Slashdot Mirror


History Buffs Discover Inaccuracies In Battlefield 1 Trailer (hothardware.com)

MojoKid shares an interesting article from Tom's Hardware. While the new Battlefield 1 trailer may be the most-liked trailer in the history of YouTube, it's also historically inaccurate, according to a popular YouTube channel about World War I. "Some of the scenes feature some unusual or experimental gear," reports Indy Neidell, the voice of the video series The Great War, "and some weapons are carried by soldiers from the other side."

Thousands of people joined the YouTube channel after the release of the game's new trailer, prompting this special video review of the historical accuracy of the Battlefield 1 trailer. "Some of the most spectacular moments in the trailer, such as the tanks bursting into trenches or giant, ominous zeppelins hovering, are actually historically accurate," reports Tom's Hardware, adding that the YouTube commentator "ultimately applauds Battlefield 1 for incorporating so many different elements of WWI. Many people often forget that much of WWI was fought through hand-to-hand combat or that battles took place throughout Eurasian landmass."

74 comments

  1. News at 11 by OzPeter · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Work of fiction is shown to be fictional.

    --
    I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
    1. Re:News at 11 by thrasher+thetic · · Score: 1

      In other news, the Lindbergh baby was found dead.

    2. Re:News at 11 by internerdj · · Score: 4, Interesting

      People complained about the architecture in Prince of Persia also. If you are going to complain about authenticity, maybe you should start with the knife that lets you time travel.

    3. Re:News at 11 by Anubis+IV · · Score: 4, Interesting

      In that same vein, I saw someone complaining yesterday about the fact that in the Dark Souls franchise, it's utterly unrealistic that rolling around (one of the core game mechanics for how you avoid taking damage) should be able to make you immune to any form of attack, since it makes the game less believable when someone swings a sword at you and you just roll right through it to dodge. It was quickly pointed out that he's playing a game in which he's an undead spawn of a demigod consuming the souls of the gods and demons he slays while fighting dragons, monsters, and the aforementioned gods and demons, so it would seem to be a bit odd that rolling is what's making the game less believable.

    4. Re:News at 11 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I've actually complained about this since Demons Souls, the invulnerability frames during rolling, it should be for movement and that's it, the game is applauded for the fantastic hit detection (that stops being relevant as soon as you press the roll button)

      It's for the most part a player vs player complaint, you can stab seven feet of a spear through someone, while they're rolling towards you, even further skewering themselves onto the spear, but they take no damage from it because they were rolling and then counterattack you (usually killing you in one hit) during your attacks recovery phase.

    5. Re: News at 11 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      This is a standard 'best practices' story writing method in literature that has also carried over to gaming.

      Most plots require that one thing that is unbelievable or breaks the laws of physics or what not. If the writer keeps everything else in their literary universe as accurate as possible, it makes it easier for the reader to suspend their disbelief further for that one "out there" plot device thing.

      If your story just throws tons of established universe rules out the window at once, the reader has a harder time both relating to the world your characters are in as well as suspending disbelief for them, and usually such stories suck pretty badly.

      That's why some people correctly ignore the one major disbelievable plot device while able to bitch about all the little things that Try to be accurate but aren't somehow.

      It's still silly yes, but that's the explanation for ignoring the major time traveling knife all together while complaining about the really tiny discrepancies all at the same time.

    6. Re: News at 11 by Anubis+IV · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Quite right. A lot of it comes back to the human mind's fascination with what-ifs and their ability to tolerate the results that come out of the assumption that began the what-if.

      If you start with "What if there was a knife that allowed for the manipulation of time?", then anything that would come as a natural result of that assumption (e.g. the holder would be able to rewind time if they made a mistake), regardless of how absurd it might be, gets a free pass, while anything unrelated (e.g. the architecture looks wrong) gets no such free pass.

      The more complicated the scenario, the more difficulty we have in seeing the connections and how they logically connect back to that beginning point of divergence from reality. By the time you get to entirely fictional universes, we're basically only holding onto the laws of physics, any tie-ins to the real-world that appear to be evident (e.g. if I see a medieval suit of armor, I'll expect a lot of the other medieval trappings as well), and whatever else has been mentioned in the universe, so it becomes extremely important to do some world-building and maintain consistency in how it's presented if you want your world to feel believable.

    7. Re:News at 11 by Robert+Goatse · · Score: 1

      Yeah no kidding. A game isn't historically 100% correct! Who would have thought that?

    8. Re:News at 11 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      It isn't really that unbelievable, no.

      You'll notice that in your own example, the gamer was more interested in the gameplay than the story; that's not a coincidence. Personally, I like games that have an in-depth storyline, a well-developed world that the characters all "emerge" from...that's obviously not what everyone else likes. That's not even why a lot of people _play_ games.

      So if you're playing a game and you're not interested in the game's plot or characters, what are you playing it for? The game _mechanics_, which is exactly what he was complaining about. A game, a series of games that practically prides itself on being an utter misery for new players, in which cartoonishly tumbling around on the ground is more effective in battle than some of the actual WEAPONS you find, it's practically broken the game...for him. For you, me or anyone else it might still be just fine, because hell, it's a fantasy world anyway, what difference does it make? For a person who's looking for realistic combat in a game (plenty of them if the CoD and Battlefield franchises are anything to go by), it looks stupid and yes, unrealistic.

      TLDR; not everyone thinks the same as you. Except on Slashdot, of course.

    9. Re:News at 11 by maglor_83 · · Score: 1

      Even the title isn't historically accurate, why the hell would the content be?

    10. Re:News at 11 by peawormsworth · · Score: 1

      Well this is advertising for a trailer for a video game you may not know about. I mean it says it right there: "most spectacular moments in the trailer, such as..." And so the implication is that if you do not watch the trailer, you are someone who dislikes seeing spectacular things. That's not you.. .so watch the advertisement now.

  2. The most important innacurracies by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    WWI and wars in general are not FUN and you don't re-spawn every time you die.

    It's a fucking game people.

    1. Re:The most important innacurracies by Maritz · · Score: 4, Funny

      and you don't re-spawn every time you die.

      Citation needed.

      --
      I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
  3. Historically accurate = Boring game by jellomizer · · Score: 4, Interesting

    WWI was a lot of just sitting in the trenches and just kind of living in a world where you just can't lift your head above the trenchline. Just kinda slogging it and trying to survive, while living a miserable existence. For a game, rather boring.
    Being also in a video games you are controlling characters not real people the strategy needed is different. In games NPC are disposable, there is no having to face the public and state that you sacrificed 50% of your unit, just to win the objective, where in real life it would just be to surrender or retreat. Because although you may win the battle, the losses would hinder the war more than what you would gain in the battle.

    --
    If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
    1. Re:Historically accurate = Boring game by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The buff didn't even know that Blimps went out of use the moment airplanes became popular.

    2. Re:Historically accurate = Boring game by Opportunist · · Score: 1

      I didn't even know they used blimps at all, all I knew was that the Germans used Zeppelins as bombers against England. That they did, though, until 1918.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    3. Re:Historically accurate = Boring game by Opportunist · · Score: 3, Insightful

      A historically accurate game of WW1 would indeed be boring. And frustrating. You climb out of the trench, then run down a wasteland. Should you roll well on your saving throw you have no influence in whatsoever, you jump into the enemy trench and start hacking Krauts (or Tommies, same texture in a different color, basically). If you're lucky and nobody hacks your back apart, a few hours later the others will come running at you where you actually get a bit of gameplay where you may shoot at some of them before they jump into your trench and again it's mostly a matter of luck and less one of skill whether you survive or croak.

      Oh. By the way. No respawning. You get randomly hit by a stray bullet, the best you can hope for is some sort of spectator mode for a few hours where you lie in that no man's land between the trenches and your character slowly dies instead of quickly.

      Sounds like fun, eh?

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    4. Re:Historically accurate = Boring game by rossdee · · Score: 4, Informative

      "Blimps went out of use the moment airplanes became popular."

      Blimps were STILL used in World War 2.
      Of course by then they were inflated with Helium

    5. Re:Historically accurate = Boring game by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      WWI was a lot of just sitting in the trenches and just kind of living in a world where you just can't lift your head above the trenchline.

      Well, perhaps that's slightly better than the "gentlemen" approach we used in pretty much every war previously, where we would politely line up and take turns (quite literally) trying to kill each other with weapons of questionable accuracy (translation: the broad side of a barn never felt more safe).

      Just kinda slogging it and trying to survive, while living a miserable existence. For a game, rather boring.

      I see. Rather boring you say? Would you prefer we ensure we make these kinds of games so realistic that even the armchair general suffers from PTSD?

      Seems we've quickly forgotten the side effects from sending humans onto an actual battlefield. Ironically, we'll ask for this realism right up until we get it. Then we'll wish we never asked for it.

    6. Re:Historically accurate = Boring game by Wootery · · Score: 1

      Would you prefer we ensure we make these kinds of games so realistic that even the armchair general suffers from PTSD?

      Seems we've quickly forgotten the side effects from sending humans onto an actual battlefield.

      Or, more likely, you've forgotten that we're talking about video games.

    7. Re:Historically accurate = Boring game by malditaenvidia · · Score: 3, Funny

      Don't forget about that mustard gas! There would be a complicated QTE involving tedious button presses whenever someone throws a gas canister into the trench.

    8. Re:Historically accurate = Boring game by tnk1 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      On the Western Front, yes. Although there were some intervals where there was some movement even there.

      Many, many attacks had one side or the other make it to the other side's first few trenches and there was heavy fighting there. And then you'd get counterattacked and possibly thrown back.

      The major problem isn't the possibility of a good FPS fight in the trenches, its the fact that there was a very high casualty rate for getting there. Between machine guns, artillery, barbed wire and such, a lot of troops didn't make it across the No Man's Land. What would justify your character getting across? I'd presume, however, that you could use the narrative to simply suggest that they were one of the lucky ones who did simply because if they didn't, there'd be no game.

      Now on the Eastern Front and in the Middle East (which they took some care to show), it wasn't all trench warfare. Remember this is when Lawrence of Arabia was active, so you're going to be mobile in any campaign that is located there.

    9. Re:Historically accurate = Boring game by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Let's not forget the great flu epidemic, trench flu, shell shock and trench foot. More likely to get you than a bullet or bayonet.

    10. Re:Historically accurate = Boring game by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

      A historically accurate game of WW1 would indeed be boring. And frustrating. You climb out of the trench, then run down a wasteland.

      Right, because there was nothing other than the Western Front.

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    11. Re:Historically accurate = Boring game by Nidi62 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The major problem isn't the possibility of a good FPS fight in the trenches, its the fact that there was a very high casualty rate for getting there. Between machine guns, artillery, barbed wire and such, a lot of troops didn't make it across the No Man's Land. What would justify your character getting across? I'd presume, however, that you could use the narrative to simply suggest that they were one of the lucky ones who did simply because if they didn't, there'd be no game.

      Obviously many people did survive multiple trips over the top. But there were also other types of attacks such as trench raids where they would sneak up quietly at night and attack a section of trench, whether to capture prisoners or just generally create mayhem and keep the other side on their toes. In those cases it was pretty easy to get to the other trench. The trick then was to not get blown up by a grenade or bludgeoned to death by a guy with a persuader. Oh, and make back across to your own trench afterwards of course.

      --
      The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
    12. Re:Historically accurate = Boring game by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The was a game (or more correctly is a game) called "World War 2 Online". I am surprised to see it still exists - but now as a free to play MMO.

      Anyway - it was billed as being realistic. All of Europe to scale, etc. The problem was it was realistic. I joined a battle as an infantryman. Spent about 20-30 minutes (real-world minutes) walking across the field to where the action was. Someone yelled (typed back then) "PANZER!". There was an explosion and I died.

      I figure that was pretty realistic. But as a game, it sucked.

    13. Re:Historically accurate = Boring game by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      A friend was really into it and that was a game with a steep learning curve..
      Of course being randomly blown up by artillery is a feature of wwi that would make for terrible gameplay.

    14. Re:Historically accurate = Boring game by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This kind of fighting was limited to the European theater. In the Middle East and Africa more conventional non-trench warfare was the norm. For example in on the Arabian peninsula Lawrence used guerrilla tactics against the Ottoman Empire. Belgian soldiers in the Congo fought Germans using conventional infantry tactics supported by light vehicles and cavalry.
      WWI was a global war in which trench warfare had a limited scope.

    15. Re:Historically accurate = Boring game by Opportunist · · Score: 1

      The Eastern Front was even more boring than that. Not for the soldier, mind you, but as a game it fails miserably. If you want to play that, play your average game of ArmA. 10 hours searching for an enemy for 1 minute of fighting.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    16. Re:Historically accurate = Boring game by redlemming · · Score: 1

      The buff didn't even know that Blimps went out of use the moment airplanes became popular.

      There's a nice museum at Moffet Field Naval Air Station in California, documenting the use of blimps in WW2, by the US Navy, to hunt submarines. It's in the most enormous hanger (height-wise) that you'll probably ever see. Very impressive.

      In addition to covering convoys near North America, South America, and the Caribbean, the blimps were used over Gibraltar (launching from Africa) to cover the straight at night, when it was too dangerous for aircraft to perform that mission (which required flying at low level to operate MAD equipment).

      Barrage balloons - also called blimps, presumably in British English - were used extensively in Britain during WW2 to defend against German night air raids. These were unmanned.

      Even in WW1, it took a long time for aircraft pilots to learn how to shoot down a dirigible, and these were used until quite late in the war for some missions.

    17. Re:Historically accurate = Boring game by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Ever watched Tavernier's Capitaine Conan?
      Not everybody was waiting in trenches for things to happen...

  4. the horrifying cleaning power of Clorox(tm) gas by Pseudonymous+Powers · · Score: 0

    Yeah, in real life the Kaiser's spawn point was hundreds of feet away from where they put it on this board! Also, you had to wait until the Rapture to respawn!

  5. Shortest Game Ever. by zenlessyank · · Score: 1

    Game starts. You are on a horse. Bullet blows your head off. Credits roll.

    1. Re: Shortest Game Ever. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Game starts. You're in a trench. You eat rats, your feet are infected. It's raining. You own a shovel. There are all these weird colonials around you speaking weird English. You piss on a rag and cover your mouth as protection from mustard gas. Die from falling in mud.

    2. Re:Shortest Game Ever. by Coisiche · · Score: 2

      Or you get slightly more gameplay when you're not killed but wounded and traumatized and shipped to a convalescent home where the doctors, not knowing of PTSD, persuade you that you're merely a bit shell-shocked and it is your duty to King and Country to return to the hellish front.

      It's the second bit of action when a bullet blows your head off.

    3. Re: Shortest Game Ever. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This is what I was hoping as well.
      I want a game that accurately represents trench warfare.
      Not the 1% of time that it was "glamorous".

    4. Re:Shortest Game Ever. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Better yet, you get convicted of abandoning post and sentenced to death.
      How's that for shell shock.

    5. Re:Shortest Game Ever. by zenlessyank · · Score: 1

      This is an EA game. Way too much depth there, turbo!

    6. Re:Shortest Game Ever. by zenlessyank · · Score: 1

      You coward. You servant, You blind man. Back to the front!

  6. Re:hope it's accurrate in one regard by U2xhc2hkb3QgU3Vja3M · · Score: 0

    Americans don't like facts, remember?

  7. It's a game by Opportunist · · Score: 2, Funny

    I can't help it, when I read this, immediately this is what sprung to my mind.

    --
    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  8. Re:Did you know? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It said AC is a faggot did it? Too bad it didn't have a link to 4chan for you.

  9. Re:hope it's accurrate in one regard by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I would think wigs would be more of a British thing.

  10. Re:hope it's accurrate in one regard by Nidi62 · · Score: 2

    Well, they could always include (if there is a single player campaign) the Lafayette Escadrile or the multiple American citizens who joined the British Army under assumed Canadian citizenship.

    --
    The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
  11. Alternate history disclaimer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    They straight-up admitted it's not going to be historically accurate because it wouldn't be any fun.

    And while there's a time and a place for that (it's important to know how much the real World War 1 sucked) this is a video game.

    1. Re:Alternate history disclaimer by gizmobuddy · · Score: 1

      Thank you! In the back of my mind I seemed to recall BF1 is supposed to be an alternate universe.

  12. The other side?! by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 1

    "and some weapons are carried by soldiers from the other side."

    G-g-g-ghost!

    --
    systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
  13. World War I wasn't just trench attrition by LichtSpektren · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Popular works like All Quiet on the Western Front have made every depiction of World War I inevitably something like what the Battle of the Somme was, or the Battle of Caporetto; bitter, miserable wasting away in trenches while swathes of men are destroyed in fruitless attacks on extremely fortified positions. In reality, a lot of the war was high-paced maneuver warfare like the Franco-Prussian War and World War II, especially after tanks were introduced.

    1. Re:World War I wasn't just trench attrition by del_diablo · · Score: 1

      I think thats true. And its also quite the shame.
      Especially when the bonus is: The western front of WW2 might be the least relevant one, to later geopolitics.

    2. Re:World War I wasn't just trench attrition by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Popular works like All Quiet on the Western Front have made every depiction of World War I inevitably something like what the Battle of the Somme was, or the Battle of Caporetto; bitter, miserable wasting away in trenches while swathes of men are destroyed in fruitless attacks on extremely fortified positions. In reality, a lot of the war was high-paced maneuver warfare like the Franco-Prussian War and World War II, especially after tanks were introduced.

      Are you kidding? A "lot of the war"? Hardly any of the war on the Western Front was like this, and the tanks had huge limitations.

      You have to be really careful in assessing WW1. There are huge inaccuracies in much of the published information, including that on the tanks. People made many stupid decisions, and tried to hide the results of their decisions in a whole host of ways, which led to repeating the stupidity (which is why the French Army eventually mutinied). A lot of myths and propaganda have survived to the present day, with major errors in many of the published texts continuing to mislead the non-specialist.

      At the battle of Cambrai (November 1917) - the first battle where the tanks had a decent showing - the tanks were really only successful on the first day (of an 18 day battle), and the German counter-offensives (starting on the 2nd day, and increasing in intensity over the next few days) largely nullified the gains (and that's without the aid of German tanks, which didn't exist yet!). Not a great record for the tanks, taken as a whole.

      The tanks might have been more effective over the course of the War, but they were thrown into battle too early in the War, when there were not sufficient numbers to be decisive. As a result of getting an initial glimpse of the tanks, the Germans quickly adopted, discovering that they could kill the tanks with tools they already had, such as some of their artillery. An extremely stupid decision by the high command, like so many in that war.

      Even without that consideration, the tanks were extremely unreliable, breaking down early in any battle in which they were used, greatly limiting the depth of penetration that could be achieved.

      The reputation of tanks in WW1 is vastly overblown. Like a lot of things, it's mostly propaganda by the enthusiasts, past and present, that does not survive critical scrutiny. The only place in WW1 where land warfare involved extensive maneuver (after the initial battles for France) was on the Eastern Front. It wasn't mechanized maneuver, either: the fastest units were the horse-based cavalry units (the Russians would continue to use a few horse-based units throughout WW2, though primarily as extremely mobile mounted infantry - quite effective in the vast spaces of the Eastern Front).

      The battle of Amiens is probably the best success of the tanks, but even in that battle they quickly lagged behind the infantry even on the first day. Worse, only 6 of the over 500 Allied tanks were still fit for battle by the 4th day of the battle. The tanks did help (as part of a combined arms team), but the weak German defenses and the pre-battle collapse of German morale (due to lack of supplies, and the flu epidemic) were bigger factors in the victory than the tanks. Still not a great example of maneuver warfare, especially compared with the WW2 battles on the Eastern Front.

      Even in WW2, the tanks had to be used as part of a combined arms force to be successful. It wasn't the German tanks that won the battles of Poland and France, it was the combination of tanks, air support, infantry, and anti-aircraft guns. The German tanks were actually inferior to the French tanks in most respects, with the shells they fired generally bouncing off the French armor, but they quickly discovered that their high-velocity anti-aircraft guns could wreck the French tanks. Similarly, the Soviets had developed combined arms when fighting the Japanese in Kalkin-Gol before WW2, and continued to refine this against the Germans, with those that survived their lessons eventually becoming very skilled at it.

  14. Re:Did you know? by PopeRatzo · · Score: 3, Funny

    The fact that this post was downmodded is proof that the Italians did 9/11.

    --
    You are welcome on my lawn.
  15. People love to nitpick by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I have certainly done my fair share. Pretty much every movie ever made... nitpicking is fun... but completely misses the point.

    I have not seen the trailer but I would say that the Battlefield series has never really been about accuracy as far as I can tell. In my opinion, the series has been more about using these time periods as a back drop than anything else.

    Actually, I like the BF series for that reason. I don't normally like "hyper realistic" shooter games... they are too... well... realistic. I would like my blood and violence to come with a healthy dose of fiction.

    1. Re:People love to nitpick by silentcoder · · Score: 1

      >. I would like my blood and violence to come with a healthy dose of fiction.

      I think I prefer an unhealthy dose myself. I always preferred the uberpowered weapons and cartoonish gameplay of Quake and UT over the realistic FPSs like CS. Gaming was escapism and the violence wasn't supposed to be realistic, just fun and with lots of giant explosions.

      Now, in my thirties, I avoid FPSs entirely - I got bored with the entire concept a long time ago. Give me a good RPG like Morrowind or physics sim like KSP instead.

      --
      Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
  16. One inaccuracy by Catmeat · · Score: 4, Informative

    One thing he got wrong, the tank crewman at 7:14 isn't the driver, its somebody starting the engine. Engines of the period had crank-starts. I don't know why British WW1 tanks had the crank handles on the inside, but I'd guess it was because the engines constantly broke down and had to be restarted, and you'd get shot if you had to go outside to do that.

    In this picture https://upload.wikimedia.org/w... - you can just about see the crank handle, on the left of the window.

    This is what the actual driving position of one of the things looks like.

    https://commons.wikimedia.org/...

    1. Re:One inaccuracy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And let's not forget that early models had no separation between the engine and the crew compartment

      The noise and fumes alone must have been enough to drive you mad, the possibility of getting caught by a moving part was just a bonus

  17. re-incarnation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    and you don't re-spawn every time you die.

    Citation needed.

    Hindus and Buddhists would disagree.

    1. Re:re-incarnation by silentcoder · · Score: 5, Insightful

      But even they acknowledge that you lose all your gear and accumulated XP.

      --
      Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
    2. Re:re-incarnation by WallyL · · Score: 2

      But you do get to keep at least one stats counter. Apparently it's really important for the next several spawns.

    3. Re:re-incarnation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Reincarnation is more like making a new character. Respawn implied you retain race/class and level, you might lose factional progress to the enxt level or grear, but when you reincarnate you sometimes come back as a different species and never retain accumulated experience levels.

  18. Didn't Really Tear it Apart by eumoria · · Score: 5, Informative

    Indy didn't really 'tear apart' the game and at one point said "It's just a game so it's nice they're at least trying to bring to light the brutal nature of hand to hand combat" or something to that effect.

    Everyone should watch The Great War series though it's awesome what they're doing. They're following the war week by week as we go through the 100th anniversary of it. It's really worth subscribing to.

    1. Re:Didn't Really Tear it Apart by Nidi62 · · Score: 2

      Everyone should watch The Great War series though it's awesome what they're doing. They're following the war week by week as we go through the 100th anniversary of it. It's really worth subscribing to.

      I had never heard of it myself. But as someone who considers this to be light recreational reading material, it sounds like it's something right up my alley. I grew up watching the History channel before it turned into the "Hitler and aliens" channel, listening to Kenny Rogers talk about the Civil War before school and watching black and white footage of WWI and WWII with British narration after school, and seems like this will bring me back to those days.

      --
      The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
    2. Re:Didn't Really Tear it Apart by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Dude, I do cosmology for fun so anytime you want to bulge out your chest about recreation feel free to bring it.

  19. They can only go so far by Nidi62 · · Score: 2

    If video games tried to be as historically accurate as possible then things would be a lot different and very few people would buy them. For instance in COD World at War, if that game had been historically accurate then in the levels where the Soviets are fighting through the streets of Berlin the models for the German soldiers would all have had to be young boys and old men. A World War I game would involve (if later in the war) hours of sitting in a muddy trench or marching around, enduring a artillery barrage every now and then, and going over the top into a shell blasted landscape covered in decomposing corpses.

    Now that I think about it, a realistic war game would make one hell of a survival horror game. Imagine playing a German 6th Army soldier at Stalingrad. The game starts out bright and sunny, fighting and winning over open fields. But as you get closer to the city the weather gets colder, the days get darker, and the fighting harder. All of a sudden it is deep Russian winter, with long dark days and even darker,longer nights. Every day is a fight for survival, whether in battle with the Soviets or simply a fight to get enough rations to get you through the next day's fight and the next days retreat. All around men are dying in combat, giving up and laying down to die, or outright killing themselves. Christmas and New Years are somberly celebrated, many people realizing that these are the last 2 they will ever see. Thousands of men hoping and fighting to get a spot on one of the last few aircraft to fly out of Stalingrad. You fight to live on, scrounging around for a few scraps of bread or a couple rounds of ammunition. Finally, at the end of the game, you come to a choice: fight the Russians and die in combat, surrender along with the other survivors and die in captivity, or put a bullet in your own head.

    Or, just make a game where you play a character who has the skills of a Chuck Norris/Rambo love child laying wastes to hordes of unnamed enemies while friendly characters with randomly generated names die all around you in spectacularly scripted explosions. Either one works.

    --
    The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
  20. The Onion on Most Realistic Modern Warfare Game by Koreantoast · · Score: 4, Informative
    The Onion's got you covered. Ultra-Realistic Modern Warfare Game Features Awaiting Orders, Repairing Trucks

    Designers say the new game explores the endless paperwork, routine patrolling a modern day soldier endures in photorealistic detail.

  21. Alright! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Indy Nidell needs more exposure for his WWI series.

  22. Wow! by PinkyGigglebrain · · Score: 1

    And I thought I had too much free time!

  23. A Fantastic series of articles on The Great War... by way2slo · · Score: 2

    Over at Mental Floss, Erik Sass is compiling a tremendous body of work on the topic.
    http://mentalfloss.com/section...
    As of today, there are 235 articles. I believe there are about 1 to 2 per week for several years. He is covering the events that lead to the War and occurred 100 years ago. Snippets from journals, letters, and old photographs help convey what it was really like then. It has been a very large eye-opener for me. As a history buff, I thought I knew a good deal about the topic...but there is so much more.

    Just to be clear, I am not connected with Mental Floss or Mr. Sass in any fashion. Only a large fan of this series.

    Installment #1 posted on November 4th, 2011
    http://mentalfloss.com/article...

  24. Re:hope it's accurrate in one regard by Pseudonymous+Powers · · Score: 1, Flamebait

    that the merkins are late to the party.

    That sounds kind of judgemental. Lord knows the Great War caused enough bitterness to go around, but what would you have preferred? Something like this?

    "Mr. President, members of Congress, citizens of America: The Archduke of Serbia has just been assassinated. I know that doesn't sound really relevant to us in America, and that we've got our own stuff going on. But since every third country in Europe now has a hyphen in the name, and the political situation in Europe is basically a house of cards soaked in nitroglycerin, the assassination has somehow triggered a massive, hemisphere-spanning war-to-end-all-wars, in which horrible new warmaking technologies have made atrocities a daily occurrence, and where everyone's motivations are murky and none of the parties are clearly either completely in the wrong or completely in the right."

    "That sounds like something that we Americans should get involved in without delay! We'll immediately start drafting our nation's brightest and most promising youth, so they can return to us after some unspecified span of years, having witness countless things no man should see, as broken shells of their former selves!"

    "Oh, and somebody flip a coin so we can decide which side we're on."

  25. Re:hope it's accurrate in one regard by ravenscar · · Score: 1

    And probably should never have joined.

  26. Historical inaccuracies in the trailer by Trogre · · Score: 1

    To say nothing of the actual title.

    --
    "Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife