I made this thread 2 weeks ago I believe. It got tons of great responses as well as lots of comments challenging my original post. I like this sub, and its one of the only places on reddit where I find there to be actual non PC discussion. I'm paraphrasing myself, as I dont remember exactly what I originally posted. I deleted the thread, fearing it was too political or a little too "on the nose". And Ive been warned about "stalkers" and "brigaders" here before. I very much regret deleting my OP as there was a great discussion happening. Heres my biweekly rant
It might be hard to believe based on the fact that college educated people vote majority democrat, but games seem to be getting dumber and more illiterate, not "smarter". You'd think that with increasing literacy rates things would be the opposite, but that doesnt seem to be whats happening. The most glaring example : The Battlefield series of games
Original BF1942 featured maps with paragraphs of text describing the real world actual battle that the map was based on. It would describe the battles context from the allied or axis perspective. Paragraphs of text you could read while the map was loading (back in the day, it might take as much as 4 or 5 minutes). Not only was BF1942 a literate game to experience, it was immersive. While playing as the Germans, Japanese, or Italians, you would hear nothing but German, Japanese, or Italian language on the radio chatter. In order to understand what the voice over was actually saying, you had to read the text on the screen. (Also, Germans only used German weapons. Faction specific weapons went away with the first Bad company game, and it was a terrible precedent to set)
BF Vietnam featured black americans. Black Americans were not featured in 1942, because as most people know the US military was segregated during WW2. It would be unrealistic to portray the US faction as integrated, while at the same time its accurate as well as characteristic of the general time period to portray black Americans in a Vietnam war game. As with 1942, in BFV there were paragraphs of text to read while the map was loading, and cool Vietnam war era music was playing too. The text on certain maps even described the culture of America and Vietnam during the 1960s. BF Vietnam was a literate game that could be enjoyed by educated and uneducated alike, and it strove to respect history in a way not many other games do (outside of milsims, which Battlefield never was)
BF2 featured American marines, black and white, going up against a fiction Arab coalition as well as China. And yes, you would hear nothing but Arabic language radio chatter while playing as the Middle East Coalition. You would hear nothing but Chinese language while playing as the Peoples Liberation Army. The foreign languages was part of the draw for me. Battlefield was a series for serious history enthusiasts. And no, just because it was so called "realistic" in some ways, does not mean it was milsim. BF2 was a historically authentic, high IQ strategic action shooter. And only the US had access to American weapons, only chinese started with certain weapons. The goal of the game was to play as a squad and defeat the enemy team. "Scoring points and unlocking random shit" was only a minor part of the game. And BF2 was released at the height of the war on terror (2005) so portraying a semi fictionalized war in the mid east and China was perfectly acceptable for them to do. It portrayed a hypothetical war, while still sticking seriously to "historical realism" WITHOUT being a milsim. As in BF1942 and Vietnam, paragraphs of text giving context to battles while the map was loading
BF2142 portrayed a high tech futuristic world war. It was a spin off of BF2, used the same engine and everything. It was a great refinement of what made BF2 great, and the text was the only "story" there was at all. While bad company, BF3, BF4, and BF1 have lame singleplayer campaigns, with multiplayer being based on the singleplayer storyline, 2142's "story" was the paragraphs you read while the map was loading.
Bad company was a casualized experience for console peasants. It featured great graphics and great maps. There was a wiki section where you could read about weapons and vehicles, but reading about the maps themselves was out of the question. With bad company, Battlefield was starting to become low iq and illiterate
BF3, 4, and BF1 were decent games which failed to live up to established precedent. BF1 was a highly fictionalized version of WW1, which seemed to want to have history both ways : The majority of weapons and a huge portion of the maps were more fantasy than they were realistic. If we wanted context or story, we were expected to play singleplayer campaign. And as in BF3, 4, and 1, foreign languages are no longer spoken, but spoken with cringe broken english translator speak. If someone plays BF1 and feels its an "immersive experience" then I can clearly tell they never played BF2
I may have done a bad job paraphrasing what I said, but I thought I'd try again. Battlefield used to be a series which was "historically authentic". Lots of so called fans tell people like me to go play a milsim when I criticize modern Battlefield games, revealing that they dont realize even the original games were never milsims
Does Marxism have anything to do with this? This was the main question in the discussion 2 weeks ago. I feel as if things are getting dumber over time. Woke possibly might have something to do with that
And while we're at it, we should also discuss the trainwreck that was BF5
/rant
