Overview of the classroom

As we come to the conclusion of History Through Gaming, we have touched on over 6 games with all different sorts of mechanics and game types. We played a wide variety of enjoyable games that had significant relevance to being historically accurate. This course was to say the least, the most enjoyable history course I have ever been apart of, and it has taught me more then I have retained from past history classes due to the enjoyability of this course. From the beginning, we started off with civ, and then built our way through the games ending on battle field 5. Out of all the games we touched on in this course, I found civ to be the most historically accurate and best learning tool. You understand ideas of theology, economics, growth, and leadership. All relating to the relevant historic figures present for those time periods and eras. It even allows you to learn how infrastructures develop throughout a city too a whole nation.

Out of all the topics we discussed and activities we completed. My favorite thing was the creation of our own video game. You had free range on anything you could imagine as long as it has relevance to history. We created as a team a video game on how the wakanabi confederacy (native Americans) could fight the British and French for the possibility to win back there land. We incorporated the French and Indian war, used historically figures of the tribe, and took their apparel, and lifestyles into full consideration when making it. We also then built the system, created the game, “joined with rockstar” as a subsidy, “all fictional.” To create our work. We priced it accordingly, to the system we would be using it on, and the specs in which it would function.

What we could change about the course; overall if it stayed the same it would be a great course most would enjoy. If there was one thing in my honest opinion it would be to substitute some of the PC platform games for console. When referring to this it would be more relevant to the people who enjoy console games more. I would have no problem purchasing all of them to have for life on my console. While as laptop I’m not as prone to go back and play them.

BattleField 5

“battlefield games were never once a historically accurate portrayal of past history. FFS, it’s a video game, a work of fiction, inspired by true events, a form of entertainment. it’s not meant to be accurate, nor is it a military simulator, heck there are disclaimers that it’s not meant to be historic accurate.” says https://forums.battlefield.com/en-us/discussion. However the scenery in the game is very well depicted for the time frame, In the spring of 1942, convicted bank robber William Sidney Bridger the character we see as Billy, volunteers to join the British military in order to avoid jail time. This could have happened back then and gives a sense for the people who were in the war, it does a good job showing all perspectives on war and battlefield has always done this very well. In the autumn of 1944 after the Allied landings at Normandy, Senegalese soldiers are sent to help liberate France from German occupation. One of these soldiers is the young recruit Deme Cisse, who meets fellow soldier and older brother Idrissa upon arriving in France. However, Deme quickly experiences discrimination from the French army ( this would of happened back then having little to no cultural diffusion wanted amongst armies and people fighting side by side.) , with the Senegalese being blocked from fighting on the frontlines and instead assigned to perform menial tasks such as filling sandbags. I like how they incorporated the sandbags because they were a huge part of warfare back then as a form of movable cover.

The weapons in the game are reliable and accurate for the time period, the armor they are wearing are how they would have been figured during the time of war.

They do a wonderful job in this game making the battles realistic, and the combat is enjoyable and precise bullets flying all over the battle field not being perfectly accurate.

Tropico on PS4

To start off Tropico is a management construction strategy game. I played through on the playstation 4, mainly because when it comes to video games i’m more of a console player then pc. All preference, but i’ve had the desire to play this game for a while and finally got the chance too. The game at first has A LOT of mechanics you need to get down and is rather hard to pick up easily. Everything correlates with one another. The way in which this game unfolds is rather building throughout and has a nice gameplay feel. To begin when constructing buildings, firstly they need to be linked to a road in order to have workers reach the grounds. After construction is complete you need to decide the price of which you need to pay your workers throughout the buildings and facilities, can normally pay poor/medium/well-off. You have a sense of bureaucracy in your little kingdom by you need people to poll for you and vote for you to become the ruler of the civilization. There is the ability to corrupt your people by forcing them to vote for you. You also will need to explore and expand your road ways and reach on the island before others do so. Each building and facility needs to be maintained and you have the ability to hire a manager for the position in the game, they can boost your game or they can hurt your game, like “MoneyGrubber” they wont help you significantly but if you hire workers from over seas or train them in the college and build their education up they will outperform anyone who is uneducated and has bad statistics.

This is an in-game look from the tutorial I completed in class.
You can see all the wood coming form the forest. The housing where your citizens stay.

Another huge idea in the game I found well portrayed is the money system, you can sell a variety of crops, by sending them over seas or trading with others on the island, create revenue from pub and raise happiness. Once your out of money you loose. you cant progress and build and will soon be over taken. So overall The game provides some realistic dilemmas and constraints, as rulers must deal with rising populations, develop the economy, provide amenities, manage their popularity with political factions with varying interests, and make use of U.S. or Soviet aid without alienating the other side.

The ships yards for money making on south side while as we can see the farms/fields that are providing them with this ability.

The ability to lay out each region how you wish is a fun concept, My OCD kicks in and i have to lay everything out very intricate, and housing needs to be with housing, and so forth.

Shogun Total War 2

Total War: Shogun 2 is a strategy video game developed by The Creative Assembly and published by Sega. It is part of the Total War series and returns to the 16th-century Japan setting. After playing total war 2, I found it better than its brother like games for strategy based conquer games. It does a decent job laying out the outfits and weapons for the time frame. However a game like this will not be accurate with the ability to have control over a player facing an AI, it’s a good game and I would play/recommend others to as-well. It is historically accurate in terms of starting out. Like playing as Oda Nobuhide (father of Oda Nobunaga) as your daimyo and Oda Nobunaga being son and heir by default. But how you play determines if it will be historically accurate or not. if you want to try to track the every movement day by day and try to recreate that I wish you luck as the AI probably wont allow you too. So in a way yes, and in a way no. The outfits and region of the game are accurate with great depth, being the region is the entire island of Japan they break it into tribes, which i don’t think were all present at this exact time but give the player more a depth feel with more to do throughout the game. The armor and weapons the soldiers use in the game are very pleasing and look very good when scrolling in on your troops or enemies.

Japan In game image above shows great detail on the layout and accuracy of what japan really looks like in the real world.

Weapons in the game were true to their time. Outfits we see would have been around back then as-well.

Age of Empires 2

BY COOPER! RAHN!

clip of game play located above!

Age of Empires, to start off great game, fun to play, and easier than Sid Meier’s Civ 5!

When first starting the game up and getting into it for about 10-15 minutes was easily hooked but couldn’t help but notice they get a lot of things wrong! This is most certainly for the purpose of gameplay and to develop a more user friendly narrative. In regards to the campaign Wallace of Scotland remains in charge after the battle of falkirk which indeed he does resign and is no longer a predominant figure present in the Scottish history. Also the ending of Ghengis Khan’s campaign pretty much says the Mongols conquered the regions of Europe and Asia, and shows on the map it puts the entirety of Europe in the Mongol Empire’s borders. Really though, the Mongols did not advance much more after the Battle of Sajo. Most of the game’s objectives do not have any basis in history but that is for the sake of enjoyable gaming experience. Ghengis Khan did not conquer Poland, Bohemia, and Germany by playing capture the flag with them (hahahaha) -found this kind of funny-. Also Don Juan did not construct a gigantic replica of Toro del Oro in Greece in order to trick the Ottomans into losing the Battle of Lepanto. However the use of all the leaders and troops behind them is very well historical. They did a great job incorporating powerful people from the time region in a fun learning manor. Picking up on names and recognizing people such as Ghengis Khan, (my fav character in all domination based games). the story mode in this game is iffy to me however multi player against CPU was very enjoyable.

Shown below is Ghengis Khan mission and they do a well job showing the difference in architecture too.

Here is a close up of the Teutonic Knight, The graphics arn’t the best but they deck him out with armor in which would strongly represent how they would have looked back then!

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Assassin’s Creed Odyssey

To start out; Hello and welcome to my interpretation after playing assassins creed Odyssey and the historical accuracy it entails. ACO is a beautiful recreation of ancient Greece. The scenery is huge to take in. It really allows the player to get a feel of the way the geographic lay out was during this time period. The water is blue, the rocks seem too look like limestone and cobblestone hilly rough environment in which represents Greece very well. However the facts behind it aren’t always true. This is deliberate though because it gives the player a more diverse range of tasks and experiences to please both sides of the spectrum. When loading up any Assassins creed, it shows on the screen ” based off historical events…” so the origin of the game is staying true altering it along the way for excitement and depth. in the beginning of ACO there is movie like trailers which almost represent the movie 300 to a tee. the games ability to really draw in players and allow them to emerge themselves under water swimming, sailing on ships, and hunting down opponents all draws the players in. The layout is beautiful and the mechanics are in sync. The charrectors in the game might not all have existed but they do a good job inserting certain political figures from the time era. All the series include magical items, soul-shaping and unrealistic “health.” Odyssey allows you to engage the Pope in a fist fight alter cation. Did this actually happen no. But was there an assassins guild back then that fought corrupt crime? no. In my opinion Ubisoft does an excellent job recreating the time period staying true to attire, politics, architecture, and geography. Shown below are some accurate examples found throughout the game.

These types of buildings filled Greece back in the day and give the player a real feel for being in the environment and what is was like then.

This picture, show’s the gear development throughout the game. How detailed and true the armor and weapons grow throughout the game are very accurate.

The rich dressed like this,”man in blue” nobility staying true to the colors. and the poor dressed like the worker on the right side of the screen or just to the left of the blue pillar.

Therefore we can conclude that Ubisoft does try to keep the game accurate with in its region and time frame but however the true play through of the game is all invalid due to the idea of assassins are not present in a guild as such throughout the generations or ever like the game portrays. For a little bit of Assassins Creed Humor read the picture below. Thank you for reading my blog and hope you enjoyed the time here! and possibly even learned a bit of history from ACO.

SID MEIERS CIV 5

Thanks for joining me!

Hi all, I am a student at Saint Bonaventure. I have recently enrolled in History Through Gaming! Today I am going to give an inside description of how this game! “Image below” shows the correct way in-which history is incorporated and ways in which its very wrong! “Sid Meier’s Civilization V” At first glance the game is fun, and full of ways in which you can take over. To begin with the credentials, each nation is given specific troops which fall within that nations power era that reflect the troops they had that were their power house troops. The ways in which you must build your empire up through all the eras is very true, you can’t build a college without having centralized education. You can’t build horseback troops without having horses and a stable to house them. This is very important because without such small details it wouldn’t give you the sense of how it was. There are many other examples that follow these same ideas of growth and how a nation must rise. Learning throughout is a great aspect because you can’t develop technologies of rockets and planes without having the ability to create metal, and fabrication. However there are many faults at first glance swell throughout the game. The Egyptians would never be fighting the Iroquois Indians Its just not realistic. However not all ancient empires were present at the same time they use this feature for player experience and I understand why this happens throughout the game. Without it we wouldn’t be able to play because great empires were one great during there time because there wasn’t others like them. Another idea that I feel isn’t very factual is the idea that all these great empires started off the same. Like when America was founded, we didn’t have to learn how to read, and we didn’t have to learn how to gather food. We already had forms of knowledge we just brought it over seas with us too a new location. Another huge factor is you can find nations in regions a-crossed the map in which they never would have been founded. Such as Denmark can be founded in americas.