Why no World War 1 Games?

[catbox_9]

What I don't get is we have a plethora of World War 2 games but why is there such a dearth of World War 1 games?

 

According to this list there are 117 World War 2 games (I may have miscounted slightly) but according to this list there are only 14 World War 1 games and the most recent one for a non-PC system came out in 1992. Of the 14 games 13 of them are flight simulators and one doesn't have a wikipedia article although the name Knights in the Sky means it probably is, too. When I think WW1 I think trench warfare - why zero games that involve that?

 

Archduke Ferdinand must be rolling in his grave knowing there's no games on WW1 (or maybe not...sorry if that is somehow offensive).

[Atari5200]

WW1 and 2 games would be very similar I would think, both took place in pretty much the same area, though I believe Austria was no longer around when WW2 started, but I'm going by memory here people.

 

WWII has better technology, better weapons, etc. and the over all story is probably more appealing, WW1 someone would have to know the back history to appreciate the game where as WWII people just want to blast nazi's.

[wrenchien]

WW1 and 2 games would be very similar I would think, both took place in pretty much the same area, though I believe Austria was no longer around when WW2 started, but I'm going by memory here people.

 

WWII has better technology, better weapons, etc. and the over all story is probably more appealing, WW1 someone would have to know the back history to appreciate the game where as WWII people just want to blast nazi's.

 

or be forced to become one when you watch and fire at them too many times

[buddpaul]

I've wondered this very thing myself!!

 

 

Paul B.

[Atari5200]

and with the overall lack of machine gun technology at the time, it was very basic and not refined, trench warfare pretty much consisted of being in a trench, listening for the sounds of gun fire to calm down from the enemy trench, and then rush the trench while they reload. I would not imagine this would be very fun over and over again.

 

again, i'm going by memory on WWI history.

Edited March 14, 2008 by Atari5200

[catbox_9]

I'm not a big first-person shooter fan but I always enjoyed World War 1 history more than World War 2 history (probably because nobody cares about WW1) so the idea of a game interests me.

 

If technology is the thing, why no Vietnam War games? Oh wait, that would probably fail miserably.

EDIT: Actually there are a few.

 

Apparently there are a few Civil War Games including a modern console-based on the XBOX360/Playsation 2.

 

There's 2 games based on the assassination of JFK but they're not for consoles. That seems odd.

Edited March 14, 2008 by catbox_9

[iwan-iwanowitsch-goratschin]

WWII people just want to blast nazi's

 

I like to blast allies in WW2 games.........

[PressureCooker2600]

WWI.......five words.

 

Trench warfare and forced assaults.

 

WWI wouldn't be that ideal for a FPS. Maybe a RTS or Shogun-type game.

 

I think there is a severe lack of WWII games in the Pacific campaign. One Medal of Honor and thats it. The rest are naval sims and aerial combat.

[shadow460]

Does your list count Red Alert as a WWI or II game? Red Alert takes place around 1938 or so, which would probably put it into WWII territory--with Stalin in power instead. How about Yuri's Revenge? According to the timeline, Yuri's Revenge took place around 1960, despite the technology it features.

 

Hmmm, all three Dark Forces games took place before 1940 -ish. Do they count?

 

I'm also thinking of some vertical shooters with WWI or WWII influences. Strikers 1945 obviously would be WWII. There are older styled aircraft on several shmups, like the Beast Arrow from Raiden Fighters and some of the planes from Aero Fighters 2.

[iwan-iwanowitsch-goratschin]

There is a lot of stuff to make a good WW1 game! E.g the Battle of the Dardanelles(Turkey), Verdun, The first tank attacks in Cambrai, the African theatre, Italian theatre (Alps), Russian campaign, Balkans...............

 

All you need is a good game designer!

[catbox_9]

Does your list count Red Alert as a WWI or II game? Red Alert takes place around 1938 or so, which would probably put it into WWII territory--with Stalin in power instead. How about Yuri's Revenge? According to the timeline, Yuri's Revenge took place around 1960, despite the technology it features.

 

Hmmm, all three Dark Forces games took place before 1940 -ish. Do they count?

 

I'm also thinking of some vertical shooters with WWI or WWII influences. Strikers 1945 obviously would be WWII. There are older styled aircraft on several shmups, like the Beast Arrow from Raiden Fighters and some of the planes from Aero Fighters 2.

Check the link in the first post, I'm too lazy to check.

 

 

All you need is a good game designer!

 

Maybe a homebrew 2600 WW1 game?

[Atariboy]

and with the overall lack of machine gun technology at the time, it was very basic and not refined, trench warfare pretty much consisted of being in a trench, listening for the sounds of gun fire to calm down from the enemy trench, and then rush the trench while they reload. I would not imagine this would be very fun over and over again.

 

again, i'm going by memory on WWI history.

 

Machine gun technology was very refined by World War I, many of the weapons we used with such success during WWII were created during that time or in development during the war, such as the BAR, M1919 .30 caliber light machine gun, and the M1917 Browning. The Browning 50 caliber entered service in 1920 or so, and that's still widely used in our military in 2008.

 

WWI was a dull war, the people in power didn't know how to properly utilize the modern tools available to them, so most of the war for most sailors and soldiers was sitting in port or in trenches, waiting to be sent on mass suicide runs to their deaths most likely. And waiting for things to get quiet wasn't how it was done, offensives were much more organized than that and were usually preceding by hours of shelling.

 

It's just not a very exciting setting besides a few moments of terror occasionally, unless its the U-Boat and naval war, and the air war (Which might be too slow for many gamers if they're going for realism), and tanks were very slow at the time and I think would be boring for many people (Assuming your going for realism).

 

When everything is quiet is exactly when you wouldn't want to be going over the trench since that's when something is likely about to start. And like I said above, machine guns were very deadly and that's why there were times where 100,000 men would die in one day. And they weren't fighting with muskets, or being commanded to fire in unison and then have to spend a significant time to reload, so they didn't go over the sides when they thought the others were reloading (This isn't 1780, but only 90 years ago and reloading a rifle wasn't a very long process).

Edited March 15, 2008 by Atariboy

[+remowilliams]

was sitting in port or in trenches, waiting to be sent on mass suicide runs to their deaths most likely.

Exactly. Waiting around in a muddy filthy diseased trench line to be shelled or gassed to death, or charging a hailstorm of lead from enemy machine guns while running across a battlefield in a massed charge to almost certain death didn't make for a fun war, and certainly wouldn't make much of a fun video game.

 

The last representation of WWI that I remember seeing in a video game was the gruesome scenes in The Darkness.

Edited March 15, 2008 by remowilliams

[RARusk]

If you're going to have just one WWI game then bring back "Wings" (Cinemaware). I think it was the best game they ever did. Still do.

[iwan-iwanowitsch-goratschin]

If you're going to have just one WWI game then bring back "Wings" (Cinemaware). I think it was the best game they ever did. Still do.

 

Yep, Wings is an awesome game!

[esquire]

Actually you missed a few WWI games:

 

Codename Eagle - an alternate history FPS game set in Russia in 1917; here's IGN's review

 

WWI: The Great War - a RTS set during WWI; here's IGN's review

 

The Entente - another RTS.

 

Diplomacy - a turn based strategy game originating from Avalon Hill's board game. It starts out prior to WWI. There have been several iterations on the PC. Check the wiki link and the Micropose review HERE and the Paradox review HERE

 

Iron Storm - another WWI alternate history FPS. WWI has been going on for 50 years, and the game is set in 1964.

 

Here's a nice List of WWI Games spanning multiple platforms and eras, from Blue Max on the C-64 and forward. Many of them of course are Flight Combat games. The original Red Baron is my favorite.

[RickHarrisMaine]

Snoopy and the Red Baron! Now there's a WWI game.....

 

Warbirds on the Lynx

 

Time Pilot on the CV and the Atari

 

But man, what about an Aces Combat based on WWI? Now that would be cool....

[BassGuitari]

If large-scale frontal assaults don't make for exciting games, why is the Normandy Invasion foisted upon us time and time again? How is it different?

 

This thread just demonstrates how misunderstood World War One is, although there are a couple good points.

 

Long story short, there was a lot more to it than just trench warfare. And the combat, especially at battles like Verdun, the Dardanelles, Passendaele, and the 1918 Argonne Offensives, saw some of the most savage fighting in some of the most perpetually miserable conditions ever seen by a soldier.

 

The whole large-scale frontal assaults that WW1 is known for were largely phased out (though still used) by 1916-17 in favor of series of attacks in small groups or in squads. Instead of waves, attacks were carried out in teams. This is how squad-level light machine guns like France's M1915 CSRG Chauchat and Germany's MG08/15 came to prominence. Every team-based FPS since Battlefield:1942 uses this squad-based format. (Incidentally, when the U.S. first became active as a national army in 1918, this new tactical wisdom was dismissed by the General Staff, and the doughboys went over top in waves, which would explain how we lost something like 50,000 men in just a year.) The Germans became particulary adept at this.

 

Someone mentioned the African theater, which reminds me: the war beyond Europe was very mobile. The war only stagnated to trench tactics along the French/German frontier (the Western Front) and to a lesser degree the Austro-German/Russian front (Eastern Front) and at the Italian and Serbian fronts. Africa, the Middle East, and the Pacific were very different (although the war in the Pacific was decided almost immediately by Japan...I guess Tsingtao just wasn't worth it to Germany!)

 

 

Speaking of BF:1942, there is an absolutely amazing total conversion of it called, imaginatively, Battlefield:1918. Unfortunately, since it's an older game, no-one's really playing it anymore, but even single-player is awesome. Coolest feature? On some maps you can control entire batteries of artillery.

 

Play Battlefield:1918, and then just TRY to argue a WW1 game/sim can't work.

 

I've often thought there needs to be more WW1 games than encompass more than bi-plane dogfighting (though that's cool, too). In many ways, it was truly the defining event of the 20th Century, and it gets nowhere near the attention it deserves.

 

 

EDIT: spelling

Edited March 15, 2008 by BassGuitari

[PressureCooker2600]

If you're going to have just one WWI game then bring back "Wings" (Cinemaware). I think it was the best game they ever did. Still do.

 

Yep, Wings is an awesome game!

 

I have Wings.....the updated version on the GBA. It is definatley Cinmeware's best game.....very underrated because it is often overshadowed by their two best-sellers Defenders of the Crown and The Three Stooges (both awesome games, though).

[Atariboy]

I don't argue it couldn't work, I've been wishing for years for games to be based on older conflicts. I just was pointing out some possible reasons why it's largely been ignored, though the most likely reason is its considered ancient history by so much of the public, even though it wasn't very long ago and there are still veterans of the conflict (However few) still alive and many more that can remember living through it.

[Ryanw]

I remember my teacher back in 10th grade showed us this video of a HUGE dogfight that was from WWI and it was just AWESOME! It looked confusing as hell, but wow, if there was a WWI dogfight game I would get it in a heartbeat.

[koster]

The arcade version of Red Baron was included in Atari Anthology (Xbox and PS2).

 

One of the levels in Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem takes place during World War I (referred to as the Great War - a nice touch).

[superjudge3]

Actually, only the later years in WW1 consisted of trench warfare. The battles on the Western Front were quite fluid during 1914-1915.

 

Also, the battles on the Eastern Front were always fluid, very little trench warfare at all. After all, Romania was overrun in a matter of two months! That's just one example of many.

 

A WW1 game done right, could be just as good as Call of Duty 2 and 3 or all the other countless WW2 games.

[PressureCooker2600]

Most people would also gripe at the lesser capacity of the guns. Not as many and as varied an amount of weaponry in WWI as in WWII.

 

If the developers wanted to keep it realistic, most of the regular rifles wouldn't fire fast as hell. That's why I liked the Civil War FPS for the PS2....the guns took long as hell to reload after each shot. It was a really neat effect. Thats why I spent most of my time slashing people with my saber.

[Defender II]

There are many people still alive from the time of WWII and when computers started having games there were 100's of thousands more. At one point in the last few years 1000 WWII vets were dying each day in the US alone. I'm not sure what the rate is now, I know the military can't provide enough bugle and flag ceremony teams, so many just play a record and depend on the VFW & AMVETS and other organizations like BSA to help out. If you can play Taps and are willing to help out, please contact your local county VA officer and they will put you in touch with the organization handling funeral ceremonies in your area.

 

Very few WWI era people cared about computers when they came out or later when they had games. From talking to my grandparents, most liked to read, dance, play sports, play cards, listen to the radio, and on rare occasions go to watch movies. One of my Grandfathers was a WWI VET. If you want a good read, try any of Eddie Rickenbackers' (Richenbacher) autobiographies (they were more interesting to me thay any video game I've ever played except maybe Tanarus). {The actual US WWI Ace of Aces}

 

I think it was just that the public is more familiar with WWII rather than WWI that made it a subject to sell. It is the same way with movies. They were also relatively close together history-wise. More WWII than WWI. Sergeant (Alvin) York is a good WWI movie. The actual Sergeant York died on 2 September 1964 at 76.

 

Slow tanks, trench warefare, and mustard gas and other chemical weapons aren't as interesting as the dogfights in WWI, but that has been glamorized too. I enjoy the dogfight games.

 

 

Just my 2c.

Edited March 16, 2008 by Defender II