Poll: Historical Inaccuracies in Games

[Smiley Face]

Oh, it often bothers me - most of the time I either manage to overlook it or it doesn't really bother me as much. Assassin's Creed is an obvious topic of discussion, since it really does put a lot of effort into portraying how the history went, but of course they're not going to get everything right, and for story purposes, there are some things that they have to change. In AC2, one thing that particularly irked me was the portrayal of Lorenzo de Medici and Savonarola and whatnot - but I understood it, because even though their character wasn't accurately portrayed, it served the narration, and the VAST majority of people wouldn't know the difference.

 

[StBishop]

No, history isn't "boring and lame" but that doesn't mean it's the best story.

I'm not bothered by alternative histories, they're awesome.

 

[VanTesla]

There's a naval mission in Assassin's Creed 3 where you have to shoot some mines so your buddies don't get themselves blown up. My roommate got all butthurt over the fact that the navigator said "Look out for those mines!" because apparently they were called torpedoes back then. I tried to explain to him that AC was not, in fact, a historically accurate series, what with the vault underneath the Vatican and the magical artifacts left behind by the previous civilization that can control people's minds and all. Apparently minor details really bother him, but not details that are important to the plot, which seems a bit backwards to me.

So, do historical inaccuracies in games that have the pretense of being otherwise accurate bother you? What are some other examples you've come across?

Honestly trusting any game that takes places in history as a good potrayal is a bad idea and that is the same with any form of media. There can been a certain level of accuracy, but you will never get 100% or dare I say 80% for history is never 100% accurate in the first place and games will always paint pictures to make things more flashy than is.

Hell in truth the whole Colonies fighting for freedom is just one big propaganda and the reason the tax increase was for the French Indian War that cost Great Britain a ton of money and shipping stuff over is costly... Also there was a political revolution going in Britain at the time with the Parliament fighting against the King on how much control he has. I mean I am not trying to say our whole revolution was without true cause, but it is overblown and in truth the British was not the evil red demons that they where mad out to be...

 

[Bashful Reaper]

Depends on what it is really. If you've got a massive anachronism going on then yeah, it does annoy me, like the Mauser Pistol in Red Dead Redemption; a fully automatic pistol that didn't enter production until 1927, a full 16/13 years after the year the game was set in, and only then as a modification of the C97 by the Spanish, it wasn't until 1932 that Mauser began making their own.

I hate to be the one to say it, but RDR was on the money there... It's a Mauser C96, quite a feature of WW1 and the Boer war, first made in 1896; Semi-automatic.

Generally, I only mind if the history is being presented as fact, when it isn't. It's fine to have a bit of fun with history if you are going to make it clear that it's not actually what happened, a la Inglourious Basterds. Picking at a change in word meaning is silly, a genuine 18th century English script would alienate all but the beardiest of scholars. The onus is more on games like the Total War series to get things historically accurate, before the player comes in and rewrites history. They have certainly shat the bed a few times in that respect unfortunately.

 

[Winthrop]

I hate there isn't a "No, It doesn't bother me even though I am aware they are there" option. A game that isn't claiming accuracy isn't wrong for being inaccurate. I don't care if Dynasty Warriors has historical figures doing completely ridiculous and nonsensical things. I didn't care that Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter wasn't a documentary. In my opinion there is a chain of importance. Fun > Functionality > UI > Setting/Story > Accuracy. If removing accuracy doesn't hurt anything higher than it, then keep it accurate. If it messes with UI like in the Assassin's Creed case (there are some people who would be looking for missiles if they said torpedoes) then a minor infraction in accuracy is okay. I get why it bothers some people, I just hate that there isn't a no option for people who know and like history.

Also isn't desynchronization possible (and even common) in the animus? I mean the entire health system of the first game is based on desynchronization as Altair was never actually hit. So wouldn't it make some sort of sense for Desmond to project his own view of things onto the events causing small changes in dialogue and accent? I don't really follow the lore so if not forgive me.

 

[Best of the 3]

They don't bother me, but I would like them as close to the real thing as possible. I love RTW for example, but just about all of it is out of place. Now I use mods to fix that, although it also alters the gameplay which I'm not entirely a fan of.

So my answer is, no it doesn't bother me. But I would prefer it to be as close to real as possible.

 

[uzo]

Being a keen Paradox player (Crusader Kings II, o how I love thee!); historical accuracy is something that I am certainly thankful for when I come across it (in glorious glorious CK2, for example), but it's not going to stop me from playing a game if there's the occasional inaccuracy.

 

[Xdeser2]

Rome Total War. Egypt should be a hellenistic society under the rule of the ptolemy dynasty. Instead, we've got Ramses level egyptians two thousand years out of place to fight Romans.

I Think that if they were to make them more hellenistic, it would have just come out as another Greek Clone Faction. I mean there was Greece, macedon, The Seleucids, Thracians as well as about 3 other factions having hoplites or phalanx units. I guess the point im trying to get at was It was more of an aethestic choice than a gameplay or historical one.

 

[likalaruku]

I guess I have to say yes, since comic book movie continuity errors make me scream bloody murder.

 

[Dalisclock]

To me the use of the XM8 alone bothers me. The rifle was known to melt in US testing, and now it features a superburst system?

I'm in the Navy, so I got pissed off over Prototype, mostly the part the end with an Aircraft Carrier sitting motionless in the Hudson River, launching Apache Helicopters and F-22's at New York.

Three major problems:

1.) Aircraft Carriers don't launch planes while motionless(they have to turn into the wind to do so) and certaintly wouldn't be doing it that close to land where there's no room to move around.

2.) Apaches Belong to the Army and Army pilots don't operate from ships. Marines(who are supposed to be the grunts) use Supercobras, which would have been an easy substitution.

3.) F-22's belong to the Air force, do not have carrier capable varient and the Navy does not loan out it's flight deck space to the Air Force. They perfer to say "You guys have your own airbases. Get the hell off our flight deck so we can make room for our planes". They could have just as easily made them F-18's and it would have worked perfectly.

Crysis did the same thing for me with the part involving the Aircraft Carrier, where not only did it look wrong, but all the uniforms made no sense at all.

Seriously People, Wikipedia is your friend here! It takes a whole hour of research to fix these kind of errors.

 

[elvor0]

Depends on what it is really. If you've got a massive anachronism going on then yeah, it does annoy me, like the Mauser Pistol in Red Dead Redemption; a fully automatic pistol that didn't enter production until 1927, a full 16/13 years after the year the game was set in, and only then as a modification of the C97 by the Spanish, it wasn't until 1932 that Mauser began making their own.

I hate to be the one to say it, but RDR was on the money there... It's a Mauser C96, quite a feature of WW1 and the Boer war, first made in 1896; Semi-automatic.

(oops, meant to say C96 in my original post, damn clumsy fingers ><)

The original Semi Auto was, but not the Fully Automatic version like it is in RDR. Hold the trigger and it goes off like an Uzi, you're right in saying the C96 was in production then, but the fully automatic version didn't enter production till 1927, designated the "M1932 / M712 Schnellfeuer", it's not just a bog standard C96

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mauser_C96#M1932_.2F_M712_Schnellfeuer

And from the Red Dead Wiki:

"It would be more historically correct to refer the pistol as the M721 "Schnellfeuer", the fully automatic variant of the Mauser C96 Pistol, yet it did not exist until the 1920s-30s."

It's so laughably over powered in game though, because not only is it so far ahead in terms of technology, (it being for all intents and purposes an Uzi in the old west)it's amazingly accurate, and you would've really needed a stock for it to be even halfway accurate given the fully automatic version was such an insane piece of tech even when it did come out. The Germans really do design beautiful guns.

 

[BristolBerserker]

In AC Revelations I was annoyed that they mixed up the Varangians and Almogavars.

 

[Sir Boss]

I love history, but... Historical accuracy or Verisimilitude can get in the way frequently. I don't really mind when some accuracy is cut for fun's sake, see Rome: Total War for example. But when it's obviously a mistake, that bugs me.

In AC Revelations I was annoyed that they mixed up the Varangians and Almogavars.

how did they... how the HELL do you mix Norsemen up with Iberians?

 

[el derpenburgo]

Being a keen Paradox player (Crusader Kings II, o how I love thee!); historical accuracy is something that I am certainly thankful for when I come across it (in glorious glorious CK2, for example), but it's not going to stop me from playing a game if there's the occasional inaccuracy.

I love Paradox, it's like what happens when history nerds suddenly gain the ability to develop games. They really deserve every praise they get for sticking with their franchises and making them more complex even though triple-A's seem to be getting dumber. I loved roleplaying my greedy, gluttonous heir as a complete asshole going on bloodthirsty invasion requests and then restoring order with his heir, fighting decades of civil wars in the recently conquered lands. CK2 was probably the best RPG I played all year.

But CK2, even as probably the most accessible Paradox game, had a pretty big learning curve and I know it won't appeal to as large an audience as any modern FPS or RPG. The effort needed to do the proper research is not worth it nowadays and I think the fact that it's much easier making stuff up or accepting consensus is the reason why a lot games eschew historical details like in the OP. It is a bit sad knowing a lot of people will take the stuff presented in the Total War games at face value, despite how everyone here knows how bizarre all that is (still shocked no one's brought up the flaming pigs yet), but they are fun games and I guess we want our games to be fun more than anything. Which makes sense. In any case, as long as there's Paradox, I don't think the lack of historical accuracy in games will ever affect everyone too much.

 

[Texas Joker 52]

I'm more bothered by the people who are bothered by it. It's a work of fiction. Not cinematic detailed retelling of events. Shut up and enjoy the game.

And I apply this to everything other than a documentary. Yesterday, I guy in chat was telling us about an anime that had highschool girls fighting each other in tanks. Then someone pointed out the show likely wouldn't have accurate japanese tanks. All I could think in my head was "Fuck you. Highschool girls in tanks."

If I heard about an anime like that, my first thought wouldn't be whether the tanks are accurate or not. My first thought is if they would wear school uniforms, complete with mini-skirts, while in the tanks.

But, more on topic, if it's in a historical setting, it depends. I may get peeved depending on the inaccuracy involved. Otherwise, I'll treat it as a sort of novel, trivial tidbit to point out. Like, "Did you know that during this time period, they wouldn't have had that back then, because they had this? Kind of neat, but really, what they put in works more, gameplay or story wise. Still, the more you know!".

Of course, that's assuming I know jack shit about the time period or setting at all. If I don't, I won't really care.

 

[beastro]

Depends on the game, really, and what tone it wants to set. I mean, Empire: Total War wasn't exactly a realistic experience, but it was less about that and more about the being a 18'th century ruler experience.

Historical accuracy is important in a game that relies on that realism, and that's an enjoyable experience in itself, but it's not the main quality I'm looking for, myself.

I don't play vanilla TW games anymore.

I always wait for the most historical mod to come out and play it instead.

Being a keen Paradox player (Crusader Kings II, o how I love thee!); historical accuracy is something that I am certainly thankful for when I come across it (in glorious glorious CK2, for example), but it's not going to stop me from playing a game if there's the occasional inaccuracy.

I love Paradox, it's like what happens when history nerds suddenly gain the ability to develop games. They really deserve every praise they get for sticking with their franchises and making them more complex even though triple-A's seem to be getting dumber. I loved roleplaying my greedy, gluttonous heir as a complete asshole going on bloodthirsty invasion requests and then restoring order with his heir, fighting decades of civil wars in the recently conquered lands. CK2 was probably the best RPG I played all year.

But CK2, even as probably the most accessible Paradox game, had a pretty big learning curve and I know it won't appeal to as large an audience as any modern FPS or RPG. The effort needed to do the proper research is not worth it nowadays and I think the fact that it's much easier making stuff up or accepting consensus is the reason why a lot games eschew historical details like in the OP. It is a bit sad knowing a lot of people will take the stuff presented in the Total War games at face value, despite how everyone here knows how bizarre all that is (still shocked no one's brought up the flaming pigs yet), but they are fun games and I guess we want our games to be fun more than anything. Which makes sense. In any case, as long as there's Paradox, I don't think the lack of historical accuracy in games will ever affect everyone too much.

If they could combine Paradox's historical accuracy with Civs development path with TWs RTS elements I wouldn't play any other game.

 

[drzoidbergmd]

I usually don't care and write it off as creative liberty UNLESS it's a game that boasts about its accuracy, like Assassin's Creed or most World War II games.

 

[Bashful Reaper]

Depends on what it is really. If you've got a massive anachronism going on then yeah, it does annoy me, like the Mauser Pistol in Red Dead Redemption; a fully automatic pistol that didn't enter production until 1927, a full 16/13 years after the year the game was set in, and only then as a modification of the C97 by the Spanish, it wasn't until 1932 that Mauser began making their own.

I hate to be the one to say it, but RDR was on the money there... It's a Mauser C96, quite a feature of WW1 and the Boer war, first made in 1896; Semi-automatic.

(oops, meant to say C96 in my original post, damn clumsy fingers ><)

The original Semi Auto was, but not the Fully Automatic version like it is in RDR. Hold the trigger and it goes off like an Uzi, you're right in saying the C96 was in production then, but the fully automatic version didn't enter production till 1927, designated the "M1932 / M712 Schnellfeuer", it's not just a bog standard C96

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mauser_C96#M1932_.2F_M712_Schnellfeuer

And from the Red Dead Wiki:

"It would be more historically correct to refer the pistol as the M721 "Schnellfeuer", the fully automatic variant of the Mauser C96 Pistol, yet it did not exist until the 1920s-30s."

It's so laughably over powered in game though, because not only is it so far ahead in terms of technology, (it being for all intents and purposes an Uzi in the old west)it's amazingly accurate, and you would've really needed a stock for it to be even halfway accurate given the fully automatic version was such an insane piece of tech even when it did come out. The Germans really do design beautiful guns.

Ha, I didn't even know it was full auto in the game... I just assumed it was the semi-auto and used it as such. I suppose the developers wanted to have something that was a significant upgrade to justify its high in game price. Still, nowhere near as bad as the anachronistic weapons in Black Ops...