The Military Thread

Can't help but think that while FM Wang wants to resolve the situation, the DPRK just makes things worst for his boss in Beijing.

Sounds like a warning as well.

"We can't do, what you think we can do"

Crossed from the Call of Duty WWII thread:

I'm mostly pissed less because we're returning to late-war Europe (c'mon, an early-war game anyone?), but because we're going to be following the same old White Male Protagonist that dominates most if not all WWII shooters.

I mean, say what you will about EA's business practices, but at least Battlefield 1 prominently featured African-American and female Arab protagonists.

We're now stuck with the cliched band of white brothers in the 1st Infantry Division, with the player character being a good old boy from Texas who must learn to rise above being a New Meat and becoming a heroic Grizzled Veteran. Nice story, but it's been done way too many times to be entertaining by this point in time.

Could anyone imagine the plot and character development that could have gone with a campaign centered around Japanese-Americans in the 442nd Regimental Combat Team? Hell, they'd actually be even better candidates for a Call of Duty game because of how damningly Reality Is Unrealistic their unit history was - the 442nd was called the "Purple Heart Battalion" for good reason you know.

Imagine playing as young men who were forced from their homes and lost everything in their civilian lives as they were sent to concentration (yes, let's call them what they were) camps. Yet they ultimately came to fight bravely for a country that openly discriminated against them and saw them as second-class citizens for their race.

That would be the WWII game campaign of the year.

I'd play the shit out of that.

Imagine if they had gotten Denzel Washington or Forest Whitaker or even Daniel Kuluyaa (Get Out!) for a Co D protagonist set in Korea, Nam or maybe even Desert Storm.

Sooooo much potential.

edited 29th Apr '17 5:53:34 PM by TacticalFox88

Unfortunately, big companies who make triple-A games often stick to formula because it works. I'd reckon that indie devs would love to tackle such a thing, but for now, doing things like the above unit would be outside of their "comfort" zone.

They always neglect the Asian Theater of the war. When's the last time you have played a Chinese, Indonesian, Filippino or Australian fighting the Japanese in a WW 2 game? And on the rare occasion you do fight the Japanese, it's always only the Americans fighting them. At least with the Nazis, you occasionally get the British or Russians fighting them and not just the Americans. The Italian conflict is also never shown.

edited 29th Apr '17 6:47:26 PM by FireCrawler2002

Market statistics and other stuff. Again, I truly wish for a triple-A game that shows the rest of the allies, but the "safe" route is the Americans, and unfortunately, I don't think that'll change unless the market wants change.

I want to play as the rest of the Commonwealth as well, dang it!

I don't know, I was throughly impressed with DICE and EA for the campaign of Battlefield 1. Not only did they have African-American (the tutorial), Northern European (the British tank mission, Southern European (the Italian mission), Canadian (the flying mission), Australian (the Gallipoli mission), and female Arab protagonists, but said female Arab protagonist was not stereotypically brown but had more of a tanned peach skin tone.

I was talking about WW 2 games and movies in general. In the rare occasion they are set in the Asian Theater, it's always only the Americans fighting the Japanese. The Asian (Unless you count Russia, and in their case they only fight the Nazis, not the Japanese) and Oceanian Allies are all absent. At least you occasionally get the British and/or Russians fighting the Nazis instead of the Americans in the European Theater. The Italians are almost completely absent in WW 2 games and movies, too, despite being one of the main Axis powers.

edited 29th Apr '17 6:47:07 PM by FireCrawler2002

I'd actually beg to differ regarding media portrayals about the Pacific War.

Hollywood's tendencies to have America Wins the War is actually a welcome sight compared to what Chinese films depict . . .

Also, how come we almost never get to play as Soviet female snipers?

edited 30th Apr '17 12:50:50 AM by dRoy

Ah, remember Valiant Hearts?

And Spec Ops The Line, of course, which took *zero* risk with gameplay.

Some form of "forgotten fronts" game would be great.

I still want Yager (the Spec Ops guys) to do a World War 2 game.

You could call it Spec Ops: The Rhine.

Company of Heroes 2 for all its historical revisionism does have female snipers.

Fourteenth Army, Chinese Front soldiers (you could even have them with lend-leased American gear if you must have recognizable weaponry), Soviet invasion of Manchuria as a cap-off?

edited 30th Apr '17 4:23:05 AM by math792d

Badumtish.

But I'd rather they covered either the Pacific Theater or the Commie POV, be it Chinese or Russian.

Colonial corps are also tremendously interesting.

edited 30th Apr '17 4:24:22 AM by TheHandle

If the US Army will be replacing the M9 with the P320/M17, then what of the other service branches of the US Armed Forces?

It'd be Banned in China unless it portrays the Chinese in a very flattering light.

They'll probably either stick with the M9 or hold their own competition. Unless there's a big standardization push.

Pfft. Not even "flattering" cuts it to them. It's gotta have Chinese soldiers being depicted taking down Zeros with hand grenades for it to be approved.

Seriously, one Chinese film had that happen.

China loves to be ridiculous in their cinema. Those Hong Kong Kung-Fu movies should have shown you that.

edited 30th Apr '17 4:28:37 PM by FireCrawler2002

The Army's new pistol will spark a call for the USAF and maybe the Marines to switch. The original program was supposed to be a joint program but it was canceled.

You can tell how much the gaming industry is stale when it comes to war games when Battlefield was praised as near-revolutionary when it decided to focus on WWI.

WWI is a (relatively) obscure conflict in gaming. Such is the over-reliance on WWII.

The Korean and Vietnam Wars are also very obscure conflicts in gaming.

edited 30th Apr '17 5:26:29 PM by FireCrawler2002

You'd think that Vietnam would be prime material, what with interesting jungle environments (imagine a stealth and camo system using that) and potential for dark and gritty stories.

Korea would be cool if only because it was in this weird transition period equipment wise; not quite Cold War but still not totally WW 2.

edited 30th Apr '17 5:45:10 PM by Rationalinsanity