Which war does it best?

World War II
It’s no surprise that the biggest war of the 20th century would have the most video game adaptations — the more blood, guns and brutality to poison the minds of the youth with, the better. Make no mistake, though: These are quality titles.

The “Medal of Honor” series, created by Steven Spielberg, utilizes a central motif of “one against many,” usually having the player control a single player for the duration of the game on solo missions. Much of the first installment borrows dialogue or scenes from “Saving Private Ryan,” attempting to lend as raw of a feel as possible to the game.

Then there is “Call of Duty,” the standard by which most warfare games are judged. Recent installations such as “Modern Warfare” have not been set in WWII, but the rest of the series has, taking the true warfare style to new heights in terms of sales and popularity. Similar to “Medal of Honor,” its installments are too numerous to list.

Not quite as successful commercially or critically as the other two, the “Battlefield” series takes more of a comic book approach to WWII with more of an emphasis on the multiplayer. Its graphics and execution are slightly less disarming than the other titles, but the gameplay allows you to play as one of several different Allies.

Overall quality: A

Civil War
Now this one is a little bit of a different story. The Civil War not only lacks a collection of good first person shooters, but it really lacks any good games at all.

One of them, “Gods and Generals,” has a modest score of 19 on Metacritic, with much of the criticism rooted in the portrayal of the game’s characters, both graphically and in terms of artificial intelligence. The period was obviously a more primitive kind of warfare, but it wasn’t full of idiots and look-alikes.

Another is “Darkest of Days,” which only partially takes place during the Civil War but asks you to alter history by saving one Cpl. Welsh. Fun times, if the game wasn’t so awful.

Obviously the selection is sparse, save some real-time strategy games that frankly fail to stand up.

Overall quality: D

Futuristic Wars
The beauty of futuristic war games is that they can be just that: beautiful. If not beautiful, at the very least they are bright, colorful and unlike any grittily realistic brown ones usually found.

The “Halo” games, up through “Reach,” have all capitalized on the series’ iconic visual aesthetic while games such as “Crysis” have gone all-out in crafting beautiful landscapes made to be appreciated when the CryEngine wasn’t eating away at your PC’s graphics processer.

And there’s an undeniable sense of creativity that comes in playing a futuristic first person shooters that 1940s assault rifles simply can’t match. Case in point: an auger in any first person shooter ever, the Bullseye gun in  “Resistance,” the gravity gun in “Half-Life,” Samus’s entire arsenal and for N00Bs like me, “Halo’s” Energy Sword.

But for all of “Halo’s” touting that combat has evolved, it’s amazing how many games have tried (see “Killzone 2,” “Haze” and every “Halo” sequel) and often failed in being nothing more than just another first person shooter starring another faceless space marine.

Overall quality: B+

Modern Warfare
Ah yes, we pulled this subhead right from the best and most famous game to fall into this category, “Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare” and the subsequent most popular game ever, “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.” “Call of Duty” had long toiled in historic wars, but only in Infinity Ward’s seventh-generation game did the franchise become great.

The two games had pulse-pounding action, seamlessly tight controls and a damningly realistic difficulty curve.

Such is the benefit of playing realistic games that don’t allow their heroes to magically regenerate health, and no genre better exemplifies that than those of modern warfare.

Games such as “Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter” and “Battlefield: Bad Company 2” are prime examples of gameplay and storytelling pulled right from today’s headlines (see the post-nuke playable cut-scene in “COD4”). These games have become the norm for “next-gen” style and modern graphics engines.

Overall quality: A-