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Medal Of Honor - Rising Sun Readied For Japan
Thanks to GameSpot for its coverage regarding EA's imminent launch of Medal Of Honor - Rising Sun for PS2 and GameCube in Japan, and the correspondent's observation that the game's "portrayal of [the] Pacific campaign, where Japan suffered losses, [is] politely overlooked, but not by all." A review in Japanese publication Softbank Games is referenced, which reads: "This game is set in the Pacific, where deadly combat between the Japanese Imperial Army and the American Army unfolds", and GameSpot's correspondent finds "no indication that the reviewer finds anything unusual about playing as a U.S. soldier trying to defeat the WWII-era Japanese army." Other Japanese gamers surveyed had other opinions, with one suggesting that "...this is a game in which you play as a foreign soldier and try to kill troops from your own country. I bet that you couldn't even sell a game like this overseas."
...soldier and try to kill troops from your own country. I bet that you couldn't even sell a game like this overseas."
that woudl certainly explain all those germans i see playing battlefield 1942 as allied soldiers
on EA's official site they have a couple 'making of' videos here which were kind of interesting.
I saw the commercial the other day and coulnt believe my eyes, quite the impressive looking game.
Or Return to Castle Wolfenstein where you can play as German vs US forces, or Battlefield 1942 again where you can play as a Japanese attacking US forces, yeah, those kind of games don't sell at all.
Gamespy stats seems to indicate other though. By the way, the second most popular mod for Half-Life is a WW2 mod where you can play as Germans.
But on the other hand, I don't recall playing many games where you play the Nazis and you attack the US. We need more games like that!
What can we learn from all this? If you want games made in the future about your current war to be playable as your side, make sure you win the war! There's not too many games out there that only let you play the losing side ...
Why can't I moderate something "Wrong" or at least "Grossly Misinformed"?
or online part of vietcong.. play as vc, shoot the americans.
or a game where you battle against the british royal air force over the english canal, flying experimental nazi planes? secret weapons of luftwaffe didn't do that bad and iirc a rehash of sorts is coming out pretty soon. or a movie about a german u boat? or a book that pretty much told about how fucked the war was, and didn't glorify the army it told about, could become a classic in a country that lost the war?
most people aren't fanatics, comptuer game players least of all(except when it comes to those games of course). i'd be more irritared if they partially perverted the history to 'not provoke' me or somebody else. they shouldn't find it disturbing because they should know that it happened already.
besides japan is hardly the same country it was even such a short time ago as little over 50 years and neither is germany(east germany used to be something _quite_ different just 20 years ago, even though that is a different issue).
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
In the case of whether you can play both sides, it would be fair to cite the case in which counterstrike, one of the most played online games, allows the player to take both sides. It would also be fair to say that some people DO like the bad side. About that is the previously cited Star Wars Galaxies, in which one of the most played characters resembles the sith warrior of the movie. Going further, consider the other great half-life mod Day of Defeat, where you can play both sides (and I like to play nazi). This is quite a good guy vs bad guy discussion, but remember that everything is relative and can be faced from different points-of-view. US itself may be the greatest country in world, but that is the opinion of americans, not necessarily of the whole world. I think my country (not US) is the best, but that is not the opinion of others too. So, I say, let the game have a chance. I just won't buy it. The rest is just economics and politics.
with the selection of Terrorist and even Traitor skins.
Sure, I only get to play half the game, but my experiences with the holocaust survivors I've known make it impossible for me to to play as the Germans.
The Japanese have long had a history of whitewashing WWII in their history education. The books basically go from Midway to Hiroshima.
Christ, only Austria is less willing to admit any sort of wrongdoing in that war.
I think it would be neat if they included an option to play as japanese forces, but still play out the story of a losing war. Although the war as a whole was lost (by japan), i'm sure there were personal victories. These could be portrayed to appeal to japanese audiences...
me...i'll be playing for the allies, and probably enjoying it immensely.
I'm kinda the same. I have no qualms playing as terrorists in Counterstrike. In fact I actually prefer it (mostly due to this bogus war on imaginary terrorists threats around the world). But in WW2 games, no, I agree with you. It's tough to get any enjoyment playing murdering bastards.
Call of Duty has it right. I'm in the Russian phase of the game, and it's very moving. The opening mission is terrifying if you stop to think that it actually happened! (Which it did, the retaking of Stalingrad.)
I say give the player a choice to play good or evil. I can understand the Japanese not wanting to shoot Japanese soldiers in the new MoH game. There Japanese were nowhere near as monstrous as the Third Reich.
Glad to see I'm not the only one who doesn't like playing Germans in WW2 games.
There Japanese were nowhere near as monstrous as the Third Reich.
The Japanese were *WERSE* than the Third Reich.
From sjwar.com
Killed over 35 million
Massacred over 300,000 civilians in 6-8 weeks in Nanjing
Forced hundred of thousands to become slave laborers/sex slaves
Committed biochemical warfare in labs and battlefields over 2,700 times, causing countless deaths, and intentionally flouted the Treaty of Geneva
Dissected over 3,000 live humans without anesthesia for biochemical experiments
Never punished most war criminals; they became key government, business, and academic leaders
Moneyed corporations, non-working 'poor' and criminal prisoners are turning productive citizens into tax-slaves.
Ug. That should be sjwar.org and not sjwar.com
Moneyed corporations, non-working 'poor' and criminal prisoners are turning productive citizens into tax-slaves.
And how were the Allied soldiers any less murdering bastards than the German ones?
Because they diden't mass murder civilians for sadistic pleasure.
Face it, the Allies were the *GOOD* guys. They fought for their survival.
The Gemrans and Japanes fought for EMPIRE. They fought so that they could murder millions of people for their pleasure.
Moneyed corporations, non-working 'poor' and criminal prisoners are turning productive citizens into tax-slaves.
No, in the USA, we make games that let us shoot cops, escape jail, be terrorists...
Does nobody remember how well Capcom's (a Japanese company, for cryin' out loud) classic shooters 1942 and 1943 did in Japan?
What I'd like to see is a game where you're a U.S. soldier during the early stages of the WWII Battle of the Bulge and you're actually running away from tank divisions rather than cutting through hundreds of mindless, deaf guards. I wanna play as a German soldier during WWII trying to get to the western front to avoid being captured by the Russians. I think games like this would be a nice change of pace from the standard "one-man army" type of games we've been seeing for a while (yes Call of Duty featured a large number of allies to help you but you ended up doing most of the work anyway.)
1. History says United States "won" the war, but there aren't really any winners anyway.
2. Business Marketing 101 says cater to as large of a demographic as possible.
Game developers have decisions to make. There has never been a game that has made everyone happy. Nor do I expect I will ever see one that will. If a developer wants to be historically accurate, then the game should be fairly straight forward. If a developer wants to cater to as many people as possible, then it will cost the developer more time and money to include more content in their games (i.e. including a story line to play as Japanese in above mentioned game).
Who was that pointy-eared bastard?
yeah they didn't utterly destroy two japanese cities (where citizens inconviently live) when they dropped the bombs on japan
good is in the eye of the beholder fool
and all the german cities that were carpet bombed
i almost forgot about that
I have no qualms playing as terrorists in Counterstrike. In fact I actually prefer it (mostly due to this bogus war on imaginary terrorists threats around the world
+1, True. Sigh.
But in WW2 games, no, I agree with you. It's tough to get any enjoyment playing murdering bastards.
I dunno. I guess that on a leadership level, perhaps the Germans were nastier (at an individual level, as nicely illustrated in Saving Private Ryan, everybody was busy playing hardball). The US imprisoned mass numbers of Japanese US citizens...but they didn't kill them. The Nazis imprisoned, and toward the end of the war, began mass exeuctions of Jews.
However, nobody's hands were exactly clean in WWII, either. The Japanese did some awful things to territories they conqered. The Allies (I believe it was Britain and the United States) were the ones to begin strategic mass killing of civilians on the opposing side by carpet-bombing nonmilitary, purely civilian areas. The United States developed the atomic bomb and dropped it on two cities, obliterating everyone. There's a pretty reasonable argument that these bombs were dropped more to benefit post-war negotiations than to win the war -- Japanese politicians were trying to figure out a graceful exit strategy, and Russia was considering entering the fight.
That being said, I don't see any problem in playing a video game as either side -- I prefer playing the Germans to the Allied forces in Close Combat because of the different play style. It's a video game, and people shouldn't lose sight of that. In various games, I've played a mad leader starting atomic wars, a demon, a vampire, a human-slaughtering horde of aliens, and an undead voodoo warrior. In the majority of video game plots, there is no (or very little) regard for human life. Characters get killed, generally in unpleasant ways. The thing is that people should simply keep sight of the fact that you are *playing a video game*. You should be able to watch Das Boot or play the DM in Dungeon Siege without problems -- you're changing the positions of some polygons and manipulating a bit of memory. Folks would do well not to lose sight of that.
Remember the original Brothers Grimm fairytales. Before they were prettied up for a more modern audience, they were quite gory. Cinderella's stepsisters, for instance, deliberately and on the spot cut away large pieces of their feet to shove their feet into slippers...and when (the spirit of) Cinderella's dead mother notices the blood pouring from the shoes, she rips the stepsisters' eyeballs out. Somehow, parents didn't have a problem telling their kids all this (until recently). Today's society is not more violent that it once was. Our sensibilities have just been tightened a bit.
May we never see th
Who dropped 2 A-Bombs, leveling entire cities and leaving radiation/fallout for many years to come?
I know more than you drink.
As an American, I've never really had a problem playing the Germans or the Japanese in WWII games. As someone said, you get a joy out of playing the bad guys. The thing about playing the bad guys is, you know you're the bad guys. It's pretend. You're really good, but you're just pretending to be bad. I imagine, there's an identity issue when you know, deep down, you are the bad guy. You're not necessarily bad yourself, but you're one of the bad guys, and that's unescapable.
/.ers about this (The Japanese wouldn't necessarily have the same insight, as the Japanese have never trully admitted to what happened during the war ("comfort women" anyone?).). Intellectually, you know the Nazis are one of the most horrendous groups in history, yet good ol' gramps fought in the war for them, and he's not a bad guy. I imagine there's a disconnect there, and I'd like to hear more about it.
I'd like to hear from some of the German
It ended that shit pretty quick, didn't it? Too bad we don't always learn the right lessons from history.
"The Allies (I believe it was Britain and the United States) were the ones to begin strategic mass killing of civilians on the opposing side by carpet-bombing nonmilitary, purely civilian areas."
I guess that sentence was meant to split hairs, because surely you're familiar with the Blitz of London. I guess you're claiming that there were factories in the area of downtown London or something...
Because they diden't mass murder civilians for sadistic pleasure.
Don't recall the Dresden firebombing, eh?
Vino, gyno, and techno -Bruce Sterling
It's a small part of your point but an important detail to get straight -- that is an extremely, extremely sanitized description. The "Final Solution" plan to kill every last Jew on the planet was established in 1941 and specialized SS and SA killing units were following German troops in Eastern Europe that year. (Killing, among others, my grandfather's parents and all 11 of his brothers and sisters.) The death factories in Auschwitz and Treblinka were built starting in 1942.
So, it's true that there was an escalation in savagery, for example in the shift to bombing of civilian areas by the Allies. But the comprehensive extermination of Jews by the Nazis isn't something that "began", it was a significant part of the German war effort almost from the begining.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
The level of racism that's come up because of this discussion is, to say the least, mildly disturbing. The story is about Japanese gamers and their take on this FPS. So what if Japanese people don't want to play it, it's their preogative.
./ seem to forget how badly Americans have treated and do treat Native Americans and Africans, how the Brits treat former subjects from the Indian subcontient.
Did the Japanese do awful things during the war? Of course; I'm from Bangladesh and my grandparents ran on foot from from Burma back to Bangladesh, leaving most of their wealth over there. My girlfriend is Okinawan and her grandparents had to hide in caves during the Battle of Okinawa. She's a part of the Japanese education system and she knows went on during the war, more than most American kids know about anything their beacon of democracy has done (Hello, Iranian Revolution? Wheeling and dealing in South America? Killing civilizans in Iraq and Afghanistan? Atomic weapons in Japan?). But American and the west have done PLENTY of horrible things in Asia (and there's a line of thought that Japanese involvement in WWII is a direct response to brutal Western colonialism in the East).
History is written by the winners; no one's saying "Damn, we don't get to burn May Lai to the ground and rape Vietnamese women in games from that war." But that stuff happened (American vets would be as mad as Japanese people would be). If you want to talk about white washing, let's go play some America's Army or some other piece of crap where the brave American solider protects us from those dirty brown people.
I'm not some anime fanboy saying Japan is the perfect society; it's not and the Japanese government should apologize for war time atrocities, and the government should do more for the desdendants of Korean laborers. But a lot of bigoted people here on
"There is no time, sir, at which ties do not matter," Jeeves, (Jeeves and the Impending Doom)
Who dropped 2 A-Bombs, leveling entire cities and leaving radiation/fallout for many years to come?
...and the rest of the free world diden't cry with joy two days later.
The United States Of America did.
Don't think that the Chinese, the Laoations, the Koreans, the Austrailians, the Russian, the New Zealanders, the Canadians, the Bristish, the Polish, the Hungairians, the French, the Norweageans...
THE WAR WAS OVER.
The murders, the rapes, the slavery, the gas-chambers, the suffering, the dyings had stopped. The maiming, the weeping, the misery had stopped.
The The Civilised World, of wich the United States Of America played her part, lived to see another day.
Moneyed corporations, non-working 'poor' and criminal prisoners are turning productive citizens into tax-slaves.
The reason we had to drop atomic bombs on Japan is because they had a very unfortunate way of looking at war. They would not surrender, either individually, or collectively.
American WWII veterans will tell you that fighting the Germans was more of a 'fair fight', in that they would surrender when obviously beaten. Also, when the roles were reversed, the Japanese would kill/torture our troops to a greater extent than the Germans would.
We had little choice when facing an enemy who was willing to send their last man on a kamikaze mission.
No reason to lie.
One of my favorite books of all times was Forgotten Soldier. It is about a guy in the German army during WWII. Yeah, he is the 'bad guy', but the truth is, he isn't. He was some stupid young kid who went off to war and any sort of political ideology he might have had was crushed under first wave of Russian soldiers.
I would absolutely kill to play a German soldier on the eastern front in a video game. Hell, I would love to play a Japanese soldier. It is a game, and if the game does well, in the end you will feel sympathy for the 'villains'. No game is going to make anyone regret that Germany and Japan lost during World War II, but they can instill that it wasn't the hordes of Nazis and brutal suicidal Japanese verse the virtuous allies.
If someone wanted to make a powerful video game, they would make a game from the axis perspective. They would start out with a bunch of your buddies all under the age of 19. You would go through some training together, get the usual propaganda stuffed into your head, then hit a real battle field and forget it all. You would huddle with your buddies in a fox hole and fight your way forward, then back in retreat, with long time companions who have saved your life countless times dying one by one. That is the reality of war. Celebrate the ideological victory and that horrific atrocities were ended, but don't forget that the enemy was human and that those humans felt the entire range of emotions that we do. The overall war was a just victory, but there were a million small tragedies on both sides to get there.
Of course, once the US became the victim of such an attack, it was considered in poor taste. Oh well.
However, its not like Rising Sun goes into poor taste; Im sure the subject of wartime attrocities is glossed over, just like the true brutality during WW2 is now; one generation's hell is another's entertainment. Even Vietnam has a video game. As a gamer, I could say its bad, but since I consider games to be entertainment just as movies are, I guess Im not considering it something horrible.
Guess it just depends upon your outlook.
Manipulate the moderator system! Mod someone as "overrated" today.
It's a small part of your point but an important detail to get straight -- that is an extremely, extremely sanitized description.
Mmmff. I'd like to add comment on your answer, as well.
The "Final Solution" plan to kill every last Jew on the planet was established in 1941 and specialized SS and SA killing units were following German troops in Eastern Europe that year.
While I'm sure you'd consider it a technicality, Jew within the bounds of the new German-held lands. I don't believe that there'd be an attempt force something like this on, say, Britain. The Einsatzgruppen that you speak of were certainly killing Jews in 1941, but the inital reason they were ordered out was to control newly occupied areas and prevent partisan activity. Jews were just mixed in with a list of politically dangerous people, including Soviet political officials and the like.
But the comprehensive extermination of Jews by the Nazis isn't something that "began", it was a significant part of the German war effort almost from the begining.
The Nazi party villified Jews from early on, and used socioeconomic differences between the growing number of poorly educated unemployed Germans and the (generally more educated and wealthy) German Jews to fuel their political campign. There were a lot of people that hated Jews at the time -- but pushing mass exeuctions throughout the war? No, I can't agree -- that's too far. There were people unaware of what was happening for a long time -- and there was still a Nazi movement pushing mass exile for Jews up until spring 1941.
That being said, my main objection is that while Jews were being killed, the emphasis wasn't on Jews early on -- though that hardly reduces the bloodshed.
May we never see th
So, in essense, we won because our attrocities outweighed their attrocities? We did in such a short time what they had done over a much longer period of time and so they realized that rape and pillage as they might, they just couldn't kill civilians as fast as we could? That's a real sweet ending. We are clearly MUCH better than they are.
I know more than you drink.
For the record, pretty much the entire reason I won't play as German's is down to the massacre of the Jew's. Sure, the allies aren't as good as popular history would lead us to believe, but the fact of that matter is, the allies didn't try to exterminate an entire race of people.
Japanese of today dont even relate to the murderous imperial japanese army. I cant imagine any Japanese thinking "oh my god, im killing my own people". If a Japanese DID feel that way I would be suspicious, but could only see that happening if they were actually supporters of the imperial army.
Its like in Germany, Return to Wolfenstein is real popular (even though its banned, everyone bought their copys over the nearest border).
Germans dont think of themselves as Nazis playing Americans killing their own side!
They seem to just play it from the point of view of either side. Not really relating to any side in particular. I would be worried if they did!
Because they diden't mass murder civilians for sadistic pleasure.
Face it, the Allies were the *GOOD* guys. They fought for their survival.
The Gemrans and Japanes fought for EMPIRE. They fought so that they could murder millions of people for their pleasure.
I think that you will find the German soldiers were fighting because they were told to. If you seriously believe that the German soldiers were into murdering inccocent civilians for pleasure then you are a fool.
I put my books on Amazon, Smashwords, Demonoid, ISOHunt and Pirate Bay. Search for 'Michael Cargill'
The reason we had to drop atomic bombs on Japan is because they had a very unfortunate way of looking at war. They would not surrender, either individually, or collectively.
American WWII veterans will tell you that fighting the Germans was more of a 'fair fight', in that they would surrender when obviously beaten. Also, when the roles were reversed, the Japanese would kill/torture our troops to a greater extent than the Germans would.
We had little choice when facing an enemy who was willing to send their last man on a kamikaze mission.
I think you will find that the Japanese actually WERE interested in surrenduring. They made such noises to the US govt., but wanted to do it in such a way so as not to lose their honour.
However, the US were not interested in such a thing and decided to drop the A-bomb instead.
I put my books on Amazon, Smashwords, Demonoid, ISOHunt and Pirate Bay. Search for 'Michael Cargill'
true? Really? this would explain the recent bombings or even 9/11, those were bogus terrorists after all.
Yes.
That is what war is: My side tries to kill your side as quickly and as bloodily as possible so you either stop or don't exist. War is the worst side of humanity, where we do everything possible to shatter the other side - break their minds, hearts, bodies and culture.
What did you think it was?
About the only advance in warfare's morality are the recent "stopping before genocide" that popped up in the last 2,000 years, the "treat your prisioners well" that has been around for about 500, "leave medical personel and wounded alone" in the last 100 years and the growing (but very shaky) 50 or so year old "don't use NBC weapons".
All of these are very much based on a premise that it's a war you can afford to lose. Put a society in a cornered position, and they fight as dirty as possible. If my country were under attack by overwhelming forces, I'd sanction the worst atrocities that anybody could come up with. It's called survival, and my family always comes first.
The key is always remember this and thus avoid war as much as possible. Do not forget Shoah.
--
Evan
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
source about Cinderalla please. I went to the brothers grimm webpage that linked to the text, translated side by side with the original german text and they didn't have anything on this.
  Thanks, many of my friends refuse to believe the japanese commited any atrocities and even though I knew of them, I hadn't found any site like this, now I can direct them to a good place to learn.
"...this is a game in which you play as a foreign soldier and try to kill troops from your own country. I bet that you couldn't even sell a game like this overseas."
I don't think there are any sacred cows left in the west.
Command and Conquer: Generals came out a year ago. Its set 20 years from now and one of the playable sides is the "Global Liberation Army", who use chemical and biological weapons against US and Chinese forces, as well as suicide bombers, car bombs, etc.
So here you have a game which is not about a conflict our grandfathers were involved with, but touches nerves still raw from current events.
I was watching a documentary last night on the 40th anniversary of Kennedy's assasination, which was full of 3D graphics reconstructing the Zapruder film and then replaying it from Oswald's viewpoint. I was struck by the thought that someone, somewhere, must be turning that into a game, too.
-Baz
secret weapons of luftwaffe didn't do that bad and iirc a rehash of sorts is coming out pretty soon.
Just a note, I only recently (last friday) found out that Secret Weapons Over Normandy was coming out, only to find that it was already in stores.
-PainKilleR-[CE]
I want to see a Desert Storm II game where you can play as the Iraqi's and kill the dirty USians.
Seriously...
Saying that the US was not interested in surrender is incorrect.
The US was interested in UNCONDITIONAL surrender. The Japanese wanted to maintain parts of their current political system.
The US decided that removing the system that decided to make an un-provoked attack on Pearl Harbor, attack and occupy parts of China, and wage war across the Pacific, was the only way that we would accept surrender. We had made that very clear. But, the Japanese officials were more interested in their honor, than in saving their own people.
In fact, we did offer surrender to the Japanese a few weeks before the first atomic bomb was dropped. But, the Japanese government, the Supreme War Council specifically, did not want to agree to the terms set. Here are some excerpts from the offer of surrender that we presented to Japan, via the Swedish government. Check out the paragraph marked '(5)', stated very clearly, we will not deviate from these terms. Japan wanted to continue to play games, and did not agree to the what was offered.
(4) The time has come for Japan to decide whether she will continue to be controlled by those self-willed militaristic advisers whose unintelligent calculations have brought the Empire of Japan to the threshold of annihilation, or whether she will follow the path of reason.
(5) Following are our terms. We will not deviate from them. There are no alternatives. We shall brook no delay.
(6) There must be eliminated for all time the authority and influence of those who have deceived and misled the people of Japan into embarking on world conquest, for we insist that a new order of peace, security and justice will be impossible until irresponsible militarism is driven from the world.
You can see many other supporting documents here:
http://www.ibiblio.org/pha/war.term/093_03.html
In fact, it was not the first bomb that caused the Supreme War Council (SWC) to agree to surrender, nor was it the second. The SWC did not agree to surrender until we dropped leaflets in Japan describing to the Japanese people the decisions that the SWC had made up until that point.
It was the insane focus on 'honor' by the SWC that took them way too far down a road that they should have never taken.
No reason to lie.
Yeah, we American's are too proud to play a game as an invading army killing American soldiers.
we prefer playing american citizens, mindlessly murdering our fellow americans: private citizen, public employee, and soldier alike.
Vercetti for President!
// "Can't clowns and pirates just -try- to get along?"
I think that you will find the German soldiers were fighting because they were told to. If you seriously believe that the German soldiers were into murdering inccocent civilians for pleasure then you are a fool.
"I vas only following orders" doesen't absolve anything.
30,000,000 innocent people wern't killed by "orders" they were killed by knife, bullet, gas and bomb.
You may count me a fool - But I count you as evil.
Fucking Nazi sympantiser.
Moneyed corporations, non-working 'poor' and criminal prisoners are turning productive citizens into tax-slaves.
Here is a link to the original Cinderella story along with a link to the collected works. He is right they do cut off parts of thier foot and the bird peck out thier eyes. I had no idea the original was this bloody. Just goes to show you how mores change.
1 .h tml/
http://www.ucs.mun.ca/~wbarker/fairies/grimm/02
http://www.ucs.mun.ca/~wbarker/fairies/grimm
I'm a programmer, I don't have to spell correctly; I just have to spell consistently
My favorite part is where the prince discovers that the stepsisters have cut off their heels to fit in the shoes: They're riding in a carriage back to the castle, and they pass by a field. The wind picks up and rustles the field, which whispers to the prince, "Yo, dude, check the shoes."
It's obviously a story to help prepare kids for dating transvestites.
There are no trails. There are no trees out here.
I do not dispute the atrocities commited by the Japanese military during the war but that website is short on details and out right wrong in some cases. First of all the rape of Nanking is being taught in the history books... just a few of hundreds of history textbooks approved by the Ministry of education (or whatever it's called) did not explictly discuss the rape of Nanking, which by the way is something any "educated" japanese knows... now as far as the line "[Japan] Holds the second biggest defense budget in the world and bullies her neighbors in territorial disputes" this is just bullshit... first of all yes the Japanese spend lots on defense... but if you did a little checking... you will note that a significant chunk goes to paying for the American bases still in Japan... and as far as bullying our neighbor... that is pure crap... when did that happen... since the war only once has a Japanese ever fired on any non-Japanese... if you don't know what I'm talking about... a year or two ago the Japanese coast guard fired at a North Korean ship, which was caring illegal drugs, and they did only after being shot at with missles... and they still radioed in to get permission to fire a pea shooter at them...
"I vas only following orders" doesen't absolve anything.
What, like in Vietnam?
You may count me a fool - But I count you as evil.
Fucking Nazi sympantiser.
Wow, you really strengthened your argument there. Try learning the difference between a German and a Nazi before replying with your childish comments.
I put my books on Amazon, Smashwords, Demonoid, ISOHunt and Pirate Bay. Search for 'Michael Cargill'
The US decided that removing the system that decided to make an un-provoked attack on Pearl Harbor, attack and occupy parts of China, and wage war across the Pacific, was the only way that we would accept surrender. We had made that very clear. But, the Japanese officials were more interested in their honor, than in saving their own people.
And so the US reply was too wipe out a city and thousands of civilians out in a split second.
Excuse me whilst I don't holler and cheer this act.
I put my books on Amazon, Smashwords, Demonoid, ISOHunt and Pirate Bay. Search for 'Michael Cargill'
Yes, that was the reply.
Because of the 'never give up' attitude, it was quite possible that the Japanese would have continued fighting, and allowed millions more Japanese and Americans (and Chinese/Koreans) die.
It's easy now to look back and say "gee, did we really need to go that far?" At the time, most of the world had been at war for 4 or 5 years. Millions upon millions of lives had been lost.
When the Japanese initiated the war in the Pacific, and attacked without warning, they set themselves up for whatever came to them.
When they mistreated and killed POWs in Bataan, they set themselves up for whatever came to them. http://members.aol.com/bcmfofnm/atrocities.html
The Japanese brought themselves into WWII. They fought any way they could, they used Kamikazes against our ships, they refused to surrender.
In 1945, the political climate was different. We were at WAR- not sitting around on our butts discussing things. Lives were ruined everywhere- those who had died, and those who had lost others. Once again- the Japanese had started that war, and they made every effort to keep it going. We wanted to end it- and we did.
No reason to lie.
What, like in Vietnam?
Damn stright - those American soldiers that commited attrocities in Vietnam should have been brought to justice.
Wow, you really strengthened your argument there. Try learning the difference between a German and a Nazi before replying with your childish comments.
At least have the courage to admit what you are. You try to find all sorts of *excuses* for the evil behavoir of the German people during WWII - try to fix the hatered in your heart instead of trying to duck responsibility.
Moneyed corporations, non-working 'poor' and criminal prisoners are turning productive citizens into tax-slaves.
Was this in WW2? I don't remember that... I think that happened quite a while prior to that, but I could be wrong...
There's a very good case to be made that dropping the bombs avoided many thousands of Allied casualties that would have been inflicted on the invasion forces if the Japanese hadn't capitulated. The IJA was still capable of fielding large numbers of troops in the home islands, and the U.S. forces would have faced very stiff resistance. IMHO, a strategy of blockading Japan to force them to surrender would have caused more suffering overall through starvation and economic collapse than the bombings caused. My Japanese language teacher in college was a schoolgirl in Hiroshima when the bomb was dropped. She told me once that, in her opinion dropping the bomb was the right thing to do. She believed that far more people would have been killed in an invasion than in the bombings. She was probably correct. Not only would an invasion have caused massive destruction, but the authorities had been assembling formations of civilians armed with *pikes* for human wave assaults against invading forces.
Even after the bombs were dropped, the Japanese military was dead set against surrendering. Had they been so inclined, they could have prolonged the war and forced an invasion (which likely would have lead to millions of Japanese civilian casualties). It was only the personal loyalty of the Japanese minister of war and some senior generals to the Emperor that allowed the surrender to go ahead.
Even still, a group of IJA officers managed to seize control of the palace, assassinate a general, and had started to search for the surrender recording the Emperor made in an effort to thwart the surrender. Fortunately, some Imperial Chamberlains hid the recording until a loyal general made it to the palace and took control of things.
Downfall: The End of the Imperial Japanese Empire by Richard B. Frank provides a very good justification of the atom bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (both places I've visited, BTW - Hiroshima twice).
Japan's Longest Day by Pacific War Research Society (Compiler), Kazutoshi Hando provides a good overview of the Japanese decision to surrender.
Both are available at Amazon and are worth a read by anyone interested in the end of the Pacific War.
I believe the next post will probably be along the lines of "YHBT. HAND."
Damn stright - those American soldiers that commited attrocities in Vietnam should have been brought to justice.
So you can tell the difference between the American soldiers who commited the atrocities and the American soldiers who did NOT commit the atrocities, but not the difference between a German and a Nazi?
At least have the courage to admit what you are.
I am not a 'fucking Nazi sympathiser'. I just happen to know the difference between a Nazi and a German. It is obvious that you do not.
You try to find all sorts of *excuses* for the evil behavoir of the German people during WWII - try to fix the hatered in your heart instead of trying to duck responsibility.
Oh, now it is the German PEOPLE who are to blame for it all. You DO realise that not every German during WWII was a Nazi, right?
I am not excusing the actions of the Nazi's during WWII in the slightest, but once again I know the difference between who did it and who did not.
I put my books on Amazon, Smashwords, Demonoid, ISOHunt and Pirate Bay. Search for 'Michael Cargill'
Uhhh... the US uses NBC weapons all the time.
General Electric makes a LOT of weapons, and they own National Broadcasting Corporation.
(-1, Smartass)
I am not a 'fucking Nazi sympathiser'
Yeah, you're right. Nobody would fuck you.
Moneyed corporations, non-working 'poor' and criminal prisoners are turning productive citizens into tax-slaves.
I dont think many people realise, but a lot of people around the world are not as 'flamboyantly' patriotic as the Americans (the US is the only place in the world perhaps that wears its national flag as part of popular fashion). I'm not saying that this is bad, but a lot of people are not as 'touchy' about their culture's history as you might think. I'm part Japanese, British, American and Polish and to top it off my surname is originally German. I've spent a fair few years in all of these countries (except germany). So really I should have massive personal conflicts playing as any of these races in WW2 games. The Japanese in particular really dont relate to their historical counterparts. The young japanese have so little in common with their grandaddy's, its a huge cultural rift. People in Japan back in the 30's were so PROUD to have kids in the military. These days, joining the JSDF (Self Defence Forces) is seen as a 'droupout' kind of thing. People really look down on soldiers in Japan. The mentality is so different now, towards the military, history and cultural identity. i dont think any of my Japanese friends would give a shit playing as Americans killing Japanese. This is a 'game' and the Japanese of all people, know that the best. Oh and guy's this is Slashdot, bringing up who was more evil than who in WW2 is really childish. This is really starting to get off topic. The whitewashing of WW2 history in Japan is a fact though, I spend three years in Japanese high school and was shocked at the lack of information. But this is a problem all around the world, I now live in Australia and in school that barely teach about how the Aboriginals were massacred. And when I was in junior high in Philadelphia, the complete dribble they taught us about the south east asian conflicts (Korea and Vietnam) was so pathetic. I learned more from TV for christs sake.
Look, I really don't see the problem here, evr ery day, we hear abou thow videogames affect our kids and us ourselfves, and we say that "no way, they don't", and yet, here you are, discussing the morality and whatnot of a videogame.
If videogames don't affect us in our daily lives, why should an issue like this even arise?
Move sig!
let us not forget the evian conference... each country on the list gave the nazis the green light by prohibiting jewisih immigration, thats somthing you wont ever read in a public school history book