What do the veterans think of ww2 computer games?

Discussion in 'The Lounge Bar' started by marcus69x, Feb 9, 2007.

  1. amberdog45

    amberdog45 Senior Member

    It appauls me that people can find enjoyment in pretending to kill others full stop. I'm not a veteran but my Dad served in the army and I find it loathsome that somebody can create games based on the mass killing of millions of people.

    It's lead to many an arguement in my household as my partner plays Call of Duty etc. I know his reasons for playing them but what do others get out of playing them?

    Who in their right mind wants to even pretend to be in the middle of a war. I think it's insane.
     
  2. Tom Canning

    Tom Canning WW2 Veteran WW2 Veteran

    I find that just ONE day in the front line of any battle would produce enough violence - terror and bloodshed that anyone would be sickened enough to leave the so called war games alone - or try pulling your friends out of a destroyed Tank - true that horror has been placed at 5% of a soldiers life - but what a BIG % it is.....
    Cheers
     
  3. Smudger Jnr

    Smudger Jnr Our Man in Berlin

    I find that just ONE day in the front line of any battle would produce enough violence - terror and bloodshed that anyone would be sickened enough to leave the so called war games alone - or try pulling your friends out of a destroyed Tank - true that horror has been placed at 5% of a soldiers life - but what a BIG % it is.....
    Cheers

    Tom,

    I think that you are absolutely correct with your observation.

    If my dad was still alive I am sure he would have said the same with regards to playing computer war games.

    My father never went near a Grill/BBQ for the very reason you mentioned regarding friends and destroyed tanks.

    Regards
    Tom
     
  4. jacksun

    jacksun Senior Member

    An earlier mention of Scrabble led me back to this thread.

    Last night I was playing Scrabble on my iPad with the computer as my opponent.

    In the opening play I found an opportunity to use the word Nazi with it's high scoring letter Z.

    To my amazement it was refused by the computer with the error box saying "Not in the dictionary"

    With bad grace I substituted another word and then went online to find out why it didn't accept it.

    I was surprised to find that Nazi was a banned word according to Scrabble although to be fair I saw that that the word Jew is also banned, although they will allow Jewish !

    What I find particularly bemusing is that the Scrabble Dictionary seems to find thousands of words I have never heard whilst disallowing Nazi & Jew !

    It's a queer world :(

    Ron
    Ron, my wife plays Words with Friends (Scrabble), not sure if it is the same one you play and the zed is the hardest letter to use.

    Funnily enough, you can use it with an "A", to form za. A za is a craft guild from feudal Japan, slang for pizza, abbreviation for South Africa, and "the" in Russian or Polish I believe. Not sure where it fits in the scrabble rules.

    Queer is likely disallowed because of its slang definition, the British fag (work hard), and I would image a water retention/diversion/protection device, or dyke would also be disallowed, again because of the slang definitions.

    Funny how language changes and things we once said are now completely twisted and immediately assumed to be pejorative, even when we are using their original meaning.

    So much for having a gay old time on the town with your friends.
     
  5. chick42-46

    chick42-46 Senior Member

    An earlier mention of Scrabble led me back to this thread.

    Last night I was playing Scrabble on my iPad with the computer as my opponent.

    In the opening play I found an opportunity to use the word Nazi with it's high scoring letter Z.

    To my amazement it was refused by the computer with the error box saying "Not in the dictionary"

    With bad grace I substituted another word and then went online to find out why it didn't accept it.

    I was surprised to find that Nazi was a banned word according to Scrabble although to be fair I saw that that the word Jew is also banned, although they will allow Jewish !

    What I find particularly bemusing is that the Scrabble Dictionary seems to find thousands of words I have never heard whilst disallowing Nazi & Jew !

    It's a queer world :(

    Ron

    Continuing the slightly off topic theme here, I remember when I was young and our family got its first ever Scrabble game - the deluxe version with the little holes to hold the tiles and stop them slipping about.

    My mother was so happy.

    The very first time we played it, however, caused a bit of a stramash. My teenage big sister went first. She hummed and hawed and then played the best word she could with her tiles. Mother was not amused. That word, and the first word ever played on our brand new board was .... whore!
     
  6. idler

    idler GeneralList

    Funny how language changes and things we once said are now completely twisted and immediately assumed to be pejorative, even when we are using their original meaning.

    The Scrabble instructions use dirty, disgusting words like 'rack', "score' and 'lay', so I think anything goes.
     
  7. Alan Allport

    Alan Allport Senior Member

    Ron, my wife plays Words with Friends (Scrabble), not sure if it is the same one you play and the zed is the hardest letter to use.

    Words With Friends is very similar to SCRABBLE, but the board is differently organized and the allowable word lists are not the same.

    For the record, queer and dyke are acceptable words in both SCRABBLE and Words With Friends. Fag is allowed in the former but not the latter.

    Best, Alan
     
  8. Wills

    Wills Very Senior Member

  9. Owen

    Owen -- --- -.. MOD

    Boys of all ages have played war for generations, todays computer games are just the latest hi-tech way of doing this...

    [​IMG]
     
  10. canuck

    canuck Closed Account

    I find that just ONE day in the front line of any battle would produce enough violence - terror and bloodshed that anyone would be sickened enough to leave the so called war games alone - or try pulling your friends out of a destroyed Tank - true that horror has been placed at 5% of a soldiers life - but what a BIG % it is.....
    Cheers

    Tom,
    That was the reply I expected. I simply couldn't see anyone who survived the real thing ever being able to consider it as a game. In some respects it does trivialize the people and events.
    As previous posters have said, a game cannot come close to real events. A vet once said about the realism in Saving Private Ryan, it was about 40% of the real thing and didn't have the smells.
    I must confess that I did become addicted to MS Combat Flight Simulator some years ago. It made 4 hours seem like 20 minutes. I think my fascination with the aircraft was a big part of. I finally had to remove the software from my PC in order to stay married and employed.
     
  11. Bob Turner

    Bob Turner Senior Member

    I think that first we have to look at computer games as a medium. As with any medium, the content can be dire or brilliantly moving. The very best content will have a timeless quality to it. Each generation will find a cultural resonance. A Hamlet, or an Achilles, will always be seen as having unique voices within the reader's epoch. When Achilles, sits on the each and talks about his woes, to his mother, we are moved, we empathise with him and also with Homer.

    We don't demand of the written word, of theatre or the cinema, that only those with a direct experience can go and participate. We don't say, the content of some piece of work is rubbish, therefore ban all books, plays and films. We ask that better stuff be produced and also vote with our feet.

    Could we have a game that a veteran might actually want to play? It would depend on the vet and the writer. It would also depend on the degree of interactivity that the writer allowed. Churchill (the computer) meets Montgomery, (you) demands an immediate attack. "Righto then, tomorrow at six" not very good at all that. The game writer would have to brief you; "Churchill throws his toys out the pram, time your comments well, and you don't get sacked, that's your result."

    What about a game where you are Alan Turing? Actually here you would be talking about game theory, inside of a game. You would have to sit in a room and argue about deaths, deemed necessary, to protect the fact that you had broken the Axis codes. Fail to do so and you lengthen the war. Succeed and you have nightmares that push you over the edge.

    What about a game where you as the science advisor to the president, realise that the politicos and chiefs of staff are seeing a REAL war, as some sort of computer game? Call it "Collateral Zombie" the ultimate shoot em up. Sadly, I think that one is perhaps a little too near what may be happening.
     
  12. Bob Turner

    Bob Turner Senior Member

    Continuing the slightly off topic theme here, I remember when I was young and our family got its first ever Scrabble game - the deluxe version with the little holes to hold the tiles and stop them slipping about.

    My mother was so happy.

    The very first time we played it, however, caused a bit of a stramash. My teenage big sister went first. She hummed and hawed and then played the best word she could with her tiles. Mother was not amused. That word, and the first word ever played on our brand new board was .... whore!

    A mate of mine got into a bit of an argument over this word in London. Some slightly drunk bloke got all irate about it being said in front of his wife. My mate had been saying "wor". The problems of being a geordie lad let loose in London :D
     
  13. Ron Goldstein

    Ron Goldstein WW2 Veteran WW2 Veteran

    Looking back over this thread I see that, as usual, I have strayed from the original theme that invited veterans to say what they thought of ww2 computer games.

    From the onset, I have to confess that I have never been a war games man so in one sense I am the wrong type of person to offer an opinion.

    I have however seen these type of games being played and have never considered that they bore any relationship to the war that I experienced.

    My war was an amalgam of fear, boredom, excitement and sheer exhaustion and none of these could possibly be duplicated by what could be seen on the screen of a computer and so, I suppose, that's why I never went down that road.

    Ron
     
  14. marktwain

    marktwain Member

    I'm quite surprised none of you veterans have played any ww2 games, I was quite looking forward to your comparison to real war. The thing is, game makers are continously trying to re-create the 'feeling of war', and although the "sheer terror and horrific violence" cannot be felt through a computer game, I feel a sense of what it may have been like that appeals to me when I play ww2 games. (god I love 'em).
    In Call of Duty 3 for example, (PS3 and Xbox 360) When you have a hand to hand fight with a german, at first their expression is full of anger and determination, then turns to panic as he realises he's losing, then absolute panick as he realises you've got the better of him. It actualy makes you feel sorry for killing him.

    Give it 20 years and you will actually be there.
    +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
    finger Arthritis, Marcus...-_-
     
  15. jonheyworth

    jonheyworth Senior Member

    However, I have experience of modern army excercises and a WW2 computer came is nothing like even that which is nothing like WW2 as a combat soldier must have been

    You have no fear sure and you obviously can't replicate that but there is simply no scale or scope to the computer games, there is no interaction with other humans, no 360 degree experience, no exhaustion, no fatigue, no rain, etc, etc, no nothing.

    I can fly a helicopter, a computer flight simulator is NOTHING like flying for real

    I drive trains for a living, a computer train simulator is NOTHING like driving a train for real
     
  16. chick42-46

    chick42-46 Senior Member

    I have no military experience and do play computer games such as those in the CoD, MoH and BiA series.

    I am not at all surprised that those with actual experience of service and combat don't think these sorts of games are realistic. How can they be?

    It also doesn't surprise me that most of the veterans here don't play these games.

    Maybe the question should be - what, if any, computer games do veterans play and enjoy?
     
  17. Ron Goldstein

    Ron Goldstein WW2 Veteran WW2 Veteran

    I have no military experience and do play computer games such as those in the CoD, MoH and BiA series.

    I am not at all surprised that those with actual experience of service and combat don't think these sorts of games are realistic. How can they be?

    It also doesn't surprise me that most of the veterans here don't play these games.

    Maybe the question should be - what, if any, computer games do veterans play and enjoy?

    Scrabble, Bridge and various card games.

    Ron
     
  18. Bob Turner

    Bob Turner Senior Member

    A couple of weeks ago in the pub, someone said that thee Titanic had special sets of dominoes, so that, in the event of the ship hitting an iceberg, the emergency dominoes could be played. They had to be magnetic, to allow for the ship's list and they had to have radium dots, in case of power failure. That would make a superb computer game! A first class lounge setting, where people play "stiff upper lip" dominoes. :D The skill would be in keeping your cool when all about you mayhem reigns.
     
  19. Thunderbox

    Thunderbox Member

    I enjoy military PC games, both the "first person shooter" where you are behind the rifle, and also the strategy types (Empire:Total War is good for all those who enjoy rebuilding the British Empire...).

    Only the modern theme games touch on "my" wars - Middle East, Afghanistan, terrorism, etc - and of course there is really no connection between game and reality. PC games are a fabulous form of entertainment, and for me at least they do not contain anything that triggers unpleasant memories or PTSD.

    In my circle of friends and comrades, some of whom are suffering the physical and/or mental wounds of conflict, I am not aware of any who are phobic of PC games, or resent the entertainment purpose. In fact, I think some of us feel that violent PC games help civilians to get an insight into some of the issues of tactics, strategy and logistics of real military operations. In this day and age, with tiny and shrinking armed forces in UK, anything that keeps the military alive in the minds of the next generation is probably a good thing....
     
  20. geoff501

    geoff501 Achtung Feind hört mit

    .....an amalgam of fear, boredom, excitement and sheer exhaustion and none of these could possibly be duplicated by what could be seen on the screen of a computer....
    Ron

    Looks like you've never attempted a Microsoft Operating System upgrade :)
     

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