You can’t compare Hiroshima and the Holocaust to Perl Harbour. Perl Harbour was an attack on a military installation, while the other two were murders committed against civilians. Even in war, there are rules.

We play games were Allies kill Germans, in often light-hearted scenes, and you don’t see Germans complain about it, and they buy those games too.

blah

I bet metal slug is big in Germany.

And everyone knows the worst game idea ever is Shaq Fu. A fighting game starring Shaquile O' Neal

fatki, while reading your post I suddenly received the urge to write all over my monitor in red pen in an inane effort to correct your horrendous grammar and spelling.

...and also because you just showed sympathy for Nazis. Go back to school.

That said, I think the author is being a little preemptive with these two games. Attack on Pearl Harbor doesn't look particularly interesting but it also doesn't look overly "light-hearted" either. What the company markets the game as and what it might turn out to be in reality could be miles apart.

As for the Jackass game, it will probably be terrible, but that's not to say it couldn't fool everyone. There have been plenty of video games and movies alike that I scoffed at needlessly when seeing the preview only to find out they were amazing.

I don't see why an attack on Pearl Harbor would be such a problem if we can stand the killing of (most probably) tens of thouand of second world war german soldier in all WWII games done to this day. While Germany was the attacker and the USA was the attacked country in WWII, the soldiers that were part of it were no different.

That brings up a question tough. Are we so fragile that we can't stand being on the loosing side... while playing a game? I don't mind playing the German in Enemy Territory and this is no different.

Sorry folks.

Pearl Harbor could make it through and still get away with puny headlines however when it comes to Jackass the game... I think the developers want you to buy their game and make a Jackass out of you :-D

Has anyone ever read the book Battle Royale? It's a native japanese writer's fictional account of the end result of where the japanese government is generally headed.

There are many accounts that the Nazi germany was in a similar place during hitler's rise to power.

of course there are parallels to the current sate of affairs in the US as well.

The US government has become a system far removed from the wants and drives of the vast majority of it's people. The people are afraid of the governement, and unable to curb its actions. yada yada yada.

The point is, there's so much BS surrounding the issues of national agression that everyone needs to learn that EVERYONE was wrong, there is no right answer, and we're all gonna die.

I want to be the first to wish the algae good luck at global success once we finish extirminating ourselves

Uh... USA wasn't attacked in WWII... There was no fighting on US soil. They're the ones that sent their troops over. And yes, Pearl Harbor was not the same kind of tragedy as Hiroshima or the Holocaust. One could argue that the US's attack on Hiroshima was more morally bankrupt than Pearl Harbor, because at least Pearl Harbor was a military attack on a military installation. Countless more civilians died in Hiroshima and Nagasaki than Pearl Harbor. Also, why does the US say they 'won the war' when they only joined in the fighting years later, when other countries had been slogging it out for a while? Thats not really fair to say. Like a team wins a baseball game 10-9, and the dude that got the last run says he won the game.

I think the developer was jesting to the point of hubris. But a lighthearted game on Hiroshima or the Holocaust?

Sure. It really depends on where your heart is at. These games can be great fun for those who's hearts are in the wrong place.

I can remember when I was a very young person in the 60's knowing real veterans of the Pacific War and listening to their stories. Many felt killing the Japanese was pleasureable.

This attitude reflected the true nature of Pacific War: a racist war of Japanese or Western cultural ascendency in the Pacific Basin. Most people are simply not aware of this because public education establishment does not want to teach young people the grim reality that corporate human history (cultural and social evolution) is about racial and cultural survival and ascendency. Its the key motivator of empires and conquest.

This fact conflicts with their humanist philosophy and disturbs their complacency. Humanity is not about celebrating diversity and human rights. And it never will be. Humanity is about racial and cultural survival and ascendency. And education does not prevent war because war is about the greater cause. Education only makes for more dangerous enemies, and more lethal war.

Nothing drives that point home to a young man's heart of the 40's after being conscripted, shipped to the South Pacific, and confront a fanatic, nihilistic, xenophobic, racist enemy who believe in the core of their being that killing you (white scum) was their highest personal achievement and honor. You learn in a hurry.

At Manchuria, Nanking and Singapore the Japanese considered the Chinese were scum, these being locales of terrible mini-Holocausts. The Rape of Nanking is notorious for its bestial brutality. In Singapore, they rounded up ethinic Chinese for extermination. They used biological warfare to exterminate 1 million Chinese in Manchuria with bubonic plague. And to further defeat and dominate the vanquished enemy, they drafted indigenous women in the territories they controlled as "Comfort Women" who attended the physical needs of the Imperial Army.

This is reality. These men I had met years ago had hardened and bitter hearts. They were not braggarts but really hated and killed the Japanese, some passionately . They did not take prisoners -- ever. Many friends were killed in ways which hardened them. Very grim. I wonder what they would have thought about these Pacific War games 40 years later. To these hardened people the Pacific War was not a lighthearted game.

Today we have turned the Pacific War into a game for the nieve that trivialize the grim realities of War. The Pacific War was a terrible struggle of life and death as two cultures clashed for ascendency. In fact, the Pacific War was a nuclear war. Which the West won unconditional Japanese surrender. (Who says nuclear wars are unwinnable -- this Pacific War was won at Japan's expense). Another heresy to the humanist mentality. Yet it is not a lesson lost as other nations seek to aquire nuclear weapons.

And since civilians pay taxes to their governments, enabling governments to wage war, these civilians become valid military targets for destruction. Taxes fuel war. Civilan morale, and its destruction, are important in undermining the will of the national economy and the government in prosecuting War. More heresy for the humanists.

So for historical completeness, a Pacific War game is incomplete without a lighthearted opportunity for the gamer to pilot (or be the bombardier of) the Enola Gay or Box Car and nuke Hiroshima or Nagasaki. Movies showing accurate weapon effects would be appropriate to give perspective and gravity to the event. It is as militarily significant as Pearl Harbor. More so because it ended the Pacific War.

But the low-level night-time B-29 firebombing raids on Tokyo and other Japanese cities actually killed far more civilians, and destroyed far more property, than Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined. These night raids were spectacular, of considerable military significance. So a Pacific War game would be inadequate, incomplete, without offering the gamer the lighthearted participation in these raids, and kill even more Japanese.

Movies showing showing the fire-storm and its incredible effects would be a terrific graphics venue for game developers -- burning molten thermite, civilians incinerated alive, people sinking in their arms and legs in molten asphalt pavement ponds, hurricane force winds of 300-400F, burning debris moving horizonal as buildings and people are blown down, torn apart and consumed. Just like Hiroshima and Nagasaki without the radiation.

Europeans complain about the destruction of Hamburg or Dresden, but what went on in Japan was far more systematic and comprehensive. And legal too until after the war when the victors rewrote the rules. And those rules will change as the victors change over the course of human events.

That is where my heart is at. These games Pacific War games are mainly foolish and give people a trivial impression of what War is like and marginalize its ugliness and true purpose.

The popularity of FPS games indicates to me that the hearts and minds of many people are really not in the right place. Yes, there can be lighthearted titles featuring the Holocaust. It depends how your heart trivalizes evil.

Consider the title Max Payne. Which is mainly about killing New York City scum and riff-raff (druggie, criminal, bad-cop and corporate goon variety). Evidently, this has great appeal in the United States and Europe since everyone "knows" New York City is populated by loathsome and contemptable scum -- regardless of social station. This game is full of wretchedness, drugs, violence, corruption, squalor, and an obscene cynicism which is a popular sterotype (a well founded prejudice?) held by many (and Osama Bin Ladin too?) that hallmarks this town -- as the City of Scumbags. As Max Payne, you get to kill a lot of scum as you sanitize a small part of New York City.

Yes, its not real violence since it is only cyberspace and make believe. Still, I found the game personally disturbing when I played it a few years ago. I did not have the heart for Max Payne and this game was not fun. I do not care much for New York City because it is indeed a city of wretchedness, drugs, violence, corruption, squalor, and an cynicism that boarders on the obscene. Still, I know there are some good people who live in New York City, despite the bad reputation, who should be regarded better than chatel for destruction.

Yet the Holocaust in Europe was about Nazi efforts to cleanse Europe of racially inferior scum of Jews, gypsies, slavic peoples, and other non-conformist undesirables. The ultimate goal of the Holocaust was to purify Europe for the German people and their racial/cultural kindred (as they deemed fit) into a world that conformed to their worldview of humanism and socialism. Perhaps, there are some gamers who possesses the same kindred spirit.

For such a gamer, a lighthearted game title could be created where the gamer can join the State Security (SS) organization, participate in the myriad paternalistic ceremonies glorifying National Socialism and the SS, and (using the latest high-technology weapons and tactics of the 30's and 40's) participate in collection and extermination of those evil, loathsome Jews and other worthless undesireables. As the penultimate expression of absolute enforcement of law and order (of which there is no such thing as too much law and order), this title can be labeled a "police game" as are some of the paramilitary titles. See a parallel here with other titles ???

Like Max Payne, the skillful developer will accurately render the venue to convey the stark realities of the Holocaust, which maddened so many of its participants. As a gamer, you can participate in the cleansing of Europe in all its diverse forms. Not what I would call entertaining, but the would be gamer, perhaps already mad, is entertained. Of course this game would not sell well in Europe or the United States and would be subjected to considerable sanctions by their governments.

But the real market for such a game would be the Arab world, where the gameplay would be culturally appreciated and no doubt prove very popular. To them, it would be like cleansing precious Arab land of the wicked Jewish presence in Palistine. Their hearts are in a different place.

Racial and cultural survival and ascendency marches on.

I can understand to complaints of the critics of PC Games about the violence and content of these games. For the young, impressionable or unstable, these games are experiential education that may not reflect reality, and worse, pass on attitudes and values which disable a person in living a successful life. Problem is many games have a false message, or they patronize prejudices (of some sort) which should be supressed or discouraged.

Kane-

You are an idiot.

Learn your geography/history prior to spouting off.

Pearl Harbor was and still is US soil, and the Japanese attacked us that Sunday morning in 1941 without a declaration of war in place. Their ambassador was over an hour late in getting the declaration into the State departments hands, so "sneak attack" is appropriate, or as FDR put it so well, "a date that will live in infamy".

Up till that day, the US was content to sit it out and await what was to happen "over there". We were not prepared to fight the war, as evidenced by our early efforts at retaking the Pacific showed.

The head Jap admiral said it best when being congratulated in the success of the attack. He said "All I fear we have done is awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve"

The Americans almost single handedly beat the Japanese, and it was Higgens boats from New Orleans that made D Day possible, not to mention over a million men and the bulk of the weapons/equipment/food etc that even made it possible to fight back, much less win.

The French gave up, the Poles were slaughtered, the scandanavian areas occupied, and the Spanish out of it. Britian just survived the blitz, and would have fallen had the Germans invaded, but Hitler was content to starve them out, as he hsd no idea the US would get actively involved, and his uboat wolfpacks controlled the north atlantic in 40-42.

So yes, the US did contribute a huge amount to the effort, but the difference then was we tarted winning when we got in the game.

Just a quick note to anyone who thinks the USA wasn't attacked in 1941: Japan DID attack Pearl Harbor, and Germany (yes, that's right) declared war on the US after we declared war on Japan. Pearl Harbor wasn't part of the continental United States, but it was (and is) american territory. On a light-hearted note (!) I read somewhere that Texas declared war before Congress did.

Any debate over the morality of using the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki gets complicated. The Japanese often fought to the last man and the opinion at the time was that invading the Home Islands would be very costly to the attackers. After four years of total war no one shrank from using such an apocalyptic weapon. The intention was to make it clear that no defense could be sustained and resistance was not possible.

More generally, the treatment of civilian populations in WW2 was terrible - the Japanese attack on Nanking, German bombing of Rotterdam and Coventry, the Allied firebombings of Dresden and Hamburg are all examples of brutal attacks on civilian population centers. I think the earliest example of bombing a so-called "open city" was when Guernica was bombed during the Spanish Civil War. None of these targets had what would traditionally be described as "military value".

When nations go to war, they often (always?) sink to the level of their enemies. When the "other side" stoops to torture, for example, there are those willing to support the use of torture by "our side". The degree to which these things happen may be a measure of the threat posed - if you don't feel very threatened by the "other side" maybe it's easier to keep to the moral high ground. In WW2 the threat posed by the axis was dire.