The Taliban and Medal of Honor
Grain
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Interesting discussion piece raised through this Gamespy article about whether or not it is appropriate for EA to name the ingame opposition as an actual enemy that the US is currently engaged with in Afganistan.
http://ps3.gamespy.com/playstation-3/medal-of-honor-2010/1111167p1.html
I do not know anyone fighting in Afganistan right now nor anyone who has perished in that conflict. I suspect I'd have a different opinion if I did. That being said I can't decide on whether or not this crosses a line. Really just wanted to see what type of discussion it would provoke here.
This may have been covered previously. If so then please direct me to the thread and disregard this one.
http://ps3.gamespy.com/playstation-3/medal-of-honor-2010/1111167p1.html
I do not know anyone fighting in Afganistan right now nor anyone who has perished in that conflict. I suspect I'd have a different opinion if I did. That being said I can't decide on whether or not this crosses a line. Really just wanted to see what type of discussion it would provoke here.
This may have been covered previously. If so then please direct me to the thread and disregard this one.
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White: 1721-3651-2720
White: 1721-3651-2720
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Well we weren't making WWII games while we were fighting Nazis. And the generation that did fight the Nazis doesn't play video games.
There isn't anything inherently wrong with creating a game where you shoot up the Taliban, the question here is the timing of it.
No but we made comics about Superman fighting Nazis.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-476361/German-children-played-Bombers-England-boardgames-WWII.html
Not all forms of media affect people the same. There is a drastic difference between a comic book, movie, and an interactive game.
Hence why all those old people had flash backs when watching Saving Private Ryan.
It bothers me that Nazis have become the cartoon villains of Hollywood movies. Reducing our current and past enemies to targets in a videogame is even worse. It trivializes the conflicts.
I don't see how.
It'd be like having a comic front page image of Hitler kicking the teeth out of a British soldier while the Blitz was going on.
White: 1721-3651-2720
Again, I don't see any real difference between that and playing Nazis.
It's in pretty bad taste, I think, to base video games in current/recent conflicts. I was immediately repulsed when I saw the first Vietnam game. I couldn't imagine the look on my old man's face if I brought that game home. I stayed away from the first Modern Warfare because even though a lot of guys I was serving with were into it because it was 'our war,' especially because I could go into work every day and get enough bad news about how 'our war' was really going.
Turns out, though, a lot of Brit SoF guys love Soap, and play way more CoD than you'd think.
So, taste turns out to be subjective. YMMV.
you kill russians and other people all the time, what's the difference?
Most guys I know that are active duty & gamers play current shooters.
And again, it's a timing issue.
Then again, I don't really see much difference between the last two Call of Duty games. You were fighting a modern war (no pun intended) in the middle east and shooting a bunch of brown people. They didn't name the conflict, but it's still the same thing our troops are involved in right now.
I don't see that as a legitimate concern.
Other religions range anywhere from reference to practically getting skewered in video games, especially Christianity, and you don't hear carpet bombing threats from those guys. It's like everything else is fair game except that one, and I have no idea why.
This doesn't really have to do with the topic I suppose, but I just thought it was aggravating.
I mean, it's potentially in poor form, but really? It's sort of propganda. We're engaged in a "war" with the taliban right now. They are the enemy of the United States. An enemy that has an absolute hatred for quite a bit of what we treasure in our country. Do they have SOME legitimate justification for that anger? Probably, somewhere. But it's buried underneath countless ridiculous things that make quite a few people want to blow themselves up to fuck with the US.
So if a US guy wants to make a video game about one of our soldiers fighting in that area against the people that hate me...I have no problem with that.
Singleplayer campaigns in FPSes have never trivialized or made light of any war. There's always sections of seeing the horrors of war. Allies dying, people crying, explosions rocking against a bunker as the troops sit against the ground. I've never played an FPS based on an actual conflict with a single player campaign that made me think "Oh wow, they're really making light of all these deaths."
Video games are a way to experience things we couldn't otherwise. Some of us have at least a fraction of an idea of what it would have been like to storm Normandy beach, or drive a tank in the Battle of the Bulge. This stuff is actually somewhat important I think. It lets us relive history in a unique way. (In some cases)
If they're letting you play as the Taliban in the campaign, that's a problem. Especially if it tries to be somewhat sympathetic. If it's just a multiplayer skin, who gives a shit?
I don't see how that is problematic. In fact, I wish someone would do that.
A lot of how Islam can be interpreted prevents parts of the Quran from being reproduced other places and weird stuff, so sometimes video game developers do step on the toes of people with actual religious reasons. It's reasonable that it would cause more of a stir, as nothing in the Christian faiths really caution against that kinda thing.
There was some fighting game where the music had words from the Quran wasn't there? That legitimately angered a bunch of non-crazyfundamentalist Muslims. If that were my religion, I'd probably be upset too.
It kind of makes sense for even like, WWII. Playing as a German soldier (NOT a card carrying Nazi soldier) who is sympathetic as a human being can be good story telling and historical reference.
Playing a suicide bomber in the streets of the middle east? There's a lot less sympathetic human and a lot more crazy ass fundamentalist.
Yeah, they could have a level where you intercept a bunch of 10 year old girls on their way to school and throw acid in their faces.
It's still odd that Islam gets away with screaming at the top of their lungs everytime something is offensive according to their religious beliefs, and people rush to bend over backwards and the predictable parties preach about cultural tolerance, yet if Christians do it we all race to call them bigots or fundies.
There is an amazing double standard here.
I'd rather we mock everything and all aspects of life.
There's so much wrong with this I'm not sure where to start
There's a lot to not like about the Taliban and there are legitimate concerns about them, these aren't any of them
But playing an Afgan who's family was killed by an American airstrike and now just wants to kill some Americans and doesn't really care that much about the religious reasons would be.
Rigorous Scholarship
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_Fighters_(video_game)
Try anyway?
Because while you may disagree with the 'war' part, is there any question they are an enemy that doesn't value religious freedom and equality, which last I checked are generally thought of as good things?
Side issue though.
White: 1721-3651-2720
I want WW2 games where I shoot me some Allies. Play the controversy!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Day_of_defeat
Just to name one.
Love me some MP44.
You don't see timing as a legitimate issue?
Make a joke about Abraham Lincoln getting shot by Booth. People will laugh.
Make a joke about September 11th. The vast majority of people will not laugh and will also think you are an asshole for joking about it.
Timing, whether you personally believe so or not, is actually quite a big issue.
You mean a game that replicates this?
http://www.worldwar2pilots.net/Blue-On-Blue-Friendly-Fire.pdf
White: 1721-3651-2720
People are dumb and I don't really care about their opinions.
Well, actually, the only September 11th joke I've heard was sorta funny. And people usually laugh.
Who's there?
9/11
9/11 who?
You said you'd never forget!
Mostly a play on words though.
And no, it's not a legitimate issue.
OH NO WE MADE SOME PEOPLE UNCOMFORTABLE. How DARE we take their precious senses out of their comfort zone.
Multiplayer games with the Axis as one team are a dime a dozen. No, give me a single-player campaign where I invade Washington and need to make a glorious last stand against the faceless masses of Joes as I hold out until my trusty brownshirt sidekick has armed Der Große Mann and we haul ass out of there. Cut to cutscene of mushroom cloud.
WW2 games where you are killing Nazis aren't so bad because there really aren't any more Nazis like there were back then. There are ideological decendents, but not actual WW2 era Nazis. If those same games involved fighting the Russians or the Japanese, though, I usually quit playing.
Give me made up groups of people and I'll open up skulls all day. But anything that resembles a real group of people, no thanks. Just doesn't feel right.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
A sympathetic character who's a "bad guy" doesn't necessarily have to go around shooting the good guys before coming around.