arise?

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