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Call of Duty World at War, and its appropriateness are the most frequent questions I get for Ask GamerDad at WhatTheyPlay.com (a new one is coming, promise). The reason why is simple, this is a series with pedigree AND this is a series the kids like. The only problem is, it was definitely made for adults and adults only. Here’s why –<\/p>\n
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The game tells two little told tales in World War II gaming, that of the Americans scouring the islands held by an increasingly desperate Japanese enemy and the bitter and cruel vengeance wrought by the conquering Soviet army from the East.<\/p>\n
But the game begins as brutally as it ends. I mean that literally as we see an American GI getting tortured and having his throat slit (by Japanese captors) and the Russian begins with a similar scene of torture, one that invites the player to shoot his prone tormenters in the head for vengeance.<\/p>\n
This brutality extends into the game itself, blood is evident and explosions cause corpses to fly and even break apart. Legless enemies are scattered and if one isn’t so dead and grabs you, you get treated to a painful looking samurai sword or German bayonet stabbing. Fortunately both GIs and Russian grunts can quickly stab the enemy in the side of the neck with a quick button press.<\/p>\n
The Japanese held their islands in a death grip and the story of how the Japanese soldiers (many drafted just out of College or High School – some old and infirm) fought to the last man, even sending out soldiers screaming “Banzai!” and charging your positions. The Japanese have clever ambushes and tunnels, and these are best handled with a flame thrower – which is clearly and awful way to die.\u00a0 In the Soviet campaign you take on the role of the suicide attacker, winning against a more advanced enemy, and wreaking brutal vengeance on Berlin itself. All this cruelty and brutality is … realistic and historically based. And that is the only redeeming feature this game offers teens.<\/p>\n
My grandfather fought against the Japanese in WWII. I have no idea what kind of engagements he fought in but I now feel I have some perspective on how terrifying it must have been. Especially grenades. Grenades are truly horrifying. The Soviet side of the WWII has been told in games before, but not their brutal advance into Berlin. My point is that there’s some historical value and the game’s presentation of newsreel-like footage is compelling – this game will lead many who play it to study World War II. Others it will lead online to fight and refight the war against all kinds of opponents.<\/p>\n
It’s a visceral thrillride and a terrific game. Not as strong as the excellent Call of Duty 4: Modern Combat but proof positive that WWII still packs a gaming punch.<\/p>\n
If you let your kids see R-rated war movies, they’ve definitely seen stories more adult and mature than this. It’s an order more disturbing than a T-rated Medal of Honor title, but maybe war should be presented as that disturbing. Remember, people play wargames not because they want to be in a war – but because they want to be scared and have to challenge themselves against “death.”<\/p>\n
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Oh, in the top example I spared the Japanese because I was a US GI and I generally took the opportunity to summarily execute Nazis with cold dispassion. Once I did it out of kindness, my machine gun was surely swifter than the flamethowers my Soviet mentor wanted to use.<\/p>\n
I’d say, depending on the kid, I’d go 14 and up on this at most. There’s no real reason to play WWII games until you start learning about the real deal in history class.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Call of Duty World at War, and its appropriateness are the most frequent questions I get for Ask GamerDad at WhatTheyPlay.com (a new one is coming, promise). The reason why is simple, this is a series with pedigree AND this is a series the kids like. The only problem is, it was definitely made for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1874","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-game-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1874","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1874"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1874\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1874"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1874"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1874"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}