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Rob Zacny

Episode 382: Battlefield 1 and First Person Shooters

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Three Moves Ahead 382:

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Battlefield 1 and First Person Shooters
The Winter of Wargaming is upon us once again, and to kick things off we look at a different kind of wargaming - the first person shooter. Battlefield 1 tackled the often-neglected first-person arena of World War 1, and to everyone's surprise it turned to be a damn fine game. Several other recent releases have also featured the grim realities of WW1 so Rob, Fraser, and guest Evan Lahti go through them this week to discuss whether historical accuracy is something we need or even want in a WW1 game.

Battlefield 1, Verdun, Valiant Hearts, Arma


 

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Does Fraser really think WW1 was the only unpleasant war and that WW2 didn't have trench warfare?

 

As for trench warfare it was less prevalent in other fronts and I see Battlefield 1 tried to expose those. Strange they didn't get to Russia/Austria&Germany theater of war. Didn't have time to implement biggest WW1 army (Russia) as well as 3rd biggest (France).

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10 hours ago, ilitarist said:

Does Fraser really think WW1 was the only unpleasant war and that WW2 didn't have trench warfare?

 

Of course not, but it was especially horrific and trench warfare in WW2 was very different.

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The shooter episodes aren't my favorites but I still enjoy them. I argue that we'll never see a decent trench warfare shooter as long as movement is such an important part of shooter controls and game length is an important consideration. A trench warfare needs to cover much more than the surge out of it, which means little action, which in practice means players need to not be so jumpy.

 

A strategy game like This War of Mine that takes place in a trench in France, where 'winning' means being ordered out of the trench at the right moment (necessitating strategic use of characters as couriers) and surviving in the meantime, seems like the best way to capture it to me.

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I'm kind of inclined to think trench warfare may be one of those "some things will never make a fun first-person experience" things.

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Does anybody else find the treatment of the subject matter distasteful? I can't work out exactly what causes me to think this way here. I guess larger scale strategy games just feel a little more respectful of the history, in that they're generally pitched as a more serious game, and less as "fun" and "exciting." World War 1 FPS Sandbox Funtime just feels wrong to me for whatever reason.

 

 

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