From the new Shrapnel newletter: "T72 - Balkans on Fire"

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.war-historical (More info?)

"The wait is over! The groundbreaking tank combat simulation "T-72
Balkans on Fire!" has begun shipping today.
........
It puts the player as a
Russian volunteer tank commander right into the turret of some of
Russia's best tanks - the T-72B, the T-55A and the T-34-85."

It is the 1990s and the T-34-85 is one of Russia's best tanks?
That should conclusively answer whether NATO could have stopped the
Pact in the 1980's, I'd say.

OTOH, I guess it really does't matter much which tank in this game one
controls; any will do for shelling villages for days on end and
machinegunning the occasional civilian.

Nice one, Shrapnel.
What;s next: "Unreal Tournament: the Sbrenica mod"?
"Thief 4: Milosovic escapes The Hague Tribunal"?

- von Schmidt

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.war-historical (More info?)

"von Schmidt" <von_schmidt@mail.com> wrote in
news:1121246721.148895.36860@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com:


> OTOH, I guess it really does't matter much which tank in this game one
> controls; any will do for shelling villages for days on end and
> machinegunning the occasional civilian.
>
> Nice one, Shrapnel.
> What;s next: "Unreal Tournament: the Sbrenica mod"?
> "Thief 4: Milosovic escapes The Hague Tribunal"?

The twin-headed dragon of morality and wargames rears its ugly head
again.Once you start riding that you don't dare let go

Objectively you could say that since it's a Russia-developed modern
tank-game with a high realism factor you don't have that much options if
you want a realistic setting as well.

Is there some national pride / slav kinship involved : certainly. Is
there a Serbs = good guys, the rest = bad guys atmosphere : yup.

But is there a moral dilemma ? Well, not for me - it's just a game -
just like there are other games in which you effectively "play" the role
of positively stinking characters like Stalin, Mussolini and that
Austrian guy with the funny mustach. Games where you're sending SS units
to an area to better combat partisans ...

It's the Janus effect of war - you can't have good guys without also
having bad guys - you can't even play a wargame unless one of the sides
is playing the bad guy. Then there's wars were *both* sides were
objectionable from a moral pov. The 30-years war, WW1 and the Franco-
Prussian War for instance.

Do we condemn any games based on these wars ?

Sure, everyone draws the line somewhere, but I draw the line IRL and let
games just be games. Just like singing along with the song "Bad to the
Bone" on the car stereo doesn't make you a criminal, playing an evil
character in a game doesn't make you one either.

Greetz,

Eddy Sterckx

--
"Ceterum censeo Belgicam delendam."
(Cato, 'Pro Gerolphe')

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.war-historical (More info?)

richard@shrapnelgames.com wrote:
> I'm not going to comment on the game in question, but you received that
> from the Battlefront newsletter, not Shrapnel. We are not the
> publishers of the T-72 game.

Ouch! My sincere apologies; I mixed up the companies.
I cannot modify the original post - hope the new title clarifies the
company involved.

Regards,

- von Schmidt