A reminder

[anonymous]

Sledgehammer released it’s new game WWII, with of course: a new “Nazi Zombies”, a new multiplayer and a new campaign. I played the first mission of the campaign, taking place in Normandy, during the famous Operation Overlord. The start of the game was basically a copy of Saving Private Ryan and World at War: While the landing boat floats towards the coast, a soldier is shot through his head (WaW). Later, when the door opens, everyone on board is immediately shot dead except the main character (SPR), who falls into the water and is grabbed by the sergeant, who shouts his objective into your face (WaW).

 

 

I have only played the first few missions, so the story might change later, but from what I’ve seen so far the campaign is pretty like a usual (CoD) game about WW2. The story starts in D-Day, June 1944 and ends a year later, in 1945. The whole game takes place only in (North) Western Europe, and basically at the end of the war, but yet this part of WW2 is highlighted in so many games and movies. And that while D-Day till Berlin happened in less than a year. How much do we see about the Allied invasion of Africa and Italy, starting a year earlier. The wars fought in Greece, the Balkan and Spain. Or about the Soviets who started the fight against the Central-European fascists even two years before: In 1942. The Pacific War is forgotten a bit less, but compared to ‘44-’45 Western Europe it isn’t given that much attention (This is why I like the WaW campaign so much: Soviets and the Pacific). Germany invaded Eastern Europe in 1939, and one year later, in 1940, Western Europe was invaded as well. The war in Europe was already going on 5 years before D-day even started. That’s 5 times as long as the whole “D-Day-Battle of the Bulge-Fall of Nazi-Germany” period that is so extremely popular. Not to mention that Hitler became chancellor in 1933: The start of the suffering for a lot of citizens of Germany. Around the same time the war in the Pacific started. It is said that when the Chinese capital Nanking was taken over by the Japanese, the men and boys were buried alive, the women and girls were raped and killed after it and the river was red of blood. Point I like to make: The Second World War was so much more than only the Western front in 1944-1945. Although I do understand game producers like to show the end of the war, victorious to the allies.

 

 

Another point I would like to make: Many war games, including WWII, seem to be based on themes like brotherhood, heroes, victory and fight. Like WW2 was only a fair fight between soldiers, who killed each other for the sake of their country or freedom. This is a big mistake. Remember that scene in WaW (how I love that game) in which the Soviets execute German soldiers who surrendered? Such deeds were not only done by the Soviets: This occurred at the Germans, Japanese, and yes, the Western Allies as well. Like Chernov said: That is not war, that is murder.

 

 

Spoilers alert: I remember private Zussman being knifed on D-Day. The main character brings him to a medic outpost, where he recovers and continues with the war a few weeks later. He was lucky. There were millions of cases like Zussman during the war, and many of them weren’t that lucky. Many of them bleeded out and died, many of them not even adult.

 

 

And then we are only speaking about soldiers. The Swastika was terrorizing Europe for many years, as well as Japan terrorized East Asia. Both places suffered enormously, starved, froze to death, were raped, murdered, tortured, bombed and burned. The citizens. The ones who did not even participate in the war. Germany migrated tons of men from it’s occupied Western European countries to Germany to work till death in the weapon industry. The Nazi’s executed and burned down complete villages in Eastern Europe, simply to extirpate the Slavic people and make the area Lebensraum (living space) for the Germanic race.

 

 

It were not only Jews who were sent to work, concentration and death camps, you know. Gypsies, resistance members, socialists, Slavic people and many, many more. Perhaps even more unknown are the Japanese “work” camps. A small difference it had with its German version, was that the killing here did not happen as systematic and “efficient”.

 

 

The Second Great War had an offical duration of 6 years, 13 years if you count the war in the Pacific with it. It was a total war, having more innocent citizens as victims than soldiers. And I am sure the people on this forum know about this all, but this is a reminder that the war took way longer, was way less “victorious” and even more gruesome than you see in WWII. A game in which, like many other, the player is playing in the period of the end of the war, set with a single goal: Kill all krauts and fight your way to Berlin.

 

So anyway, however I know all this, I too enjoy the digital online killing, and continue with it. We all should. This post is not meant as complain, but as a reminder. A reminder that we should respect and fear what happened, so long ago, honour the fallen ones and enjoy our free lives we live thanks to them, and be happy that such event never has happened again. Enjoy your life and play WWII, if you have it. But keep this post in mind

[Lenne]

It really is a missed opportunity that they only "cherry picked" the western front of the war.

They could have done something similar to BF1 where the player has to defend him/herself against the Nazis, but dies in the end. (Not that I want Nazis to win, but it could have set a new tone for Call of Duty.) Or maybe even play as a german soldier who is conflicted with the Nazi Germany ideology.

 

Russia, Japan etc. arent in the game which is a huge step back from the last WWII CoD. I have a small hope though: Maybe we'll finally get Campaign DLC. Then the price of 50 bucks for the season pass would be okay, but who am I kidding? They will only do the standard map pack and not try something new.

 

VVV Political talk from someone, who just wants a peaceful world, if that doesn't suit you, don't click the spoiler. <3

 

Spoiler

Last but not least: I whole heartly agree with you, this war should be the last one of it's kind. The way the world is turning these days makes me sick. I live in east Germany and a couple of weeks ago the germans had to vote in the end the CDU (Merkel) won, which is fine, in my opinion with her no one has to worry about taking steps back, but the fact that the AfD (which is a party that goes as far to the right, without being called Nazis) was the third strongest party in the east, if they were to call the shots, they would litterally shoot people (Refugees) crossing borders and close said borders, that really worries me. Germany isn't the only country with this problem though. Some people just seem to forget a bit too easily, especially those in east Germany, how many tried to get to west Germany "back in the day"?

 

<3

[anonymous]

I don't even know that about BF1. Sounds very original.

Spoiler

You say you don't like the way the world is turning, yet I really believe we are going the right way. Our media becomes a lot more world-focussed, so it seems like a lot of bad things happen, while that is, compared to the past, really not the case. For example, I notice on Dutch news (sites) increasing news about car accidents in other (near) European countries. Car accidents with not even that much damage/death, the kind of news we used, like 5 years ago, to only hear if it really happened in our own country. 

 

I like the German CDU, mainly because of the huge ammount of windmills Merkel brought. I've heard from someone that Germany gets 70% of its electricity of renewable energy (is that true?). The whole refugee/migrant stuff I honestly dont care about that much, and I think it gets way too much attention. The EU is, compared to many other Western nations, still a "fort". Its not that we are that simple and open to anyone beyond our borders. 

 

But for real, the main subject of the Dutch elections was IMMIGRATION. Almost every day I hear/see news about politicans from all around the globe talking about immigration. The German elections are about immigration as well, as was the french and brittish one. In the US  elections it was a big subject as well, although I hardly visited that country ever, so I'm not sure if thats deserved. But the attention in NL and around that is given to immigration is not deserved, imo. 

 

Wars. We live in an era of several small conflics: mainly wars in Africa, Asia and Arabia. Still, we hear all about it in the news. If you imagine how big our world is, it is really nothing. 100 years ago there were wars, civil unrest and suppression all over the place.

 

100 years ago it happened that, for example,  rural people killed their grandma simply because they could not care for her (no money). Look where we are now! In terms of peace, equality, wealth, civil rest and well-being we have achieved levels we have never seen before. The only big deal I really worry about is our climate, our oceans and our environment. But even om that topic people are much more well informed than 20 years ago.

<3 

Anyway, I did not knew you lived in East Germany. What province do you live in?