Yeah, I laughed. There a problem with that?

So I've linked to an article up there about a new game based on the Columbine shootings. Naturally I'm opposed to it, but my country is one that allows us to do and say as we like so long as we don't infringe upon the inalienable rights of others, so I'm not freaking out demanding the people's heads over it.

I was doing like I tend to do and read through some of the higher moderated comments about the article when I saw this gem and felt I just had to share it:

"Compared to WWII, all those other wars (plus Columbine and 2001/9/11 for that matter) were about as tragic as a guy stubbing his toe. No disrespect intended for the veterens of these events, but compared to 62 Million deaths from combat, bombing, starving, nuking and mass genocide, every other nasty event in the four thousand odd years of written history of violence seems like a jolly piece of fun."

The general debate raging seems to be about how we find it okay to glorify and defend things like WWII games and violent games such as the GTA series, but when someone recreates something like the Columbine shootings we go up in arms about it. Somewhat interesting to see the various sides of it, especially when one considers that delicate line of defending free speach vs defending morals and values. I also thought this comment was a good one:

"WWII makes a good setting for a game for a number of reasons.

It fits a basic good v. bad story model, as it's hard for there to be much of a grey area when one side is shoving people into furnaces and gas chambers.

The combat was very mobile and the weapons are interesting--no boring trench warfare (I imagine a WWI game as playing more like Oregon Trail than an FPS; "Billy has trenchfoot!") and no fire-then-reload-for-a-minute (the ONLY reason a Revolutionary War FPS hasn't come out, and the community total conversion mods that have tried it were never very popular).

There's machinery like tanks and aircraft, but it's not fire-and-forget yet. You still have to see the enemy, dogfight, etc. Fast-paced and up-close action.

Luckily, the WWII setting also makes for some great experiences for the player. One can experience just a little bit of the horror of infantry combat in the mechanized age. It's hard to get across some of the horrors of other wars in the medium of the video game--again, trench warfare would be silly (It's the WWI choose-your-own-adventure game! *you are being shelled AGAIN. Do you a) wait it out or b) go 'over the top' and get mowed down by a machine gun?*), while much of the horror of wars like Vietnam weren't the *action*, but rather the way that day upon day of tension might play out after a close call that lasted maybe a minute.

I really do feel like a have a better handle on what that war was like after playing several WWII games. I'm NOT trying to compare it to the real thing at all, but I know that the first time I played the crossing-the-river scene in Call of Duty and "our side" (the Russians) called in a massive artillery strike less than 100 yards from where I was sitting, I was physically shaken afterwards. It's 1/2 of 1% of what the real thing is like, but it's more than you'd get anywhere else (outside of actual war, I mean). It gives a person a new respect for what a bunch of ordinary people went through over there, and what they accomplished in spite of it all."