It’s always the Japanese, the zombies, the Nazis, the Nazi zombies, what have you, with the Americans leading the Allies/the Coalition/the United Earth Under America Organization to save the day/the world/the universe/the natives.
Is it ever the other way around? Are there games where Americans are portrayed as imperialist capitalistic pig-dogs who must be slaughtered?
And I don’t just mean those multiplayer shooting games where you switch sides to the “terrorists” every other round, but games with actual stories/campaigns where the narrative is about American evil.
In Half-Life, about half way through, the US military shows up and tries to kill you, and everyone else at the Black Mesa facility, and serve as villains for the rest of the game. Arguably, it was the right call, considering what was going on, and what it led to in the second game.
The Modern War games feature a world war triggered by corrupt elements within the US military, but they’re explicitly traitors, and the US is generally a good guy in the rest of the game. Still, the triggering event is a US marine shooting up an airport full of innocent civilians.
That’s the one I came here to mention.
More saliently than simply shooting at Americans, the good guys in this game (and the bad guy, sort of) are really the bad guys *because *they want and expect to be Big Damn American Heroes. Which is deconstructed and demonstrated to be insanely naive. Or naively insane, whichever.
So it’s a bit more involved than simply shooting at Bad (Apple) Americans, which you get to do in a few Call of Duty games and every Civil War game out there.
The *Tropico *series doesn’t peg you directly against the US since it’s not a fighting or strategy game, but US foreign policy is very much lampooned and you learn to hate the smug, smarmy bastards. Yes, I build tenements for my workers, no I don’t want your stupid tourists, fuck off with your gunboats you idiots ! Don’t you have third world countries to oppress and tinpot dictators to prop…oh, I guess that is me actually :).
Spec Ops: The Line definitely fits the bill. The game ends up being very critical of US militarism in general.
Deus Ex would qualify I think. The US government is depicted as being in the pocket of various conspiracies and corporate interests and the anti-government terrorists end up being closer to the “good guys”.
What about Bioshock: Infinite? Columbia seceded from the US, but they’re pretty aggressively patriotic with regard to the founding fathers.
Pretty much every game that involves zombies ends up depicting the US military as ruthlessly indifferent to the well-being of survivors.
It seems like the Germans get put into the villain role much more than the Japanese. I’m not really into WW2 games, but most of them focus on the European theater, don’t they? I’d say that “Generic Middle-Easterners” get used as villains much more often.
Hammer & Sickle , a turn based tactical squad rpg, takes place in occupied Germany just after WW2, you play a sovjet spy trying to twart the plans of evil neo nazi elements in the American goverment
Men of War: Vietnam has two campaigns. One is you playing US forces but a separate (and the starting) campaign is you playing a squad of two N. Vietnamese soldiers and two Soviet military advisers whose convoy was ambushed by American helicopters. The campaign takes you up to the Tet Offensive.
North Korea has some (very low quality) flash games around. This one almost makes the cut if you substitute “Western” for “American.”
I’m not sure, cuz:
You fight against the UN (UNATCO) mainly as controlled by oligarchic interests and cyborgs and AIs from all around the world. I’m not 100% where the IW plot goes.
Yeah, they’re like a stereotypical version of Tea Party Patriots, praising God and Jefferson while ignoring his heterodox religious beliefs etc. Comstock gets on the PA all the time talking about the “Sodom below” which must be cleansed. By fire, of course. So technically you’re not fighting America, but against the True [del]Americans[/del] Columbians. They didn’t leave America, America left them!
Or places like “Derkaderkastan.” Just add -stan on a string of text, and poof!
Just to be clear, are we talking “America is the bad guy and the good guy is not American” or “both the good and bad guys are American”?
If it’s the latter, I offer:
The Last of Us. It’s never really mentioned if Cordyceps is global or limited to North America, but literally everyone in the country is hostile.
The Metal Gear series. American soldiers who were used by the American government in a secret campaign of arms technology and power.
If it’s the former, I got nothing. Mainstream video games are generally targeted toward the American market first. Not a whole lot of Americans want to play as Alexey the Soviet spy or Abdul, Allah’s freedom fighter battling the American Satan.
Edit: When I first played Assassin’s Creed III, I was hoping the Revolutionaries would be as much an enemy as the Redcoats. But it doesn’t seem like game developers are willing to put Americans (especially Revolutionaries) in a bad light. Such a shame.
I don’t know if multiplayer only games count, but in Counter-Strike, you can play as either the terrorists or counter-terrorists.
If you’re on the terrorist team, there’s a good chance at least one of the counter-terrorists will be a US Navy Seal (when you log into a game session, you choose the look of your character, and one of the default models is a Navy Seal.)
The example that immediately came to mind for me was Time Crisis 4. It’s the only Namco shooter, in fact, where the enemies are American.
Personally, I think Marcus Black would’ve worked better if he looked and sounded like a stereotypical Arab terrorist; learning the truth after you beat him would’ve been quite a shock.
Yes, the DLC called The Tyranny of King Washington. Where Washington has magic alien powers, but it’s OK because Connor has magic Injun powers :rolleyes:. It’s definitely silly.
That being said, I wouldn’t say the vanilla portrayal of the rebels is all positive - Franklin and general whatsiface (the one with the cigar) come off pretty well, but Washington is pretty cold and John Adams is an opportunist spin doctor. They all use Connor, but don’t really give a damn about what *he *wants in return for his help, and eventually his cause is betrayed because nobody gives a shit about the plight of slaves ('cept Connor, obviously. Player avatar and all).
I suspect game developers/etc. shy away from the Japanese as baddies because they’re a bit wary of charges of racism. Feel free to speculate as to why they’re not worried about this w/ generic Middle-Easterners.
