As you might have noticed, we have again started uploading weekly bulletins. We thought it would be a cool idea to introduce the new person bringing you the news at the intersection of games and the past: Omar Bugter, intern at VALUE.
I’m Omar (a.k.a. oomzer), and as part of my Master Cultural History at Utrecht University, I’m doing an internship at VALUE. In short, the Master focusses on any (cultural) utterance of history, but I mainly focus on videogames, and the connection between history and videogames. I grew up playing videogames, and I owe part of my interest in history to these videogames. I recall many hours playing Combat Flight Simulator, of which I unfortunately couldn’t find a store page (as the game is from 1998), but did find this video:
The combination between videogames and history makes VALUE the perfect spot for an internship! At VALUE I’ll be posting the weekly bulletins, writing some game reviews, updating the older posts, and plenty of other, more behind the screens, interesting stuff.
Aside from my interest in videogames and history, I’m also an avid gamer (of course). In my spare time, I play lots of different videogames, some linked to history, some not. I quite like to play hours and hours of Civilization VI or Hearts of Iron IV, or other strategy games. I also spend too many hours playing city-builders like City Skylines or more ‘historical’ builders such as Banished or Dawn of Man. The Assassin’s Creed franchise also holds a dear place in my heart, especially the Ezio-trilogy (Brotherhood is the best one). But I do also quite enjoy playing games which are completely unrelated to history, such as FIFA, the Batman: Arkham series, F1 2019 or Assetto Corsa. My Steam library holds many more games, but it would take too much time to discuss them all.
My most favourite game of all? Valiant Hearts! I love how it combines an amazing story with beautiful artwork. It might not be the most challenging or difficult game, but it succeeds in bringing across a great story, and that is one of the cores of videogames and history, at least, for me
In the coming weeks you can expect more bulletins (the next one this friday), but also a review of the new HOI4 DLC, of which you can see the trailer below.