Not the most immersive or playable of the list today, Medal of Honor nonetheless deserves its mention for creating a template for interactive war experiences. As for its legacy, if you ever wondered why you seemed to spend 1999 to 2005 landing on various occupied beaches in shooters, look no further. The bombast and set-pieces throughout its campaign aren’t just exhilarating for the player, they also make clear the distinction between the fictionalized war we know from the big screen, and the real events we wisely keep at a respectful distance. With a score by Academy Award-winning composer Michael Giacchino and consultation from Saving Private Ryan military advisor Dale Dye, it’s a staunchly cinematic slant on the war, and that’s important. With World War 2 firmly in the director’s head during the production of Saving Private Ryan, he set his Dreamworks Interactive Studio the task of creating one of those newfangled first-person shooters set in the conflict, and in doing so laid a template for the subgenre for decades to come. 1999’s Medal of Honor came about after Steven Spielberg watched his son playing GoldenEye on his N64. We’re starting this list by paying our dues. Perspectives that place you in the boots of an infantryman, a general, or more often than not, an incredibly tough supersoldier capable of turning the tide - if not wrapping the whole thing up -singlehandedly. What we’ve assembled below is a list of different perspectives on the conflict as we’ve seen it in movies and TV in the intervening decades.

Nearly every shooter seems to tip its hat to Saving Private Ryan, Band of Brothers or Enemy at the Gates along its way to the credits screen. When we play games set during WW2, you could argue we’re actually revisiting the silver-screen version, albeit in interactive form.

The movies of the early 1940s portrayed heroic deeds in a war that didn’t bear much resemblance to the horrific reality, and as the 20th century continued, so did the tradition of World War II in a fictionalized setting. The conflict is unique in that its fictionalization began as it was still taking place. An odd couple - one an entertainment medium, the other one of the most harrowing periods in world history - but one that endures.

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