Valiant Hearts. PS4 Game. The future ?

[Gareth Davies]

There was a new game called 1914-1918 empires at war check it out on Steam.

It's pretty cheap so I may buy it to have a look/play. What interests me is its claim that one can "control your men, at divisional, squad and soldier levels" (and Bde and Bn one assumes). A game/sim that allows control at the Div level is normally based on a very different engine to those that allow entity level control/play, the former being more of a map view based war-game and the latter being more of a 1st person shooter game/sim. If they have managed to put both in to a game that sells for under £20 I will be very impressed.

[Toby Brayley]

Valiant Hearts is actually a tasteful and very well thought out game. It has fantastic and haunting soundtrack. Playable by all ages and is a great learning tool in my opinion .

There is also the online multiplayer first person shooter Verdun. Graphics wise it is brilliant, the uniforms are very good and the battlefields are stunningly recreated. I am Still in two minds as to how I feel about it. I have played it, it does bring the "battlefields to life" in a way never experienced before, but something just doesn't feel right from a moral point of view... trailer below. I would welcome peoples thoughts?

I will also like to add that however you view these games I have certainly noticed a positive impact when I give talks to the school children at work. Video games are a VERY, if not the MOST powerful and dare I say educational media source for children today.

I have had school children the age of 8 years old able to identify a Lebel rifle and horizon blue uniform of a Poilu "because that's what they have in Valiant Hearts" etc

Edited 30 April , 2015 by Toby Brayley

[Guest]

I have played 1914-1918 Empires at War and Valiant Hearts and also viewed a few videos of Verdun (I wish they had a single player).

My thoughts were that Valient Hearts really was educational and its story was really well developed. I think it allowed people of all ages to enjoy and learn I loved how it was created. It was given a lot of attention via the gaming media

Empire at War really is good there are 2 missions which are bad (the stealth missions) but the main set piece battles are just incredible it really recreates some of the images that trench warfare creates. However this is still an early access game. I would end up trading it on steam I think (I am not really a pc games). I was really amazed there was a big trench battle where you advanced across no mans land and your losing men all over the place. Starting out with maybe 20 men I had about 6 by the end of the assault. It was sheer luck that my men lived. A machine gun got a few guys and then an artillery barrage wiped out around 6 men (each soldier you command is named). After surviving the German assault I went to try and recover some of my men and their equipment but it was hard to find them amongst the German and French dead. It really isslutrated how futile war was and the huge loses that this war caused. I hear they are releasing the British campaign too.

Verdun on the other hand looks incredible it outs us in the boot of a soldier but I doubt as with most multiplayer games you will not seen most of these scenes from the trailer. It would be great if they could do a single player mode. Such scope to explore. We will all see is game in a different light due to our research it will be recreating events of experiences which we had read about for so many years. I may have a look at getting Verdun on the cheap. Although I am not a multiplayer guy.

Toby I think we are players of these games realise the impact, we have walked the battlefields and seen the places being portrayed and not forgetting the personal connects such as relatives and the memories of these trips. For me I want to learn about these battles and often the only way to get close to these conditions is though gaming graphics. I think maybe if it was a single player experience with a story it would be possibly different from a moral point of view. But it's currently just multiplayer without a story just a setting of WW1 and maps based on those fought over. But if it's getting people thinking about the war and the impact then I'm for it. Having watched a few videos you do see some kind of tactics being used that were WW1 inspired. The maps look great. Hopefully single player develops soon enough.

I'm interested to hear more of your views from playing

WW1 games are perceived as boring by gamer from what I have seen in various game forums but both Verdun and Valient Hearts are breaking down this boundary and if it helps to discover the individual soldiers story for WW1 then I am totally for it.

Did anyone ever see the game that never released called The Trench

[Gareth Davies]

Valiant Hearts is actually a tasteful and very well thought out game. It has fantastic and haunting soundtrack. Playable by all ages and is a great learning tool in my opinion .

There is also the online multiplayer first person shooter Verdun. Graphics wise it is brilliant, the uniforms are very good and the battlefields are stunningly recreated. I am Still in two minds as to how I feel about it. I have played it, it does bring the "battlefields to life" in a way never experienced before, but something just doesn't feel right from a moral point of view... trailer below. I would welcome peoples thoughts?

I will also like to add that however you view these games I have certainly noticed a positive impact when I give talks to the school children at work. Video games are a VERY, if not the MOST powerful and dare I say educational media source for children today.

I have had schoolchildren the age of 8 years old able to identify a Lebel rifle and horizon blue uniform of a Poilu "because that's what they have in Valiant Hearts" etc

I think you are spot on in many ways Toby, games are an excellent educational tool (I have been speaking about the use of serious games for use in military training and education at a conference this week). I have been spoiled I think with the systems I have used to train soldiers over the past few years, and by those systems that are coming in to service now. The graphics on Verdun aren't bad but I am afraid I can't sign up to your suggestion that they are excellent. Little details such as the soldiers walking on water rather than splashing through the puddles put me off.

[Toby Brayley]

Gareth the above video does not do any justice to the graphics or engine used in Verdun, but you are quite right it is far from perfect. It is however packed full of little details, albeit that the time-scales are a bit iffy, that I fear will be wasted on most of the players.

Clearly the small team behind it really have tried to do something different than nearly all previous FPS and have at least put a large amount of thought and research into it. It is by far the best Great War environment that I have seen in a computer game or recreated in any form of digital media if I am honest.

Sadly, It is not in any way a simulation, rightly so they have deliberately left out excess amounts of gore but have retained certain amounts of the FPS style to make it instantly playable. It does portray the horrors of the war fairly well. French, British, Canadian and Germans with multiple units are featured with faithfully reproduced weapons and equipment.

Toby

Edited 30 April , 2015 by Toby Brayley