/vr/ - Retro Games

[Anonymous No.5232570]

What is it with older games and the ability to convey War is Heck themes a hell of a lot better than their edgy tryhard successors?

UFO: Enemy Unknown and Cannon Fodder gave me a kind of war sadness that Spec Ops or Red Orchestra never could.

[Anonymous No.5232615]

Modern war games basically cater to jingoistic white trash with military fetishes. This is because the main countries that make video games haven't had a meaningful war in terms of their own casualties since Vietnam. The U.S. had 58,000 dead and 300,000 wounded in that war by themselves, and the entire "Coalition" hasn't even lost 10,000 people in Iraq and Afghanistan combined to date.

Joining the military is no longer about honor, purpose, or sacrifice. It is a glorified daycare that you can only fuck up if you are lower than retarded and get videotaped using drugs/alcohol, otherwise just ride out your menial work in the kinder, gentler armed forces until you get out and have absurdly good job credentials. There is no threat to your ego or personal level of discipline like there was 100 years ago, nor are you under any real threat of repercussions for failure to succeed. Source: I have sponsored cadets.

If you are completely unfit for any job besides cannon fodder, or worse, volunteer for it, you have a small chance of getting killed or maimed over in Shifting Sand Land. However, you are statistically more likely to die in training. This slight risk helps keep the military an "untouchable" source of honor for people -- the idea that one day they can be depicted in a
tearful "Daughter Meets Dad for the First Time Coming Back from Playing Cornhole in Oogbooglistan" Facebook viral video.

tl;dr: The military/war is a fantasy where few people still alive today (and not going senile) actually truly understand the sacrifices that pre-1975 soldiers made and therefore have no hope of recreating it in fiction respectably. It's much easier for them to play into the "rah-rah" crowd's fetishes.

[Anonymous No.5232619]

>>5232570
as with many other things. it's because limitation forces abstraction, which requires distillation of *essence*. which is why art is a thing at all as opposed to recording/transcription

[Anonymous No.5232635]

>>5232615
Insightful, Anon. But that wasn't the answer I was looking for.

[Anonymous No.5232636]

>>5232635
sorry I kind of got self-indulgent there

[Anonymous No.5232638]

>>5232570
You can't hurt the feels of todays wussy normies, anon. What are you thinking? That's bad for sales.

[Anonymous No.5232641]

>>5232638
Never apologize for a long winded post on 4chan. That's what makes this site great. Its the critics who should apologize to you

[Anonymous No.5232642]

>>5232636
I enjoyed, legendary rant anon.

[Anonymous No.5232652]

Red Orchestra is a multiplayer only military sim-cade. I don't know why you'd expect it to make feel anything. It's meant to be a fun, social game with some leanings toward realism for mechanics sake.

[Anonymous No.5232803]

>>5232615
Based. Preach anon.

[Anonymous No.5232849]

>>5232570
Because you haven't played Operation Flashpoint

[Anonymous No.5232949]

>>5232615
I feel like posting that on /k/ would yield vastly different results.

[Anonymous No.5233226]

>>5232615
Found a picture of you, OP.

[Anonymous No.5233230]

>>5233226
seethe

[Anonymous No.5233242]

>>5232615
Slow down there nigga, I ain't reading all this.

[Anonymous No.5233254]

>>5232615
Starship Troopers already predicted that. There's no meaningful war worth fighting for right now so army was reduced to being glorified janitors except the cockroaches are bigger.

[Anonymous No.5233265]

>>5232615
based as fuck

[Anonymous No.5233267]

>>5233254
How's that a bad thing? The wars of the 20th century were nightmare fuel and nobody would ever want them to happen again.

[Anonymous No.5233541]

>>5233267
It's ostensibly a good thing to have less war. In theory it means that you don't have to spend as much money on military and can focus your efforts elsewhere. In reality it means that governments will go out of their way to make up reasons to fight each other so they have an excuse to keep spending more money on the military even though if they just stopped being dickheads the world would be more peaceful.

[Anonymous No.5234085]

>games from the 80s with a military/war zone setting
>it's usually always in a jungle Vietnam-ish kind of setting
>almost never in the Middle East

[Anonymous No.5234450]

>>5232615
>>5233541
People will always be ideological and one of the most effective ways of spreading an ideology is through war/violence. They say war never changes, and that's because war will always be about asserting the will of a group onto the people of another. For as long as we have individuals there will always be conflict over the "correct" way to do things, with the powerful ones spreading their ideas to as many people as they can with whatever means necessary.

The thing is that now that we have nuclear weapons technology traditional warfare is too dangerous. Cutting to the heart of the matter and staging a purely ideological war is the way of the future, and with the ever growing platforms of social media it is easier than ever to spread propaganda and convince the other side you're right without ever having to fire a single bullet.

The war of the future is moving toward cyberpunk, with those that control the information able to better control the ideologies of their citizens and influence the politics of other countries for their own gain. Today, war is a different sort of hell, one that we all feel little by little as corporations influence politics and politics influences corporations, with both having the goal of control.

What's the point of it all? To have power? To get rich? No real reason? I don't know. All I know is that I want to play video games and be free to communicate how I wish.

[Anonymous No.5236982]

>>5234450
>What's the point of it all?
People just want to steer the ship because they think they know all the stuff that will lead humanity to a utopia.

[Anonymous No.5237005]

>>5236982
>People just want to steer the ship because they think they know all the stuff that will lead humanity to a utopia.
Hahaha, good one/
Political leaders are all driven by money and egotism.

[Anonymous No.5237018]

>>5232615
Best rant I've read in a while.

>>5232570
New games are able to very literally depict details, which drags designers into a rabbit hole of making all these glorious pieces and the result is as anon said. In a game like 'Papers Please' the pixelated graphics allow players to appreciate the impact of the gameplay, because the story, dialogue and design was focused on making you relate. Imagine if the creators of mass effect 4 did that project.

Did you play Banner Saga?

[Anonymous No.5237048]

>>5234450
War is about economics you fucking idiot

[Anonymous No.5237159]

>>5232615
This is such a good post it's hard to believe I'm on /vr/.

[Anonymous No.5237585]

>>5232615
>until you get out and have absurdly good job credentials.
It's not often I can smell bullshit through a monitor.

[Anonymous No.5238360]

>>5237005
Smart people by and large don't go into politics.

[Anonymous No.5238565]

>>5237585
Provided you were doing something besides swabbing the decks, military will get you farther than a college degree because it doubles as work experience. If you did college anyway during that time, because why not (paid for by the government, at least in the US), even better.

[Anonymous No.5238654]

>>5232615
Unironically this. Also don't forget the "pet sees owner after deployment" and "dad/mom surprising child at school or wrapped as a present" meme.

People in real wars in the past would probably rather hide in a dark room than whore themselves out for social media points. "Wars" now are basically down to being mall cops for the contractors using our tax money to rebuild some shithole. Wars are more about lining a politician's friend's pockets now.

[Anonymous No.5238683]

>>5238654
>>5237159
>>5232615
>samefag upboating your own post
You are this pathetic, anon.

[Anonymous No.5238684]

>>5238683
Go play CoD, kiddo.

[Anonymous No.5238686]

>>5232570
So what happens when the hill is filled with graves?

[Anonymous No.5238689]

>>5238686
The game only gives you exactly as many recruits as there are graves. At that point you lose. It's in the several hundred.

You will tend to use most of them, even if you're good at the game.

[Anonymous No.5238715]

>>5238684
>doesn't deny it
:^)

[Anonymous No.5238720]

>>5238715
My only posts in here besides the original diatribe are >>5232636 and >>5238565

[Anonymous No.5238973]

>>5238683
Not me reddit tier fag.

[Anonymous No.5239535]

>>5232570
*War is hell,don't be polite

[Anonymous No.5239553]

>>5232615
whoa

[Anonymous No.5241295]

>>5232570
Dying in the sun, so much fun!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PiYuq6Ac3a0

[Anonymous No.5241369]

>>5232615

I never asked for this

[Anonymous No.5241398]

>>5232570
>>5232570
>UFO: Enemy Unknown and Cannon Fodder gave me a kind of war sadness that Spec Ops or Red Orchestra never could.
Then you should try Papers Please if you already didn't.
>What is it with older games and the ability to convey War is Heck themes a hell of a lot better than their edgy tryhard successors?
Fuck if i know but the original Red Baron had the perfect atmosphere of the fading Belle Epoque and hell in the trenches while being a fairly straightforward flight sim. I think it's the music.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLL6ekbEOF4

[Anonymous No.5241401]

>>5237048
There are several reasons besides economics and forcing a reason to sell weapons

[Anonymous No.5242663]

>>5232570
Will join the Operation Flashpoint posters here. OFP never really tried to actively push the whole "war is hell" agenda, but still ended up reliably portraying it as a bleak and miserable experience. OFPs islands are not painted by some gritty filters or covered in marks of shelling everywhere, its characters do not scream in agony before dying nor do you meet any characters which are made to be sympathetic side-kicks doomed to be killed off later. Its soundtrack is neither eerie nor weepy. The communication between the squad members is absolutely emotionless. Its portrayal of violence is not over the top and the characters themselves are kinda goofy looking which is obvious looking at its age.
But despite all that the gameplay and setting is enough to show you what war sadness is about. You will see your nameless, faceless comrades slaughtered over and over again while you hug the dirt, avoiding the bullets flying over your head. You will occassionaly crawl over the ground on the search for more ammo on some poor fuckers corpse who got his face blasted off. You will often see the twisted and torn up remains of some armored vehicle with the crew still burning inside of them. And you will die yourself over and over again as you get shot or blown up by someone you did not even see or torn to red mist by a vehicle which completely outclasses your weaponry. Especially in the Resistance campaign you can really embrace the suffering when you are just some guerilla forrest bum trying to fight against the soviet army at their peak.
When I finished the game I did not even feel like I have won something, which was kinda all its about I guess.

[Anonymous No.5243339]

>>5242663
>And you will die yourself over and over again as you get shot or blown up by someone you did not even see

That gave me nightmare, to the point I actually had a dream like that.
Operation Flashpoint was something I would actually call realistic.
Super bunnyhop actually said in similar vein to your comment
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-228auScq1g

[Anonymous No.5243350]

>>5232615
goddamn this is great.

[Anonymous No.5243479]

Nobody has mentioned Spec Ops: The Line? The entire point of the game is "War is hell, glorifying it is shit". Its gameplay is pretty average but it's good at showing how fucked war can be and how innocent people can get caught up in it. Same with This War Of Mine which is played from a civilian perspective and is recommended if you enjoyed Papers Please as it has a similar theme of hard decisions.

What would be an amusing game; one where the first part is just you doing war shit like any military shooter, the rest of it is you dealing with the consequences as you are tried for war crimes such as firing on medics, killing surrendered soldiers, and wearing enemy uniform. When you inevitably try to not commit war crimes, you end up getting charged with insubordination and desertion. Hell, have the game give you advice that goes straight into war crime territory.

I give this idea to the public domain.

[Anonymous No.5243480]

>>5243479
Read OP.

[Anonymous No.5243487]

I think there might be some truth in the argument that the "war is hell" idea was stronger in the 80s when the great conflicts of the 20th century were closer and there were millions who'd lived through them.

[Anonymous No.5243489]

>>5243480
Spec Ops is a series that produced a lot of games in a short timeframe, there's a ten year difference between Airborne Commando and The Line.

[Anonymous No.5244084]

>>5243479
>>5243489

It's a shit game and you're a fucking retard for buying into the retard shitlib devs' baby crying wannabe-Heart-of-Darkness writing. Fuck off and don't come back to /vr/ you ugly little zoomer shitheel.

[Anonymous No.5244092]

>>5244084
I'm actually conservative and lost two grandparents and an uncle to war but you do you.

[Anonymous No.5245646]

>>5232615
>all these zoomers fellating this long-ass epic moment post
Come on we're here to talk about vidya not embittered tangents

[Anonymous No.5247318]

>>5232615
>Shifting Sand Land