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History In Video Games — a Closer Look
scruffybr writes "Whether it's World War 2, the American Wild West or ancient Greece, history has long provided a rich source of video game narrative. Historical fact has been painstakingly preserved in some games, yet distorted beyond all recognition in others. Whereas one game may be praised for its depiction of history, others have been lambasted for opening fresh wounds or glorifying tragic events of our near past. Games have utilized historical narrative extensively, but to what extent does the platform take liberties with, and perhaps misuse it?"
For example, if you are a nazi, then you probably think 90% of video games are horrible, slanderous, libelous, and a gross distortion of history.
If you're not, you probably find them fun.
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The same thing has happened in the movies. Often historical events were only used as distorted background. And movies are as games made for entertainment purposes. So what counts is entertainment value not historical accuracy.
CU, Martin
It's a bloody video game. They have no obligation to you to be historically accurate, it's just a "standard" that we've set amongst ourselves probably out of boredom. Go cry about something else please. If you want accuracy (arguable), then read a history book.
Always proofread carefully to see if you any words out.
Even games that have accurate summarizations of history in their story rarely use it to much good effect beyond a sort of flavorful seasoning. It's not really playable history that makes you think about it, in the way good historical fiction helps you understand and imagine aspects of history. If anything, the use of history in educational games like Oregon Trail is the closest to that, and even there it's a little superficial. (The article does correctly point out that alternate history has been dealt with pretty well in games... but oddly, real history, not so much.)
We do, for whatever reason, have that more with current events to some extent. In the mid-1980s, Chris Crawford released the excellent Balance of Power, which attempted to use gameplay to interactively illustrate some aspects of the Cold War. More recently, there's been a flurry of interest in "newsgames" and "persuasive games", using games as a sort of editorial-cartoon-style take on smallish current issues, like tainted spinach outbreaks.
But where's playable history in any real fashion? It doesn't have to be pedantically boring, designed by Professors of Roman History to illustrate some sort of minutiae of interest to their field. Even semi-accurate, dramatized history of the History Channel variety would be interesting if it were playable in some significant sense, not just "you're playing an RTS that has Roman legions as units". Or something as good as the alternate-history games, but with actual history. Lack of interest? Too hard to figure out how to make it work? I mean this as a serious question, fwiw, not as berating game designers. It seems there's a lot of popular interest in at least some kinds of history, as evidenced by things like the History Channel, and yet in games we've gotten only really superficial elements. It may just be inherently impossible / really really hard, but somehow it seems to me that it ought to be doable.
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What do we really know about history, anyway? You get different accounts of the same event by people who were actually there. Then, as the stories are propagated by those who weren't there, you get even more different stories. Eventually, things may be written down, and you may find evidence that fits with some stories but not others, but, in the end, what do we really know?
Even in cases where there is agreement among people who have actually studied a historic event, what people at large believe about it is usually based on parroting what they hear from others. So, what we "know", then, is not actually what historians believe actually happened. And even that is only a belief.
In that light, I see the more important aspects of games to be how much fun they are to play. Is the gameplay good? Is the experience immersive? Is the story believable enough? Feeling realistic and being in line with historic events (as applicable) is an important part of that, but I wouldn't say it is overwhelmingly important for games (it's different if you build a simulator for training, of course).
And let's face it: if we went for total realism, there wouldn't be any game to play. There would be only one way to proceed, and that would be the way it actually happened in real life. That's not a game, that's a movie - and a specific genre, quite apart from the big hit movies. So let's not be too tough on games that deviate from history a bit more than others, given that none can possibly give a completely accurate account, anyway.
On the other hand, if you are going to base your game on a historic event, you might as well faithfully depict the historic setting as we know it. Otherwise, what's the point? Unless you're making a parody, of course. :-)
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
Where you don't have to pay royalties for the ideas. In that sense, in video games, it plays the same role as a franchises such as Star Wars, Star Trek, Harry Potter, or Lord of the Rings. Just as with history, with them you get major characters, direction of story (a plot), costumes, backdrop, and "feel".
Now, I know with anime, most games don't get 'canon' exactly correct. Why should we expect they get history correct? In the end, it's just attribute it to artistic license.
Moreover, the important part about the study of history isn't specific facts about narrow things, but the recognition of repeatable patterns due to human nature, and avoiding the same mistakes twice. For some reason, most history classes ignores this part, and zooms in on meaningless facts (such as dates) and the teachers almost never are concerned context, or the greater lessons learned, etc. The interpretation of most lessons is almost always left with the students, many of whom won't consider anything but memorizing the basic facts to pass the test.
I had one excellent history professor, he lambasted the history channel for their distortions and mistakes. Why should we expect anything more out of a purely entertainment medium such video games than an (entertainment) TV channel supposedly dedicated to history? The best lesson to learn here is simply not to believe everything you read, see, or what someone tells you to without verification.
Video games can also grossly misrepresent evolution, driving, archaeology and just about anything else they're based on. They are for the most part a source of entertainment meant to create a virtual world that may or may not have anything to do with real life. That is the point. They're supposed to be fun. Sometimes the historical inaccuracy is the whole point; It can be fun to interact with a world that isn't historically accurate; alternate timelines for example.
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
Whether it's World War 2, the American Wild West or ancient Greece, history has long provided a rich source of movie narrative. Historical fact has been painstakingly preserved in some movies, yet distorted beyond all recognition in others. Whereas one movie may be praised for its depiction of history, others have been lambasted for opening fresh wounds or glorifying tragic events of our near past. Movies have utilized historical narrative extensively, but to what extent does the platform take liberties with, and perhaps misuse it?
History used to be made by the winners. Now it's made by the winners who hated history back in high school...
I swear Officer, these are not WMD, just plain French cheese...
Its one thing to have a game which claims to have a historically accurate environment such as Assassins Creed.
Its another thing to have a game that can teach people history.
Examples i can think of are the Caesar games and its derivatives, basically a Roman simcity would be good for teaching children about Roman daily life.
Paradox games, particularly Europa Universalis 2 which although not being as good a game as EU3 included a lot more events occurring on actual dates such as civil wars.
Hearts of Iron 1 and 2 with the C.O.R.E mod including events such as the Sudetenland crisis. (Though they deliberately avoid reference to things such as the holocaust and Stalin's purges. I don't find the concept of terror bombing a civilian populace be it Dresden or Manchester quite as confronting as in game reasons to favour building concentration camps or Stalag would be.)
Of course thanks to the genius of Holywood we all know the Enigma machine was really stolen by a bunch of Americans (U-571) and not by Poles....
Movies have been playing silly buggers with history since the first movies, video games are no different. Both are forms of escapism from reality.
Why's this a) a suprise and b) taken so long for some to figure out?
--- Users are like bacteria -> Each one causing a thousand tiny crises until the host finally gives up and dies.
The idea that history is "factual" rather than a rolling series of arguments is both interesting and amusing.
I wonder, with what vehemence, slashdotters would react if historians of science and technology ceased reporting on the human practice of science, and began advising on code design?
"Games have utilized historical narrative extensively, but to what extent does the platform take liberties with, and perhaps misuse it."
Mainstream media rarely depicts the historian's conception of history as currently practiced. At best it is Whig history (telling history to create moral lessons for today). At worst it is a fantasy purporting to a relationship with reality. Do you really expect games to speak into the complex construction of self-identity? The formation of power within classes leading to social conflict? The institutional factors behind the limits of political decision making within and between states? Or the emergence of sub-altern narratives (the utterly voiceless repressed) through careful emergence of non-standard documentary traditions?
At best your demand is Grognard: that the belt-buckles are accurate and that Division X was not in Location Y. If you truely want to look at games serving history, look up Stalin, a three turn economy simulator designed to test Stalin / Trotsky / Bukharinite debates about preventable deaths.
Only way I'd have problems with it is if the game presented itself as supposedly realistic and accurate to be used for teaching a given subject. Ok, well in that case it'd better be accurate. However for normal, just for fun games? Nope, don't care.
To the extent they use history, it is mostly just as a general setting. Take a game like Rome Total War. Nobody, including the developer, is claiming that this is the way Roman history went. Hell, for it to be 100% accurate it couldn't be interactive since you could change history. They just figured the time surrounding the Roman transition from republic to empire was an interesting one for a game. Gave them a setting to work with interesting background story, various factions, a map, etc. Within that framework a game could then be written.
It is no different than games based on fiction. For example the myriad of D&D games out there. Very few of them seek to implement a pen and paper campaign faithfully. Rather they simply use the universe as a convenient setting, and the rules as a convenient set. Makes for less stuff you have to write from scratch. Like a hierarchy of gods. Rather than having to come up with a new one, you've got one already. You can then use or not use the various ones in the game as you see fit.
I don't see what the big deal is. Sometimes it is fun to come up with a totally new universe, however that takes a lot of work if you are going to make it interesting and convincing. Sometimes it is fun to base things on other fiction, take their universe as a starting point and make your little expansion. However sometimes it is fun to use reality as a starting point. Take a scenario that happened in the real world and say "Well what if..." and run with it.
Same deal with Tom Clancey books/movies. They are based around our real world. The major actors tend to be the same, the technology tends to be the same, etc. However it isn't a story of what actually was, it is instead a story of what might have been, in a darker universe with more conflict. It is based on our reality, but is purely fiction. Thus while some things are "correct" there is plenty that is not because it didn't make a good story.
"Games have utilized historical narrative extensively, but to what extent does the platform take liberties with, and perhaps misuse it?"
As someone who has studied history extensively for my degree and has somehow managed to use that for my career without being an academic, I take serious issue with the phrasing and implications here. Historical narrative is little more than an eloquent game of connect the dots. It takes liberties by necessity. Its misuse is only a matter of perspective. If you ever find yourself learning history in a meaningful way while playing a game, stop breathing. Read a fiction novel and don't post this mindless drivel.
In related news: Nearly everything you hear is influenced by the whims of popular narrative. Sometimes what you hear is "bad".
Wasn't Hitler killed in a French movie theater by two simultaneous plots by Jewish a girl and Jew-American soldiers?
There are history books, books loselly based in history, totally wild interpretations (like 300).
There are history games (like wargames), books loselly based in history (typical shooter in Omaha beach), totally wild interpretations...
Narrative is just a element in gamming. Like textures, fonts, GUI, models, ... and Gameplay. Gameplay is probably the 50% of a game, a 40% is visuals, and the other 10% is everything else. Theres only two type of games where history/narrative is really important for a game: wargames and educatives games. All other games are mostly narrative lights (Quake), or self-narrative-creators (Sim City), or worlds (Morrowind), ...
I am getting old, and I really appreciate games that build some credible characters and history (like L4D). But videogames are a superset and narrative is a subset. You can do much more than just narrating something. We can talk, or we can walk. Games can do both,... and more. Books are limited, games are not.
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The content is rather shallow for an article entitled "History in Video Games", it's just a few recent cases. History plays an important part in several old video games: the majority of wargames (Civilization, Ages of Empire, Centurion Defender of Rome, Nobunaga Ambition, Romance of the Three Kingdoms, North and South, Napoleon), which he did not even mention once, semi-educative games like the Carmen Sandiego series and even your occasional action game !
I was reviewing SNK's Guerrilla War on NES last week on my website. The Japanese version, entitled Guevara, is clearly a depiction of the Cuban Revolution, all the key names and some locations have been retained; you play as Che Guevara and Fidel Castro and the final boss is Batista.
And a better example than Final Fantasy, among old RPGs, would have been The Battle of Olympus on NES set in Ancient Greece. Not to forget all the games from Japan who have references to their own history and myths, like Samurai Shodown.
I know it's hard to imagine something has been done before computers, but setting a fictional account in a realistic historical setting is as old as the hills(with the Illiad being a likely example dating from as I recall about three thousand years ago in it's written form and probably substantially moreso in oral tradition).
As to the whole Army of 2, six days in fallujah thing. Army of 2 was a creepy and tasteless romp into mental illness with psychopaths wearing face masks high fiving in pools of blood, folks didn't like it for that more than for anything else, and making a game about a war which isn't over and which involves complex diplomatic issues(like the Iraq war where they hate us and we want them to like us) isn't exactly a great idea.
The real question is how we assess Star Wars for historical accuracy.
A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away....
That is all.
Some parts of the past must be preserved, and some of the future prevented at all costs.
Why all the complaining about games?
I mean, we all know that Indiana Jones snatched the Holy Grail from the Nazis and thank god that Shakespeare stuck so close with the history facts for "Hamlet". Jepp, that's how it all happened.
Gosh...
Do not pursue Lu bu!
(Insert Historical Reference Here) have(has) utilized historical narrative extensively, but to what extent does(do) (Insert Historical Reference Here) take liberties with, and perhaps misuse it?
Really though, a game is just a freaking game, it's not a history book. History books should be taken with a grain (perhaps a bushel) of salt anyways.
If you're not reading and/or in-taking information that you intend on using as fact critically then you're not reading and/or in-taking information that you intend on using as fact correctly.
Perception of misuse is a user error, or "I - d - 10 - T" as they say in the business.
If I want to believe that WWII consisted of one man gunning through hordes of nazi zombies in a series of boxes, then that's my own prerogative.
For example, in 500AD, President Julius Ceasar of the Roman Empire discovered railroads, which led to Charles Darwin's Voyage, which as every schoolboy knows resulted in the Romans immediately aquiring the knowledge of both Amphibious Warfare and Economics, thus allowing them to finally end their 3000 year war with King Abraham Lincoln of the United States. This expansion led to much unrest amongst the populace, however, and in order to maintain order Ceasar was forced to convert nearly 35% of his worforce into Elvis impersonators.
i could live a little longer in this prison
I once had a game on my Mac called "Victory at Sea" (pre-OSX days). The game was buggy as hell, but the game was researched by Jim Dunnigan and Albert Nofi. They created a book of the same name from the research they had assembled.
Great research, crappy game (because it was unplayable).
Angleyne: You can't bend that girder - it's unbendable! Bender: Well I don't know anything about lifting, so that ju
I disagree with some of what you said above, and I agree with some of it. I'm not going to bother highlighting either as that would require that I re-read it and quote it, which might cause my ass to bleed from the self-importance and grandiosity of your post. Allows me to summarize for others who might wish to debate:
1: History is open to interpretation.
2: Entertainment is historically inaccurate.
3: History is about concepts, not facts.
Not a whole lot there for all the bullshit you just spewed onto the Internet. FYI, this thread explains in greater detail why you suck. Personally, my debating skills go right out the window when I have to deal with some fucktard with access to a thesaurus who thinks that style is more important than substance.
Major versions as written by the winners AND the losers (if any survive), minor versions rewritten by historians, politicians,folk singers lawyers, journalists and other phone sanitation type people.
Unless the game's description contains the words "historically accurate" I don't give a rat's ass what liberties they take in regards to the story. Why would we set boundaries within which a story must be told? If you say that the dinosaurs were actually giant, time-traveling robot assassins sent by the Nazis back in time to kill the ancestors of our American forefathers, then I say where is the beta sign-up form for that game?
"Women. Can't live with 'em. Pass the beer nuts." -Norm
There have been some good points raised about history being more than narrative that I would like to weigh in on. As a Ph.D student in history, I have thought about the fascinating possibilities of using video games as teaching tools, for video games, especially complex non-linear ones such as Grand Theft Auto and others, tend to emphasize a sense of contingency: that choices are are made for many different and often personal reasons, and that unexpected consequences result. World of Warcraft and other MMOs have gone even farther in this direction. Contingency is one of the most important facets of history that I try and emphasize with my students: that narration is just a tool to help us understand events, but when it comes down to it determining causality is an extremely difficult enterprise in which a multitude of factors need to be considered when considering human actors. I, unlike some, do not want to completely discard narrative or to give up on determining causality; for me, the ultimate project is to humanize the past, to get down to the individual level, beyond crude economic determinism and hollow constructs. I haven't worked it out completely, but basic parameters such as being able to experience an event from multiple perspectives on replays, having the subject be able to make choices within the parameters of available evidence, and not having endings predetermined would go a long way towards furthering the project of understanding the past not as a series of inevitable events, but as complex human stories.
Has anyone ever heard of Europa Barbarorum? It's a mod for Rome: Total War that was designed specifically to be historically accurate. If you haven't tried it, you're missing out.
mdash!
&mkay;
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