War has changed. And it’s not a war like Metal Gear Solid, with jumpy sci-fi robots and conversations longer than Oscar acceptance speeches. I’m talking about a war that’s already happened, that’s already a part of history: the Second World War. WWII remains an ever-familiar setting for the First Person Shooter genre, with franchises like Medal of Honour and Call of Duty continuing to sell by the bunker load. However, it seems odd that just as gamers begin to demonstrate an enthusiasm for COD4’s modern warfare setting, the series returns to its 1940’s battlefield for the fifth entry.
 
The justification for this return given by Lieutenant Colonel Hank Keirsey, the military advisor for Call of Duty: World at War, was that game developers Treyarch now possessed the technology to capture the visionary scope of the story from U.S soldiers who served in the Pacific Theatre of WWII. It’s a noble intention, but somehow the videogame doesn’t quite live up to the promise. Or rather, it actively subverts its original intention for the sake of pleasing its no-scoping, splash damage shocked ‘l33ts’, which I’m pretty sure didn’t exist when the actual war was taking place. If WWII went according to COD conventions, veterans would be honoured by such game given goodies as increased accuracy or recoil reducing upgrades, and their battlefield movements defined by giant rotating icons. As videogame depictions of the war are almost irreversibly entrenched in this arcade gameplay, the technical code which goes towards creating them becomes all-too noticeable, overshadowing any sense of honest, historical realism. Sadly, there’s not a chance in hell’s highway that these games can match the authenticity which by comparison, film provides; even if they do plonk the gamer right into the thick of the action, their overt visual cues and handholding message tips lessen the force of the experience.
 
Is it possible to create a WWII game that combines realism with fun? Or, are games about such a subject matter fundamentally flawed, one which films continually tell us is brutal, horrific and not fun at all? The problem is, contradictorily, that these games try to make films of themselves. They try too hard to deliver a linear thrill ride through history; four years condensed into four hours, and back to base just in time for multiplayer’s Fragtastic Friday. Do we have ducking and dodging trench warfare in Omaha? Check. North African jeep and stealth sections? Check. Someplace snowy and Russian? Yes sir. There’s too much globe hopping and character switching in games like the Call of Duty series for them to focus on any sustained development of setting or story. What narrative and emotional effects they do capture come from their emulation of popular moments in war films. As you blast though one of these games, you might find yourself asking if it isn’t all a wee bit like a cut-and-paste between Saving Private Ryan and Enemy at the Gates.
 
There are some games that get it right, however. The Commandos RTS series make space for the history, keeping it separate from the gameplay in the form of informative briefings which bookend each mission. These missions themselves are much more sedate and cerebral, bringing a sense of planned purpose to your actions as you sit and strategise to work out which one of your uniquely skilled commandos can be used to exploit which hidden feature of the environment. It’s a method which perfectly fulfils the promise of good gameplay, while at the same time immersing you in the characters and settings the game presents.
 
What can game developers learn from this? Divide and conquer. Pick a battle during the war and let the gamer work through it themselves, unaided by obvious in-game cues. Allowing them to experiment at length with what can and can’t be done in an environment will enrichen the gameplay in ways that real-time overlay maps or machine gun emplacements with infinite ammo could never achieve. Start treating gamers like soldiers and less like moviegoers. Now there’s an idea that’s never been thought of before…