10 lies video games tell us about war

We're very sorry to inform you that you'll never beat the Nazi's single-handed

Words: Andrew Groen on November 25, 2012

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brickman409 - November 25, 2012 1:38 p.m.

well about the international law is for greenhorns one, you need to remember victor's justice, if a military that commits a war crime, it's punishment is much less severe if that military wins that war. A great example of this is the My Lai massacre, where 26 U.S. soldiers killed unarmed Vietnam civilians, only one of those 26 soldiers got punished and that soldiers only got 10 years in prison and that was eventually reduced to house arrest for a few months.
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KA87 - November 25, 2012 2:14 p.m.

Yeah war can be boring. I had a friend that was stationed in a remote part of Iraq and they got so bored that they would wait for someone to try and use the porty poty and then run up and nock it over. They made a game out of it and the videos were funny. Oh and to the lone wolf point, everybody just wants to be that guy from the beginning of XCOM that gets ordered to run up to the guy with the frag and shotgun.It does not end well for him or for most of the other people that listen to your orders in that mission.
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FOZ - November 25, 2012 2:58 p.m.

You mean war criminals are punished less by their own country than by other countries. The U.S. left Vietnam, so the only people around to punish American war criminals were in the U.S. itself. Although most games don't paint it as "the government will take care of us when we win" so much as "we just don't give a damn and this is going to be really cool."
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zombi3grim - November 25, 2012 9:01 p.m.

As someone who served in the Marines, I can attest to alot of these. We had a guy in basic at Parris Island who refused to participate because he said he wouldnt be able to kill another human being. He got general discharged. Why you would join the Marines, of all branches, if you knew you wouldnt be able to kill someone is beyond me.
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avantguardian - November 25, 2012 11:08 p.m.

i'm pretty sure there is a ww1 trench simulation game (or will be soon). can't remember what it's called, though...
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AuthorityFigure - November 25, 2012 11:58 p.m.

Well he could of died in place of someone who *would* kill an enemy...
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RadgarLaser2 - November 26, 2012 12:30 a.m.

Isn't the 1st one if you die it's over. You can't respawn unless you believe in reincarnation.
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zelta38 - November 26, 2012 12:32 a.m.

Funny thing is most of these points apply to most depictions of war across all forms of entertainment, good article.
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StrongPillow - November 26, 2012 12:50 a.m.

Games like these wouldn't be effective recruitment tools if they depicted the truth about what goes on during real conflict or deployment. Also Americans eat up this cowboy gun hoe shit. It's the only reason they can shit in a box and sell millions of copies of it every year.
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xx_CaPTiiN_SpAiiN_zz - November 26, 2012 2:48 a.m.

or maybe they are just fun
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CitizenWolfie - November 26, 2012 3:53 a.m.

RE: Nazi Zombies This reminded me of Henning Wehn's joke on 8 out of 10 Cats this week: "If someone is coming back from the dead and trying to eat me alive, I don't really care about his ideology"
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CitizenWolfie - November 26, 2012 4:02 a.m.

With regards the "Shooting Humans is Easy" point, Spec Ops: The Line did a lot to make you think about the nature of 'the enemy.' It wasn't as black and white as simply shooting the guys shooting you because they're the villains. It actually felt like the choices you made on the field had some weight. Regardless, I don't really play things like BF and CoD for the truth about war. I can read war memoirs and journals for that. I play those games to have cool experiences and watch things go boom.
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CitizenWolfie - November 26, 2012 4:04 a.m.

I think Adam implied that you should join the army yourself and go one-on-one (thousand) against the Taliban.
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IAmARobotWhoTurnsIntoATruckAnd - November 26, 2012 5:05 a.m.

First person shooters where you play the lone hero (master chief) are usually bad, and often are not attempting to be anything more than slightly entertaining to the fanboys that play them. Play Planetside 2.
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PBC13 - November 26, 2012 6:54 a.m.

It's understandable that a lot of games and films portray wars as Good vs Evil simply because the most influential and famous war of recent times was pretty much that. It's hard to find an angle that doesn't portray World War II as pretty binary in terms of it's causes. It's as close to Good vs Evil as any war I can think of.
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BrunstigElg - November 26, 2012 7:18 a.m.

You missed: "Every soldier with a rank of at least Officer is skilled in both dogfighting, attack chopper piloting, infantry combat, long range 50. cal sniping, and tank-driving"
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BrunstigElg - November 26, 2012 7:23 a.m.

You forgot: "Every soldier with a rank of at least Officer is skilled in both dogfighting, attack chopper piloting, infantry combat, long range 50. cal sniping, and tank-driving"
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