MOH: Warfighter's Dirty Secret Fuels the Flames of Hatred

[BoringSupreez]

Gamespot really needs to get off their moral high horse these days. Here's two of the paragraphs:

Because Warfighter doesn't take the time to explain who your enemies are, they become nothing more than evil strawmen who represent every deplorable thing terrorists have done to America. But such a representation is lazy and unfair. Exploration of the cause of their unrest is necessary to establish them as real human beings. But if Danger Close gave them a purpose other than to be mindless killers, if they also had families waiting for them at home, dreams of a life without oppression, that would shatter the illusion the development team has created. To give them feelings, a personality, would make murdering hundreds--thousands!--of them during the course of the campaign upsetting. Fleshing them out would have required respect for the players, that they are mature enough to fight a fully realized enemy. But that's not the case here. Your enemies are part of an organization dedicated to the murder of your countrymen.They are foreign. They are different. And they deserve to die.

Different games and different difficulty levels can mitigate the divide between the superhuman protagonist and his subhuman foes, but the underlying message is unmistakeable. Medal of Honor: Warfighter is a game that furthers the divide between Western philosophies and the rest of the world. But it's not alone. It's only a meager imitation of what has come before it, underlining how pervasive this problem has become. Until we recognize what these games represent, and how damaging they are, developers will continually parrot the same jingoistic blather. We live in troubling times, but as long as we see through the facade, there's hope for the future.

I can't read that article without giving myself a headache. Pretty much the definition of "bleeding-heart liberal." And only MOH gets this treatment from GS; COD gets by scot-free.

[J T]

I think MOH, COD, and other games like them (Homefront and so on) are all asking for this kind of criticism. They make their games look as much like modern US military battles as possible, then they don't treat the subject matter with appropriate depth. They know what they are doing to make themselves controversial, and they keep intentionally pushing people's buttons, but they don't really have much to say.

I'm not saying the games shouldn't exist or that they should become art games or something, I just think they can't do what they do and not expect people to point out that they deal with serious subject matter poorly. They make fun games about shooting, but when they pull in real world events or real world paranoia, they are opening themselves up to this kind of criticism and maybe we should wonder why we want a game about killing people in the Middle East where they are just simple bad guys who smoke cigars and talk like cliched villains (I rolled my eyes at a character like this in the 2010 Medal of Honor).

[J T]

To give MOH and COD some proper credit though, at least they are willing to get into murkier territory. Most games just toss in a bunch of mindless zombies so there is no moral concern about your killing them. Nobody critiques you for failing to detail a zombie's motivation or for not explaining how he wants to get back home to his zombie wife and kids. Zombie games just sidestep the whole quandry of making the player feel guilty for their violence.

[Pulsar_t]

I'm already fatigued and even disgusted by those annual shooters, but they sell so they'll be around for a while, perhaps indefinitely like Fifa and PES.

And the "stories" suck; perhaps it's best to leave them out completely. Spec Ops: The Line is the only recent example I could think of where the story was handled with a bit of tact. They actually bothered to portray Dubai accurately, whereas the locales in MOH:Warfucker are about as authentic as Apple Maps So yes, fuck the publishers because they advertise authenticity and bullshit and all we get is the aforementioned product in the review.. Considering a majority of those playing are under-18 one can only imagine their impression of other cultures would be as depicted in those games. Brazil is a bunch of drug-infested slums, sand-niggers and even more sand-niggers, East Europe is a war-torn, big mafia playground etc.

[Blu]

Whoa, I know you're using an example, but throwing around epithets simply isn't the way to go.

[Pulsar_t]

Italicised said epithets But you have to admit things have only gone downhill since the first Modern Warfare. It's almost a self-parody now.. Perhaps this will be reflected in reviews of this year's CoD edition.

Disclaimer: I still play BF3's multiplayer.. It's good fun, and so is CoD multiplayer for those who enjoy it.

[BoneSnapDeez]

Damn even the industry rags are getting sick of brogames.

[KillerJuan77]

Italicised said epithets But you have to admit things have only gone downhill since the first Modern Warfare. It's almost a self-parody now.. Perhaps this will be reflected in reviews of this year's CoD edition.

Disclaimer: I still play BF3's multiplayer.. It's good fun, and so is CoD multiplayer for those who enjoy it.

I've been playing Warfighter and it's not as bad as people say it is. On the contrary, I can't believe something like Hometurd got a pass but this one didn't.

[Erik_Twice]

This is so evil! I can't believe someone put enemies with absolutedly no characterization in a game.

[marlowe221]

So Gamespot is "liberal" because they critized MOH and not COD??? Is COD the game that democrats play and MOH the ones republicans play??? That makes absolutely no sense at all.

Edit: I'll add this - If it's "liberal" to refuse to see other people as cardboard cut-outs, particularly people of other cultures/religions then call me "liberal."
....


With regard to the games themselves. Companies make faceless, nameless bad guys in video games because it is easy.

Ask yourself why zombie movies/tv shows are so popular. My answer? Because suddenly 80% of the cast requires no reasonable motivation, plausible explanation, or convincing dialouge. It. is. easy. money.

Now consider this - On this forum we often discuss issues around whether or not video games are art. If video games are to rise to the level of art then writers and developers need to get comfortable with moral ambiguity pretty quickly. Reducing 50-80% of the participants in the game world to mindless red-shirts is not going to cut it. And your Evil Overlord better be more than Snidely Whiplash in a cool costume.

But I can't say I'm surprised given the games we are talking about in this thread. They are fun enough in their own ways but let's face it - the developers and publishers are targeting the lowest common denominator. Sure there are thinking man's games that have been FPSes but COD hasn't had to defend itself from that particular accusation lately....