Why I love Punching Nazis (in Videogames)
Look, punching Nazis needs to make a big comeback right now. In videogames and beyond.
Back in December I played and reviewed the best Nazi punching game that has come out in a long while, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. It reminded me that one of the best bad guys out there that people should always enjoy punching are Fascists/Nazis. Unfortunately, Nazis have been making a bit (massive understatement) of a comeback so I decided to delve back into some games where you punch Nazis and talk about why it's such a fun time punching or shooting those fuckers in other games. And hey, it's important to remember that often the only thing stopping Nazis, are people breaking their nose. So let's go over some videogames that really exemplify Why I Love Punching Nazis.
Wolfenstein
There is no game series that has done more punching Nazis than Wolfenstein. From the beginning it was about killing Nazis and eventually Mecha-Hitler. It was a game series that defined much of how fun a first person shooter can be when you're fighting enemies that aren't just generic bad guys. There are, of course, the older games, but I'd like to talk about The New Order and The New Colossus because those are the more recent ones (ignoring Youngblood because I never played it) that are so fucking good. In them you play B. J. Blazkowicz, a US soldier who gets bonked on the head and deals with memory issues and basically being not aware of the outside world for years as the Nazis take over the entire world. Then, once BJ comes back to reality, he goes out and joins the resistance against the fucking Nazis.
It's a game where we actually get to see Nazis outside of their usual bad guy setting. For once, in the New Colossus, we see Nazis walking down Main Street and talking to some Klansmen in America. They are wonderful games that give you this satisfying feeling of not just fighting the Nazis, but actually resisting them when they've won. Of being on the back foot but still fighting regardless of the outcome of the war.
The Nazis also have far more advanced tech than they actually had, a staple of the Wolfenstein series, so you get to fight robot dogs and Nazis with cybernetic enhancements. And you get to do that in a variety of locales and using some weapons that feels so fucking good to shoot. Eventually you even get to see how Hitler has fared post war in Colossus, and it isn't well (all that meth caught up with him). You get to see the weakness of the Nazis, how their obsession with being the best is actually a blindspots, that they won't expect people like BJ and your other resistance allies to fight so fucking hard because why would they? They're the best after all. They won, they proved that they are actually the master race, obviously that means everyone supports them.
The New Order and The New Colossus are two of the best, most bombastic, most modern day twist, and most satisfying games that exist in the Nazi Fighting sphere. They make you love to see the next Nazi on your screen so you can fucking wreck them. So you can take away what they hold dear, their belief in their own cause. If you want to fight some Nazis, these are the two best, and cheapest since they're older games now (New Colossus came out in 2016, almost 10 years ago. Fuck I feel old). With the wonderful nature of these two games and the fantastic Nazi fights you get into in them, it's no wonder the devs, MachineGames, went on to develop the next game in my Nazi punching list.
The games are just good because they're well made though. They make you think about how much Nazis fucking need to be punched. In them you have BJ and his cohorts fighting in the resistance and you see how the Nazis treat people when they're in power. You see the brutality that is actually quite accurate. Punching and shooting Nazis in this game feels so good because it gives you a reason to want to punch and shoot them. Just like any good game does.
Indiana Jones and the Great Circle
Indiana Jones is a characteristic Nazi puncher. He's a badass who loves to fight them and utterly hates them, rightfully so. In 3 of the 5 movies, Nazis are the bad guys and they deserve to be. The Great Circle (made by Wolfenstein devs MachineGames) delves into a time in between Raiders and The Last Crusade and it allows you to fight Nazis and Italian Fascists. But why does it feel so good to do it? What exactly is the benefit of it?
Nazis are the kind of bad guys that most people all agree are evil and cannot be redeemed. They are the ultimate bad guys because they tried to destroy the world of hundreds of millions of people and killed tens of millions either directly through the Holocaust or through the vicious warfare that the Axis powers waged on everyone around them. It feels good to punch them, to foil their plans, to see them die because they deserve it. Nazis are racist, they are homophobic, queerphobic, antisemitic and just all around awful, those people don't deserve redemption and don't deserve to be looked at as just "people following orders".
Indiana Jones as a whole, and in The Great Circle, does this wonderfully, it makes you see how awful they were and makes you see how their obsession with being the superior race drove them to insanity and to try to find things that didn't exist. See, Nazis actually did try to find the Holy Grail and the Arc of the Covenant. Hitler was obsessed with the Occult because he believed it could help him win. Of course it couldn't and didn't, because Occult shit isn't real. But Hitler was desperate, he was a man on a mission and despite how crazy he was, he was very determined. The Great Circle doesn't show us Hitler, unfortunately, but it's Hitler stand in, Voss, is very adept at hitting that craziness that Hitler was known for.
Punching Nazis in this game is so god damn satisfying not just because the great gameplay or the sound effects being directly from the movies. It's so good because of present day Nazis. It allows you to live out your fantasy, and possible future, of fighting Nazis. It gives you a feeling of taking out one of the worst evils that has ever existed on this planet. It feels good because you get to foil their plans, see them all fail, and enjoy the satisfaction. Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is a damn good Nazi punching game and I love it for all the reasons I have talked about. If you want to punch some Nazis, if you want to feel like you have some control over your experience with them, you need to play The Great Circle.
The Saboteur
The Saboteur was the last game made by Pandemic, a game developer who had also made the original 2 Battlefront games. It was a fantastic open world game of the late 2000s that had the wonderful experience of liberating Paris during the Nazi occupation and existence of Vichy France (although that was southern France). Nazis took over the city of Paris in 1940 after an absolutely abysmal display of warfare by the French troops. They had been surprised because they had expected the war to start on their direct border with Germany where they had built the Maginot Line, a trench that they built because they didn't realize this war was gonna be very different. With the introduction of the Blitzkrieg strategy, Germany basically rode in through Belgium and took the city and France in a very short period.
The Saboteur takes place during this occupation and has this great mechanic where the world is in black and white but when you liberate an area, it goes back to color. It's a really satisfying mechanic that allows you to feel like you're making progress defeating those fucking Nazis. It also allows you to feel what it's like to go back into an area the Nazis still control because when you drive through it's back to black and white. It's an oppressive feeling, makes you feel like you're going back into the thick of it after being in the color of free Paris. It's amazing.
I love punching Nazis in this game, and running them down, because the Nazi occupation of France was something that Hitler greatly desired because of the image of ruling Paris in his head. There's a famous picture of him, just after the invasion, where he is in Paris in front of the Eiffel Tower. Ya know all those lovely romantic photos people take in front of the Eiffel Tower? Well Hitler did it first.
When you're going through the game, you're not just taking back the city, you're taking away this symbol of Nazi success that Hitler adored. A symbol of Nazi power that Hitler believed proved that the Reich was destined to survive for 1000 years. Plus you save the Parisians who are living under a brutal Nazi occupation. The game feels good to fight them because of this. It feels good to help the resistance, to go from your character being on the sidelines and not wanting to get involved (because he was Irish and Ireland was neutral during the War which is a whole other story) to being a main driving force pushing back on the Nazis. It feels good to destroy their weapon stockpiles, to take away their capabilities to oppress the French. It feels good to punch them, to take them out, to run them over. Nazis are awful and deserve to be punched and fought against. The Saboteur is a very good Antifascist game, it's a game that makes you love seeing the end of the Nazi occupation and I adore it.
The Call of Duty Games 1-3 and World at War
Listen, I'm gonna say something a lot of people don't like, I prefer the WWII Call of Duty's (although Black Ops was fun). Call of Duty was originally a game series defined by WW Dos, it was named after the idea that there are some wars that are worthy of Fighting, that need to be fought. That there is a Call of Duty for the citizens of a nation to fight against Evil. It's a wonderful concept.
The games centered on different battles of WWII, you play different soldiers fighting in the different theaters of the war. It was interesting and provided a great way to experience the reality of war, without sacrificing your own life and sanity. The Nazis are such a great enemy to deal with, and is such a great way to show the people who played them why you need to say Fuck You to the Nazis. It's mildly funny that the resurgence of Nazis in real life has come alongside a serious drop in Nazi bad guys in the industry.
Call of Duty has, in many ways, hit a fucking wall. But it doesn't have to be that way, CoD should go back to WWII, it's that time. It needs to be done because the most recent game was filled with random levels that had little continuity. The game needs to go back to its roots, it needs to show what it's like to punch some fucking Nazis again.
The Conclusion
There are a few more games that let you fight some fucking Nazi scum. Bloodrayne is pretty good from what I've heard although I haven't played it. The original Medal of Honor games were what Call of Duty was based on (because the devs left EA, the Medal of Honor publishers, for Activision to make Call of Duty. They then went on to leave Activision and go back to EA to make Titanfall, the new Star Wars Jedi games, and Apex Legends). The Sniper Elite game still let you shoot some Nazis and see the brutal ramifications of your sniper bullets. Several Battlefield games take place in WWII and they're pretty good although I haven't played a Battlefield game since Bad Company 2. Even Persona 2 has Hitler pop up for a boss fight because everyone knows there's nothing more satisfying than killing some Nazis.
The Industry though has broadly left behind Nazis as bad guys. What used to be frequent starring roles has become a very rare guest star. I think we as an industry need to do better. As I mentioned earlier in this article, Nazis are back in fashion, and this time they're bigger and richer than ever. We as an industry are on the forefront of their outrage and we will always exist there. So why not put that to use, why not take the resurgence of Nazis and the hate pulled in by them against developers to make some good ass Nazi Punching games again. MachineGames has started this with Indiana Jones and The Great Circle, now we need more devs to follow suit. We need more big budget and small budget Nazi killing games again, we need to show the industry what it means when you're a Nazi. What your fate should be.
Personally, I will never not enjoy a good Nazi Punching game, and you should too. Because until we have to fight a war against Nazis again, it's good to get some practice.
Meow,
Cat