Brothers, Sisters, We Don't Need This Fascist Groove Thang

Public Domain, 1945

The final episode of the European Civil War is a safe harbour for many films and games. The Third Reich was probably the most unambiguously amoral belligerent in history, and because of this no-one objects to massacring entire Wehrmacht divisions in Medal of Honor ('the acceptable face of war'). It's probably the war that least needed a series of films entitled Why We Fight.

Nearly everyone has played soldier against the Nazis in some MoH clone, as shooters tend to outnumber games on the other forms of combat - naval and air power. One of my favourite games is B-17 Flying Fortress: The Mighty 8th. I find the gameplay very appealing - training as a navigator and trying to figure out if we're on target by which of the Frisian Islands we're passing over, or being the bombardier and desperately trying to spot a steel works in Essen through nine tenths cloud cover, lest we have to restart the bombing-run and go back through the flak - I love that kind of technical roleplay.

You could say that people had greatness thrust upon them. That in a larger sense history called upon them to sacrifice themselves on the "altar of freedom" (if you want to get clichéd). What I'm saying is that we need history to save us from the tedium of just being, and being in the West has decayed in buying. No longer a citizen, you're a consumer and treated like the box at the end of a flow chart that you've become. Give us a great war before we die in our sleep.

Back there I could fly a gunship, I could drive a tank, I was in charge of million dollar equipment, back here I can't even hold a job PARKING CARS!
-John Rambo, Rambo First Blood

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