{"id":4381,"date":"2014-01-30T11:00:46","date_gmt":"2014-01-30T16:00:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.playthepast.org\/?p=4381"},"modified":"2014-01-28T19:25:08","modified_gmt":"2014-01-29T00:25:08","slug":"remembrance-in-second-world-war-shooters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.playthepast.org\/?p=4381","title":{"rendered":"Remembrance in Second World War Shooters"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Leading up to the new Millennium, western countries rushed to recount the history of the 20<sup>th<\/sup> century in what \u00a0Jay Winter, one of the leading historians in the field of memory studies, has called the memory boom. During this time, the big conflicts of 20<sup>th<\/sup> century were remembered in public history. The Second World War, in particular, was often recreated in popular media during this period.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_4384\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-4384\" style=\"width: 202px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.playthepast.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/saving_private_ryan_ver1.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-4384 lazyload\" alt=\"Movie Poster for Saving Private Ryan\" data-src=\"http:\/\/www.playthepast.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/saving_private_ryan_ver1-202x300.jpg\" width=\"202\" height=\"300\" data-srcset=\"http:\/\/www.playthepast.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/saving_private_ryan_ver1-202x300.jpg 202w, http:\/\/www.playthepast.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/saving_private_ryan_ver1.jpg 510w\" data-sizes=\"(max-width: 202px) 100vw, 202px\" src=\"data:image\/svg+xml;base64,PHN2ZyB3aWR0aD0iMSIgaGVpZ2h0PSIxIiB4bWxucz0iaHR0cDovL3d3dy53My5vcmcvMjAwMC9zdmciPjwvc3ZnPg==\" style=\"--smush-placeholder-width: 202px; --smush-placeholder-aspect-ratio: 202\/300;\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-4384\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Movie Poster for Saving Private Ryan<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>In 1998, Steven Spielberg\u2019s <i>Saving Private Ryan<\/i> hit the big screen and gave audiences a realistic view of the chaos and death of the Second World War. In particular, veterans commented that the recreation of the opening hours of the Normandy invasion was uncomfortably realistic. The horror shown in Spielberg\u2019s war epic gave a renewed appreciation for veterans who fought in the war. This was by no means the first Second World War film made in this period but the themes and tropes from <i>Saving Private Ryan<\/i> would be used in many more Second World War media from this point on.<\/p>\n<p>Looking beyond film and television, video games in particular took an interest in the Second World War during this period. In Ian Bogost\u2019s <i>How to Do Things With Videogames<\/i>, Bogost claims that Reverence is one of the things that can be done with games. Bogost uses the example of <i>Resistance: Fall of Man<\/i> (2006) revering the Manchester Cathedral but this can be extended to reverence of people as well and with Second World War video games, this can mean reverence of the soldiers who fought.<\/p>\n<p>According to the Wikipedia page \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/List_of_World_War_II_video_games\">List of World War II video games<\/a>,\u201d more than 160 video games set in the Second World War were released between 1995 and 2007.\u00a0 The first person shooter, in particular, latched onto the Second World War and thrived. The <i>Call of Duty<\/i> and <i>Medal of Honor<\/i> franchises were born during this Second World War obsession and grew into some of the biggest franchises of the time. These two franchises succeeded by using tropes from <i>Saving Private Ryan<\/i> and later the <i>Band of Brothers <\/i>miniseries. For the purpose of brevity, rather than exploring all of the <i>Medal of Honor<\/i> and <i>Call of Duty<\/i> games set during the Second World War (nearly 20 of them), this post will focus on <i>Call of Duty 2<\/i> (2005) and <i>Medal of Honor: Rising Sun<\/i> (2003).<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"Call of Duty 2: Mission 21 - The Battle of Pointe du Hoc 1\/2\" width=\"1333\" height=\"1000\" data-src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/1WEFIeqnkU0?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen src=\"about:blank\" class=\"lazyload\" data-load-mode=\"0\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>In <i>Call of Duty 2<\/i>, the opening of the mission \u201cThe Battle of Point du Hoc,\u201d begins with the player controlling an American soldier as he exits from his transport onto a part of the Omaha beach during the Normandy invasion only to be knocked forward after his transport is blown up, presumably by mortar or artillery fire. The scene blurs, the battle sounds are replaced by a ringing that someone who had just been in close proximity to a bomb might hear, and the scene goes into slow motion. While in this state, the camera turns to see another transport unload, with many of the troops getting hit by enemy machine gun fire and a soldier with a flamethrower pack exploding and engulfing two other soldiers in fire. This scene is meant to be somber and ensures that the player realizes how many man died without even reaching the beach at Normandy. This scene is added to the gameplay for the same reasons that <i>Saving Private Ryan<\/i> shows men in transports getting slaughtered. In making the player observe this the developers are forcing the player to acknowledge what happened to many soldiers on D-Day.\u00a0By including the scene of the soldiers dying on their way out of the transport, it respects or reveres the men who died like this in Normandy.<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"Medal of Honor: Rising Sun - campaign walkthrough - mission 1 &quot;day of infamy&quot; HD\" width=\"1440\" height=\"810\" data-src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/zTmHo09gVJA?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen src=\"about:blank\" class=\"lazyload\" data-load-mode=\"0\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>The <i>Medal of Honor <\/i>series has twelve titles that focus on the Second World War. <i>Medal of Honor: Rising Sun <\/i>(2003) was the first game of the series set in the Pacific Theatre. The game\u2019s opening two missions take place during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour in 1941. In the first mission, \u201cDay of Infamy,\u201d the playable character of the game, Cpl. Joseph Griffin, wakes up from his sleeping quarters on the U.S.S. <i>California<\/i> to the sounds of the Japanese planes\u2019 attack. As the camera changes to first-person view, the player watches as men wearing little more than their boxers grab weapons and rush to get topside. As the player climbs his way up, he encounters a man getting electrocuted from exposed wiring, men trapped behind fires that have arisen because of the bombs and when he arrives topside, watches in slow motion as a marine with nothing but boxers, an undershirt, a lifejacket and a rifle is killed by a strafing Japanese fighter. Griffin must then take control of a machine gun and defend the U.S.S. <i>California<\/i> from all incoming fighters as a somber orchestra choir accompanies the sounds of machine gun fire and bombs.<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"Medal of Honor: Rising Sun - campaign walkthrough - mission 2 &quot;pearl harbor&quot; HD\" width=\"1440\" height=\"810\" data-src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/tv8yugJyiRo?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen src=\"about:blank\" class=\"lazyload\" data-load-mode=\"0\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>The next mission, \u201cPearl Harbor,\u201d is much the same in tone, and appearance. Griffin takes control of a patrol boat and is charged of defending battleship row and later the U.S.S. <i>Nevada<\/i> as it moves to block off the harbor by beaching itself. The mission ends and a cutscene begins where two younger soldiers cheer as the Japanese retreat only to be reprimanded by the gruff Gunnery Sergeant Jack Lauton, \u201cknock it off!\u201d he yells, \u201cand you listen up marines. You take a good long look. I hope none of you ever see a day like this again. Now nobody will ever know what it was like but maybe the ones who lived through it. You just be damned sure you don\u2019t forget the ones who didn\u2019t.\u201d A somber French horn plays in the background as the Sergeant makes his touching speech, only adding to the effect. The message behind the scene is explicit. The game wants players to think and remember those who died during Pearl Harbor after playing the mission.<\/p>\n<p>These moments from <i>Call of Duty 2 <\/i>and <i>Medal of Honor: Rising Sun<\/i> are designed to make the player think about the immense loss and tragedy of the Second World War. It wants the player to remember those that fought. This is but a small portion of the type of scenes found in Second World War video games but shows that the games that are modeled off of the blockbuster style Second World War film find ways of making the player mourn the dead. Haggith\u2019s essay in <i>Repicturing the Second World War<\/i>, which looks at <i>Saving Private Ryan<\/i> touches on many of the devices that are used in <i>Medal of Honor: Rising Sun<\/i> and <i>Call of Duty 2<\/i>. The slow motion, showing the carnage of the battlefield, the meaningless loss of life, the horn and somber music are all used to evoke emotions from the player or viewer of reverence.<\/p>\n<p>This is but a brief snapshot of two games in a much larger scope of Second World War video games. However, it does give some examples of how modern notions of remembrance that emerged from the memory boom are displayed video games.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Leading up to the new Millennium, western countries rushed to recount the history of the 20th century in what \u00a0Jay Winter, one of the leading historians in the field of memory studies, has called the memory boom. During this time, the big conflicts of 20th century were remembered in public<span class=\"more-link\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.playthepast.org\/?p=4381\">Continue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":4382,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[15],"tags":[334,25,352,351,349,86,350,348,347,353],"coauthors":[346],"class_list":["entry","author-hussey","post-4381","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-articles","tag-call-of-duty","tag-history","tag-ian-bogost","tag-jay-winter","tag-medal-of-honor","tag-memory","tag-memory-boom","tag-saving-private-ryan","tag-second-world-war","tag-video-games"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/www.playthepast.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/Call_of_Duty_2_Box.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.playthepast.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4381","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.playthepast.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.playthepast.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.playthepast.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.playthepast.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4381"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.playthepast.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4381\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4385,"href":"http:\/\/www.playthepast.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4381\/revisions\/4385"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.playthepast.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4382"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.playthepast.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4381"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.playthepast.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4381"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.playthepast.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4381"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.playthepast.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcoauthors&post=4381"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}