Doesn't this make you the real Nazi?

February 7, 2017 12:52 PM

"Has violent resistance ever solved anything?" it asks, along with a Yes or No option. The Nazi, by the way, is still pumping bullets into me. Thinking of the American Revolution and the French Revolution, I hesitantly click "yes." I fire off another shot at the Nazi, but then there was another popup:

"Wait, wait, isn't it important to protect their free speech as well?" -- introducing the modern nazi fighting game: Wolfenstei Dialogue 3D.
posted by MartinWisse (40 comments total)

Heh.
posted by Beardman at 1:02 PM on February 7, 2017 [1 favorite]

lol
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 1:10 PM on February 7, 2017

I could play better if the control were on WASD, as I mouse right-handed.
posted by Samizdata at 1:11 PM on February 7, 2017 [1 favorite]

Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster... for when you gaze long into the abyss. The abyss gazes also into you.
posted by wibari at 1:15 PM on February 7, 2017 [3 favorites]

Things that genuinely unpleasant people don't seem to get: The first amendment is protection against the state not people telling you to shut the fuck up because you're an abhorrent twit.
posted by Talez at 1:20 PM on February 7, 2017 [65 favorites]

id Software's classic 1992 shooter Wolfenstein 3D

I'm so old.
posted by chavenet at 1:21 PM on February 7, 2017 [8 favorites]

I'm so old.

Whatever and Ever Amen is twenty years old as of this week.
posted by Talez at 1:25 PM on February 7, 2017 [7 favorites]

Having repeatedly gotten killed taking the time to ponder the moral implications of the question (i.e. get my mouse over the right button and clicking), I've learned violence is the solution. Shoot first.

That was the point, right?
posted by MrGuilt at 1:31 PM on February 7, 2017 [2 favorites]

Dialogue 3D: the Dark Forest
posted by infinitewindow at 1:32 PM on February 7, 2017 [1 favorite]

dammit, a punctuation error torpedoed my super witty nazi-nietzsche-FPS triple entendre! nooooooo!!!
posted by wibari at 1:37 PM on February 7, 2017

I know this debate was over around these parts for most people a long time ago, but fuck anybody who says video games can't be art because there's this (and lots of other stuff but definitely this)
posted by MCMikeNamara at 1:39 PM on February 7, 2017 [5 favorites]

Actually, it's the Abbess who stares into you. And she thinks Nazis are assholes, too. She might even punch one, because principles.
posted by GenjiandProust at 1:40 PM on February 7, 2017 [10 favorites]

"The Nazi-Punching Abbess" is actually the title of my Sound of Music fanfic sequel.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 1:47 PM on February 7, 2017 [28 favorites]

Actually, it's the Abbess who stares into you.

Why were you staring at the head of a religious order, anyway? Don't you have some Nazi punching to go do?
posted by Greg_Ace at 1:48 PM on February 7, 2017 [3 favorites]

Things that genuinely unpleasant people don't seem to get: The first amendment is protection against the state not people telling you to shut the fuck up because you're an abhorrent twit.

Obligatory XKCD
posted by Doktor Zed at 1:59 PM on February 7, 2017 [7 favorites]

I could play better if the control were on WASD, as I mouse right-handed.

Ah, but this is more authentic! Who plays a first-person shooter with a mouse, I mean really?
posted by tobascodagama at 2:02 PM on February 7, 2017

id Software's classic 1992 shooter Wolfenstein 3D

I'm so old.

I remember playing it when it was this; don't talk to me about old with your fancy 3D.
posted by nubs at 2:04 PM on February 7, 2017 [7 favorites]

This is perfect.
posted by cwill at 2:13 PM on February 7, 2017

I remember playing it when it was this ; don't talk to me about old with your fancy 3D.

I was playing it in the junior high school computer lab when the Challenger exploded.
posted by My Dad at 2:34 PM on February 7, 2017 [2 favorites]

Wolfenstein, while quite a rush, does make me wonder why so many games are FPS. In my mind the answer has something to do with our demand to be allowed to punch people we think are "Nazis."
posted by My Dad at 2:35 PM on February 7, 2017 [1 favorite]

It's just as easy, if not easier, to punch Nazis in side-scrolling or top-down beat-'em-ups. Or, nowadays, in third-person action games. The first-person perspective has always been awkward for melee combat.
posted by tobascodagama at 2:38 PM on February 7, 2017 [1 favorite]

Well, My Dad I think you're on to something there, that speaking in terms of the US ludonarrative space at large, it breaks down to 'Are there Nazis?' and 'Can I punch them?'

There may be bonus rounds with chainsaws or exploding polygonial giblets, but that's really just icing.
posted by mrdaneri at 2:39 PM on February 7, 2017

Wolfenstein, while quite a rush, does make me wonder why so many games are FPS. In my mind the answer has something to do with our demand to be allowed to punch people we think are "Nazis."

The opponents in Wolfenstein are not "Nazis", they are literally Nazis.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 2:46 PM on February 7, 2017 [24 favorites]

Wolfenstein, while quite a rush, does make me wonder why so many games are FPS. In my mind the answer has something to do with our demand to be allowed to punch people we think are "Nazis."

It's because shooting in the first person owns, hth
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 2:53 PM on February 7, 2017 [6 favorites]

I reject the thought that people play FPS to kill nazis. I play FPS to kill ghosts, aliens, zombies, nazis, allies, innocent people, fictional creatures, real creatures, really just about anything that is living and also some things which can't properly be classed as "life" but are still mobile and could *conceivably* pose a threat (although posing a threat is certainly not a prerequisite for me killing something in a videogame).

Videogames don't appeal to our desire to murder *nazis*, they appeal to our desire to murder, period. And that's okay.
posted by TypographicalError at 3:34 PM on February 7, 2017 [2 favorites]

"The Nazi-Punching Abbess" is actually the title of my Sound of Music fanfic sequel.

the hills are alive with the sound of breitbart
posted by poffin boffin at 3:40 PM on February 7, 2017 [7 favorites]

I play FPS to kill ghosts, aliens, zombies, nazis, allies, innocent people, fictional creatures, real creatures, really just about anything that is living and also some things which can't properly be classed as "life" but are still mobile and could *conceivably* pose a threat (although posing a threat is certainly not a prerequisite for me killing something in a videogame).

That reminds me, Mass Effect Andromeda is coming out soon, and in ME in the things that you kill are basically d) All of the above.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 3:48 PM on February 7, 2017

Things that genuinely unpleasant people don't seem to get: The first amendment is protection against the state not people telling you to shut the fuck up because you're an abhorrent twit.

Obligatory XKCD

Much as the "I get to act like a Nazi and you can't tell me you think it's awful and that I should stop because Mom the Constitution said I could" whining is tiresome, I look with some anxiety towards the day when they actually are made to understand the amendment, because I think that's when we get a new amendment.
posted by notquitemaryann at 4:07 PM on February 7, 2017 [1 favorite]

doubtful
posted by poffin boffin at 4:07 PM on February 7, 2017 [1 favorite]

AskMe: Bring me your finest examples of Nazis getting punched
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 4:44 PM on February 7, 2017

If you don't shoot them, sooner or later, once they work up some courage, they will shoot you.

So remember, be like Han Solo.

Han shot first.
posted by Naberius at 4:58 PM on February 7, 2017 [1 favorite]

Let me add to the I'm Feeling Old festivities: Wolfenstein 3D came out the year I was born. My philosophy vis-a-vis Nazis came from ten years of Jewish Sunday school: Punching them is a good way to get yourself killed (they are armed and hate me, after all), but tripping them so they fall on their face in front of an audience is totally fine.
posted by WizardOfDocs at 6:25 PM on February 7, 2017

tobascodagama: "I could play better if the control were on WASD, as I mouse right-handed.

Ah, but this is more authentic! Who plays a first-person shooter with a mouse, I mean really?"

Me?
posted by Samizdata at 6:38 PM on February 7, 2017

nubs: "id Software's classic 1992 shooter Wolfenstein 3D

I'm so old.

I remember playing it when it was this ; don't talk to me about old with your fancy 3D."

I still have no idea how I beat it once.

Once.
posted by Samizdata at 6:39 PM on February 7, 2017

But we didn't kill them for being Nazis, we killed them for being soldiers of a foreign army that we were at war with.
posted by timdiggerm at 6:54 PM on February 7, 2017

timdiggerm: "But we didn't kill them for being Nazis, we killed them for being soldiers of a foreign army that we were at war with."

Maybe you did, I killed them for being Nazis.

And motherless jerks.

And for wearing Hugo Boss uniforms.
posted by Samizdata at 7:11 PM on February 7, 2017

Things that genuinely unpleasant people don't seem to get: The first amendment is protection against the state not people telling you to shut the fuck up because you're an abhorrent twit.

Thing that many people, some pleasant and some unpleasant don't seem to get: free speech is not the same as the first amendment. Yes, private action isn't regulated by the first amendment. That doesn't tell you very much that's interesting or important when discussing the value of free expression.
posted by layceepee at 8:33 PM on February 7, 2017 [1 favorite]

But we didn't kill them for being Nazis, we killed them for being soldiers of a foreign army that we were at war with.

You're leaving out the part where we were at war with them because of their particular racist, expansionist, militaristic ethos that was called Nazism.
posted by Etrigan at 4:24 AM on February 8, 2017 [8 favorites]

Who plays a first-person shooter with a mouse, I mean really?"

Me?

(The gag here is that "mouselook" for first-person shooters didn't become commonplace until the genre introduced true verticality in the Quake era. At the time Wolf3D was new, it would have been played exclusively on the keyboard.)
posted by tobascodagama at 5:44 AM on February 8, 2017 [2 favorites]

I enjoy that this is both a statement on punching Nazis and how harmful concern trolling is.
posted by mayonnaises at 7:30 AM on February 8, 2017 [9 favorites]