Too Many WW2 Games? Hogwash, I Say!

[Johannes]

You are right jumjum, XWW2 has one Chinese map (Ichi-go). I've been playing the mod a lot lately having just downloaded it recently. It's actually because of the mod that I specifically stated to find a non-mod Second Sino-Japanese War game.

Meadow, I know what you mean, and I know you know what I mean, but just to clarify for others, it's basically the idea of 1941 and on taking place in France that makes me place the game not as a "World War Two" game but as an "alternate history, 1940-1945" game.

[Stefan F]

i just miss a full blow German side campaign in for example COD or MOH , imagine how many games they could fill instead of redoing omaha beach for the 78th time .

[jumjum]

Why do the game makers do the same battles over and over? Because they realize their target market doesn't know anything else - and doesn't care to learn, either. So they stick with the mass-market high points of history, more interested in following a movie storyline than creating a historically accurate game. It's basic business.

But FH is a labor of love, and committed to accuracy. That makes FH pretty close to unique, guys. I've seen a very impressive amount of knowledge about some of the most arcane, but interesting, areas of WWII history. (e.g., Lightning's masterful post above.) And the neatest thing is, people here by and large want to learn.

[Komrad_B]

Originally Posted by Johannès

The problem with WWII Online is that it relies on the assumption that the German Blitzkrieg did not steamroll over France in 1940, and that as a result weapons of war that were not implemented until far later in the war are seen in a fictional France and UK versus Germany setting in what is essentially 1940 France.

Not really. WWIIOL can actually be realistic, if the Germans steamroll France in a few days of fighting. At the start of a campaign (which can be quite long), the game is in 1940 and the weapons are historical (B1bis, S35, H39, Vickers, PzII, PzIIIH ect.), but if neither side gets mauled early, then the fighting goes on for a few months, and eventually all sides receive new weapons.

WW2OL (or Battleground Europe, as it should be called) is like a massive, months long and continent spanning, online match. In FH, the Germans can win Stalingrad and the Allies can win Fall Weiss. Its the same thing in Battleground Europe, it starts from a realistic setting, but the rest is up to the players.

[Johannes]

EDIT: To jumjum

That pretty much hits the nail on the head. It is unfortunate though, that as a result of the laziness and uncreativeness of the mass-market, that now people from that very same market are complaining that there are too many World War Two games that are too alike. It's both ironic and sad.

Just think about it though; here is a genuine opportunity for a video game to actually be educational (on history) while being completely amazing, yet developers keep passing up the opportunity in order to create another game recreation of a movie. Pity.

EDIT 2:

Originally Posted by Komrad_B

Not really. WWIIOL can actually be realistic, if the Germans steamroll France in a few days of fighting. At the start of a campaign (which can be quite long), the game is in 1940 and the weapons are historical (B1bis, S35, H39, Vickers, PzII, PzIIIH ect.), but if neither side gets mauled early, then the fighting goes on for a few months, and eventually all sides receive new weapons.

WW2OL (or Battleground Europe, as it should be called) is like a massive, months long and continent spanning, online match. In FH, the Germans can win Stalingrad and the Allies can win Fall Weiss. Its the same thing in Battleground Europe, it starts from a realistic setting, but the rest is up to the players.

I guess describing each campaign as a single giant match might work, but the idea is that because of the continuous nature of the game in portraying only a single campaign, it invariably ends up altering the historical timeline. Hence, an alternate history.

With something like FH, you play a map, but regardless of who wins the next map portrays a different battle from World War Two. Maps are not treated thus as part of a continuity that would alter the course of history.

I do see where you're coming from in regards to WWIIOnline though.

[Mad Cat]

The normandy campaign has, infact, never been done...
What has been done is so horribly unrealistic in any kind of aspect of the games that it's not even been done right.
Everyone thinks "normandy is overdone, let's do something else" so in the good mods, like FH, the community despise the normandy campaign while i think it's an awesome campaign when realistic and done how it really was, which is not like all those games (and tv shows/movies) out there.

[Johannes]

That is true but it concerns less the campaign being portrayed and more the gameplay of the games in question. As I said in the first post, the campaign and gameplay are both factors in this; everyone makes Normandy, but nobody gets the gameplay historically accurate. Whether they want to be historically accurate, however, is a different subject. Pretty much all the games just mimic what is shown in movies instead of trying to be historically accurate.

[Admiral Donutz]

It's all 'bout the money
It's all 'bout the dum dum.......
I don't think It's funny
to see us fade away
It's all 'bout the money
It's all 'bout the dum dum...
and I think they got it all wrong anyway

Cause it's all 'bout the money

[Lt. Rothwell]

There are not too many WWII games necessarily, but too many games that are the same WWII battle or campaign over and over again.

That being said, I think a really well-made game focusing on the Korean War would be a nice change of pace.

[Danger X]

Another thing I detest in most WWII movie games, is that if they do D-Day, they only do Omaha Beach or Juno Beach, But never Sword beach(forgive me if I am mixing up, but I think You get the point.) This is very frustrating, since it is not just about England or America in D-Day.