Some Gameplay Scenes Can be Skipped in Modern Warfare 2

[Shawn Zipay]

If you happened to catch the spoiler filled video we put up here just the other day for Modern Warfare 2, we have a bit of a follow up. It seems as though select gameplay pieces in the game can be completely skipped over if you find the content too questionable to play.

"Infinity Ward's Modern Warfare 2 features a deep and gripping storyline in which players face off against a terrorist threat dedicated to bringing the world to the brink of collapse. The game includes a plot involving a mission carried out by a Russian villain who wants to trigger a global war. In order to defeat him, the player infiltrates his inner circle. The scene is designed to evoke the atrocities of terrorism.," according to the statement provided to Kotaku from Activision.

"At the beginning of the game, players encounter a mandatory "checkpoint" in which they are warned that an upcoming segment may contain disturbing elements and they can choose not to engage in the gameplay that involves this scene. Consistent with its content, the game has been given an "M" for Mature by the Entertainment Software Ratings Board. The rating is prominently displayed on the front and back of the packaging, as well as in all advertising."

This was in a statement released by Activision earlier today.

[Unregistered]

Re: Some Gameplay Scenes Can be Skipped in Modern Warfare 2

By the same merit that GTA: San Andreas had content that was "questionable" though not integrated into main game-play, MW2 is not going to be able to avoid the controversy or heat from the press by just by making it "skippable."

Personally I don't think Rockstar games should have been held accountable for game content not intended to be placed in the game at all, and only usable through extensive game modification.

However, Infinity Ward's decision to give a player a mission to kill civilians (I'm assuming Americans, even) in a terrorist attack is at the very least in very poor taste, if not immoral.

Yea, there are other games where players go on fairly senseless killing sprees of civilians (usually in poor taste), like GTA. However, GTA never made it a mission to kill random innocents, (they are usually criminals or direct opposition to your objectives) which made at least slightly excusable. Pretty sure there are other games who do the same but at least cast it in a comical light (or try to), think Kill Bill Vol 1.

But to place players in the shoes of terrorists, who currently happen to be one of the larger security threats to the USA, in the role of civilian slaying? It feels like an endorsement of terrorism. They argue the "look from someone else's perspective" point, but the perspective of slaying innocents in an airport offers nothing but carnage that plays on (or even into) the fears of the American populace.

And then labels it a game, a term synonymous with the concept of fun.

It's disgraceful and distasteful.

I re-iterate my complaint is with the context of the killings, rather than the killings themselves (the whole video games makes murders theory doesn't jive with me). Maybe when the terrorist attacks become a historical context, it'd be less controversial. But even then, I haven't played any WW2 games where I've taken missions for the Nazis or Japanese Empire (Company of Heroes excluded).

[zazenXhagakure]

Re: Some Gameplay Scenes Can be Skipped in Modern Warfare 2

wussies

[Unregistered]

Re: Some Gameplay Scenes Can be Skipped in Modern Warfare 2

get over it. they have the balls to show how horrible terrorism is.

[-:Nighthawk:-]

Re: Some Gameplay Scenes Can be Skipped in Modern Warfare 2

This one was too juicy to pass up...

However, Infinity Ward's decision to give a player a mission to kill civilians (I'm assuming Americans, even) in a terrorist attack is at the very least in very poor taste, if not immoral.

Immoral? Has everyone forgotten this is a Counter-Strike website that has branched out to cover other first-person shooters? Half the people in CS play as terrorists, and occasionally we shoot hostages to prevent them from getting rescued. Is Valve now a horribly immoral company for endorsing killing innocent civilians as a valid tactical strategy? Or can we stop and realize this is a video game, not a training simulator?

Yea, there are other games where players go on fairly senseless killing sprees of civilians (usually in poor taste), like GTA. However, GTA never made it a mission to kill random innocents, (they are usually criminals or direct opposition to your objectives) which made at least slightly excusable. Pretty sure there are other games who do the same but at least cast it in a comical light (or try to), think Kill Bill Vol 1.

So killing civilians is okay if they either a) are opposed to what you want to accomplish, or b) it's funny. Every living Jew was, by their very existence, opposed to Hitler's goals. So then a Holocaust game would be okay, because you have a reason, right? Or as an Islamic extremist, America the great Satan is now against your goal of a world that universally worships Allah, so we can kill all civilians who are against that?

If I laugh after I blow up 200 people, does that make it okay? These pretexts for why some instances of murdering civilians is okay and other instances aren't are really arbitrary and don't hold up to scrutiny.

But to place players in the shoes of terrorists, who currently happen to be one of the larger security threats to the USA, in the role of civilian slaying? It feels like an endorsement of terrorism. They argue the "look from someone else's perspective" point, but the perspective of slaying innocents in an airport offers nothing but carnage that plays on (or even into) the fears of the American populace.

And then labels it a game, a term synonymous with the concept of fun.

It's disgraceful and distasteful.

Generally speaking, playing the role of a terrorist slaughtering innocents doesn't make for good gameplay, because we generally play these games to see what it would be like to be something we can't actually be. I'll never be a race car driver, a special ops sniper, samurai warrior or a Ph. D scientist fighting an alien invasion--but I've played all these roles in games and enjoyed it vicariously.

There is little about being a terrorist I would enjoy, other than a highly fictionalized version that focuses on competition rather than slaughter. Likewise I don't choose to play games where I would be a gangster torturing people who owe my boss money. There's nothing about either experience that I care to be involved in vicariously. However, there's a gaping moral chasm between a game making an action possible and endorsement of that same action in real life.

I re-iterate my complaint is with the context of the killings, rather than the killings themselves (the whole video games makes murders theory doesn't jive with me). Maybe when the terrorist attacks become a historical context, it'd be less controversial. But even then, I haven't played any WW2 games where I've taken missions for the Nazis or Japanese Empire (Company of Heroes excluded).

Play any WWII game online and half the time you're still fighting on behalf of these forces. A time is not coming when terrorist attacks will be a thing of the past, and even then, given the responses certain people had to Resident Evil 5 and race issues, apparently for some time doesn't heal wounds dealt to our ancestors.

I find movies like Black Hawk Down rather fascinating, because you see a glimpse into the horror of war. At one point I remember an American soldier gunning down a young boy, who then is laying on the ground, gasping for air as blood floods his bullet-riddled lungs. Then I think about American bombers firebombing the civilian populace of Dresdin, or the atomic bombs dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Can a guy with an assault rifle in an airport even begin to hold a candle up to those events from our "righteous" side of the second world war?

Only in very recent times have a few countries gotten squeamish about what war is. For the bulk majority of human history, and for many still today, war has been and still is about killing everyone in your way, armed or not. Even in our modern society we talk about "collateral damage" as a nicer way of saying "we murdered some innocent civilians but we didn't mean to do it so we can't be held responsible." Every nation, even your precious beloved United States of America, kills civilians in warfare. Terrorists are just more forthright about the fact.

One last point: you said it's distasteful, and on that we agree. But why shouldn't it be?

I doubt IW is trying to make an "issue game" and raise people's awareness of what the world is really like. That said, perhaps a few people, by playing briefly in the shoes of a terrorist, with that perspective in mind, will come to see that one man's war is another man's murder. Perhaps they'll even begin to consider the implications of how the rest of the world sees the actions of our military forces in other countries. Perhaps.