| My grand-grandfather died at Gallipoli.
My father never had the chance to know his grand-father. This is something that really saddened him. He collected my grand-grandfather's letters to his family, visited the site where this campaign took place, read many books about WWI, etc.
Fortunately, both my grand-fathers survived WW2, albeit both suffered a lot as prisoners.
Do I need to say more?
This game is outrageous.
I generally don't like war games that have a realisitic, WW1/2 background, because I think having fun with them is a lack of respect for those who suffered of these sad events.
But this is far worse. Yes, my grand-grandfather was a little imp that had to follow stupid orders, and got killed for that. You think this is funny?
You make me sick.
What's the next step? Simcity in a concentration camp? My father would appreciate that as well, his best friend survived from Auschwitz.
"To remain ignorant of things that happened before you were born is to remain a child." -- Cicero |
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Re: Shame on you
posted by
Anonymous
@ 194.249.64.54
on Apr 18 2006 6:45 AM
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Dude. It's just a game.
Besides, like someone else pointed out below, how is it worse from games like Call of Duty and Medal of Honor that take realism a bit too far? This game is at least humorous and it's supposed to depict how stupid and pointless war is.
Oh, and the reverse concept of Lemmings the game uses rocks! |
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Re: Shame on you
posted by
emceelam
@ 24.4.158.80
on Apr 18 2006 9:51 AM
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| I think we are missing the point here. The message of Galipoli the game is that Australian soldiers are worthless pawns. And by implication, someone else's grandpa is a worthless pawn. Rather than being an anti-war message, it has become a message of insult. This anti-war game does not elicit sympathy for the pains of war, but instead inflicts pains on the grandsons of soldiers. To call someone's grandpa worthless is hitting below the belt.
Now for Call of Duty. Call of Duty has a very different message. It is to fulfill the noble mission of defeating the Nazi war machine. It is a noble mission to join the side of good and defeat evil. Galipoli insults soldiers by calling them worthless. Call of Duty exalts soldiers by calling them to duty. |
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Re: Shame on you
posted by
Anonymous
@ 67.51.124.5
on May 19 2006 1:26 PM
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| No, it isn't. The message is that they were USED like worthless pawns. There's a big difference.
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Re: Shame on you
posted by
emceelam
@ 24.4.158.80
on May 19 2006 9:50 PM
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| If that were true, then how can one explain the number of people whose hearts have been hurt by this game? |
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Re: Shame on you
posted by
Anonymous
@ 67.51.124.5
on May 20 2006 2:13 PM
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..because some people are sensitive and take things the wrong way. Duh. Black humor about the military has been around for centuries. It serves some important purposes, too: reminding people that leaders are not competent by default, and their words and deeds should be examined; preventing the blind nationalism that lead to disasters; and offsetting the natural tendency to venerate the military itself, which is an incredibly dangerous trait in human beings. (See WWI recruitment posters, the climate in North Korea, etc.)
Respect for an army must be tempered by the understanding that they're merely human.
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Re: Shame on you
posted by
Anonymous
@ 81.170.134.157
on Feb 1 2007 11:16 AM
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| What about those whose grandpas were pawns in the nazi war machine? I'm sickened by you calling it honorable, the slaughter of regular people who were called into duty. |
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Re: Shame on you
posted by
emceelam
@ 24.6.9.241
on Feb 1 2007 9:11 PM
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| If there was no good and evil, I would agree with you. However, there is a good and an evil in WWII. The Nazi Germans were evil. The Americans and British were good. If you are summoned to fight evil, then your fight is honorable. Those German soldiers were not unwilling participants. With the exception of a very small number of anti-Nazis, e.g. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the entirety of Germany was given over to Nazi evil. They willingly submitted themselves to Hitler and deserved every bullet and every bomb that was aimed in their direction. |
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Re: Shame on you
posted by
Anonymous
@ 74.37.79.227
on Feb 1 2007 9:39 PM
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Every side in every war decides they are "good" and the enemy is "evil!" If they didn't, most of those wars would never have gotten started. The Nazis believed they were "good" and the Allied nations (and especially Jews, homosexuals, Gypsies, communists, atheists, intellectuals, et cetera) were "evil." You need a hell of a lot more than those two words to make war into something honorable.
Wars are ugly, dirty, cruel, and it'd be a damn good thing if no one ever fought them ever again. A first step is to stop glorifying war and the men who fight it - they're not heroes, they're just guys who are stuck doing a nasty and unpleasant job. The less talk there is about glory and honor and sacrifice, the fewer young men will have to die in the mud hundreds of miles from their loved ones.
The Nazis talked on and on about war as a glorious expression of the national will, and how their heroic young men were fighting the good fight to make the world a better place. You do the Allies no service by using that kind of talk about them, when many of those Allied soldiers enlisted just to stop Nazi Germany's "heroes" from killing any more people -- a necessary job, not an inspiring endeavor. Germans today have done a good job of getting over the glorification of military service, but they found a hell of a teacher in the outcome of WWII. I would hope the rest of the world can someday grasp this lesson without needing that kind of misery, but I haven't seen much evidence of it so far. |
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Re: Shame on you
posted by
emceelam
@ 24.6.9.241
on Feb 2 2007 5:46 PM
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| War is a tool that can be used for good or for evil. If you choose to never use war as a tool, you are doomed to be dominated by those who will use war as a tool. The reason why Hitler was so successful is because the British and French were averse to war. You don't like war? You get dominated by those who do like war. And at the risk of making you even more angry, in a few rare cases, it is good to start a war. Millions of lives could have been saved if Britain and France stomped on Hitler as soon as Hitler's troops broke the Versailles treaty by entering the Rhineland. At that early stage, Hitler's army would have been dog food for Allies. But no, the Allies had to wait until Hitler became nearly unstoppable. If Britain and France were more aggressive in those early days, thousands would have died, but millions more would have been saved. |
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Re: Shame on you
posted by
Anonymous
@ 74.37.79.227
on Feb 3 2007 1:37 PM
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Ah, more lessons in this Good and Evil thing from myopic people whose knowledge of history is narrowly focused on WWII. Good times.
To respond to your point, no that wouldn't have happened had England and France "stomped on them." Germany's war machine proved quite capable of overrunning France, England, and virtually every other country in their path -- England would have fallen had Hitler not been goaded into pushing the entire Luftwaffe into the bombing of London, giving the RAF across the coast the breathing room they needed to rebuild and repair after the initial assault nearly destroyed them. No, the thing that made Germany defeatable was their invasion of Russia -- one case among many where the urge to attack led to a nation's downfall, which is rather contrary to your assertion that those who love war will win over those who don't.
What's more, the desire to point fingers and play Good vs. Evil created Adolf Hitler and the Nazis. When France defeated the Germans, they had long since decided that the Germans were evil, and blamed them for WWI. Consequently, the Treaty of Versailles was extremely punitive towards Those Dastardly Germans, and created the conditions for the rise of Naziism.
Look, kid, I'm not saying countries shouldn't have armies or that they shouldn't defend themselves -- I'm saying that the glorification of the mililtary, and grandiose talk of good and evil, is just plain playing with fire for any civilization.
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Re: Shame on you
posted by
emceelam
@ 24.6.9.241
on Feb 4 2007 11:44 PM
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Hitler disagrees with you. Hitler's later comments described his Rhineland occupation force as "no army worth mentioning". This is the early pre-WWII Nazi army, undeveloped and under equipped. Even France unaided by Britain could have stomped Hitler into submission. I stand by my words. Attacking Hitler at this early stage would cost thousands of lives, but would have saved millions more.
Why are you citing Russia? Stalin's Russia was not averse to war. Stalin attacked Finland and Poland. Then at the end of WWII, they back stabbed everybody by taking over Eastern Europe. Stalin was just as much a devil as Hitler.
If you support the principle of an army that can defend a country, then you must realize that this implies that an army requires the effective moral support of its population in the form of war glorification. An army has to believe that its cause is good and righteous. Otherwise, the army will lose heart and lose battles.
Talk of good and evil did not create the Treaty of Versailles. It was the evil desire of men's heart to dominate the losing Germans. Instead of restoring relationships, they further alienated the Germans. It was evil to extract so much punishment from Germany and that evil beget even more evil in the form of Hitler. |
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Gallipol: The Game is a lemmings-style version of the disastrous WWI campaign.
