Yahtzee's Nazi Rule of Violence Exemption
 

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/vide...niper-Elite-V2

it goes as such :

"If the Target of violence in any interactive medium is identified as a Nazi, the player is exempt of any moral or karmic consequences regardless of how graphic or brutal the violence may be"

Case in point:

http://i45.tinypic.com/bydzd.jpg
http://i47.tinypic.com/10x6ekl.jpg


And i guess you see my point now...

But, what you guys think of it? Is labeling an Enemy as a "Nazi" is enough to justify any graphic depiction of Violence? what about the "Ultra violence" trend in gaming? Is that taken in account too?

From the technological standpoint what Sniper Elite V2 does is quite impressive and well presented (although is quite clear that it's where all the development really went...) but i certainly didn't expect to see a bridge between a WW2 shooter and Mortal Kombat.... but there you have it!

So, taking Nazis as a label for a otherwise Blob of an enemy is enough? If that's the case, what about Nazi-Like enemies? Can't i just equate enemies Like Terrorists and Nazis to anything i create and justify with that lengthy in game sequences of a character using a saw to rip the enemy apart?

Most likely your average world war two german soldier was, like any other country, a young man simply doing what he's told by his government (and assuming they also had a draft probably didn't have a choice), yea I'd say there is a limit.

Sure you can think of them all as a brainwashed psychotic proto-hitler but they weren't.

Though maybe its because we never think of the individual we are killing but the ideology we are battling. In which case, well yea I think we can all agree Nazi's are bad

sure Nazis are bad, and even a Brainwashed soldier isn't truly evil, it's perfectly plausible for a lot of soldiers to fight wholesomely believing to do the right thing even while completely disagreeing with the top brass ideology (when they KNOW of it).

But it tackles me as a bit weird that "The Nazis" or even the more Amorphous "The Terrorists" gets used as a neutral label to justify any sort of punishment and violence you want to dish out on a game...

yea but like it or not they use this to justify real life punishment and violence against flesh and blood human beings. Video game designers are just tapping into what society already programmed us for.

Heck the terms dont even make any sense. Nazi is a political party. It would be like calling american soldiers "democrats" simply because thats the political group in charge at the time. However you know the Nazi government has done all these horrible things, so Nazi are bad, so by identifying the soldiers as such they are also bad so its ok to kill them.

Your country doesn't want you sympathizing with the people they are murdering so they dehumanize and demonize them as much as possible. Granted dehumanizing people is directly responsible for all the evil things Nazi Germany did. So... yea that might be something to keep an eye on.

Zombies are another great example. They are "ok to murder" people. An outlet for our fears and frustrations thats morally acceptable

[edit]I do get that you are saying there is a point where you are no better than the evil you are fighting, but where that point is or if there even is a point depends on the person. I was just saying that the idea is to associate the soldiers with people that commit genocide so anything you do to them is still vastly better than what their victims went through. Most people are of the "eye for an eye" mindset. Long as you dont do something worse to them its ok, or even correct to punish them that way

actually what triggered me was that after Playing Spec Ops The Line i went around reading on the overall opinion of the game, and i found a lengthy thread on Gamefaqs where someone said they felt really uncomfortable about the game because you kill US Soldier from Beginning to end. And it was quite a lengthy discussion

And then i remembered the upcoming Rainbow Six Patriots where you're going against US Born and Raised terrorist militia groups...

Maybe it's because i come from a country with little to no tradition in warfare but it was quite weird how it's Ok to Knife people on the neck or shatter their skulls when they are the "Special Ops from another country" or just "The Terrorists" but just giving them the phantom label of " A probable neighbor" is enough to make people's guts turn around.

People are used to games being escapism. People are used to thinking "The Nazis" and "The Terrorists" and even sometimes "The Red Menace" to be these great evils because they threaten the American Dream somehow yadda yadda. The point is, they are "faceless" evils, the evil parts are the ideals they follow being different to ours and being aggressive about it. Its easy to use in games because to the popular culture they are or at one point were the great evils of our time in America.

So if you do what Spec Ops did and use the actual US solders, who are not wearing masks all the time, who if you sneak up on them sometimes talk about their brand new wife and child back home that depend on them, your escapism can shatter because now you got to think about this virtual man's virtual life and how his virtual wife and child would be effected by you shooting a virtual bullet though his virtual skull.

If that bit also did not make another point, it also does not work on everyone because some people are just really detached from thinking like a reasonable human when playing video games cause none of it is real (also may be one of the reasons people act like complete bastards in online games but I could be wrong.)

WELL I guess to answer the whole ultra-violence exemption thing, I personally don't need an excuse for ultra-violence in game because violence is hardwired to be enjoyable to humans and ultra violence is ultra enjoyable. It is better that I am doing it in Virtual Nazi Land then real life. I also would not do it in real life for I am a huge coward that freaks at the sight of a paper cut in real life.

This is stupid. The allies were fucking monsters alongside the nazis.

silly smarty, the winners in war aren't monsters they are the glorious savers of freedom everywhere. We would all be speaking germans maybe even four germans if it were not for the benevolent actions of the allied forces.


Edit: also i'm going to pussy out of this thread now, because i'd prefer not to be banned again for light hearted jesting.

double edit: cause like clowning is fun! I mean you ever see the clown trick with the disappearing pencil? Genius!

But the allies moved evicted 12 million people from their home post war , most of whom (those that survived) were sent to germany. Thus the allies were directly responsible for heaps of people speaking German

We didn't fight Nazis, we fought the Axis Powers. Because, again, Nazi was just the political faction in charge not the name of the allied political powers we were against.

What I find messed up is that at the time Fascism wasn't even viewed as that bad by America. At the time they cared far more about communist Russia. We only entered the European conflict because they were allied with Japan. American's didn't give a crap about Europe and its problems.