I’ve been watching more and more Hulu lately (Daily Show, Colbert Report, and Conan), and it’s great that the programming is only interrupted by very short commercial breaks.  One such advertisement is for the new video game Wolfenstein, which adds supernatural elements to a World War II fighting game.

The commercial shows images of war and fighting.  I can see the Swasticas in clear view on the game’s characters. It’s a strange juxtaposition to see Nazis next to actual monster-ish characters.

If this game was strictly a war game with soldiers and battles etc, I would be less concerned.  But the fact that genocide and literal war isn’t enough conflict to base a video game on, I am somewhat concerned.  By adding in unrealistic elements, it seems to downplay the true cruel and violent nature of that time period.

I’d love to sit here and tell you that gamers could separate actual history from a fictitious video game, but I can’t guarantee that some adolescent won’t see monsters and supernatural stuff with Nazis — and think of the Holocaust and World War II as unreal concepts too.

Eh, at least they still made the Nazis the “bad guys”….