Poking the Hornet?s Nest

[Sean Sands]

Poking the Hornet?s Nest

The controversial scene in Modern Warfare 2 isn't as controversial as everyone may believe.

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[Lord_Gremlin]

Well, as a Russian I still don't like this scene and whole plot, so I won't buy this game anyway.
Overall, plot here is really stupid. What about Americans here? Aren't they offended by this scene where an elite American soldier participate in a terrorist act?

 

[KeyMaster45]

I can completely understand where you come from on this subject. Unfortunately I have to ask the question of why point out something so obvious? At the end of the day MWF:2 is just another shooter, and in my experience shooters have very poorly assembled stories(its one reason why I don't play them). That's not to say there aren't exceptions out there, just that to say a shooter has got a bad plot line is like telling us that an M.Night Shamalan movie has a crappy twist at the end.

-EDIT-

Well, as a Russian I still don't like this scene and whole plot, so I won't buy this game anyway.
Overall, plot here is really stupid. What about Americans here? Aren't they offended by this scene where an elite American soldier participate in a terrorist act?

You know, I've never thought about how Russians feel always being made out to be the bad guys, I guess as a U.S. citizen it was just the normal enemy to be presented to us in scenarios like MWF:2 . I kind of want to see a game now where the Russians have to fight off an unprovoked U.S. invasion.

 

[Cousin_IT]

I'm not surprised to read this scene is nothing special. Its hard to combine old-fashioned James Bond action fantasy with serious moral quandaries, & not reduce the latter to a hollow attempt at appearing "serious" in an otherwise stupid setting (yes, the West waging an unprovoked war against Russian super-nationalists is stupid: a hangover from the Cold War some writers seem unwilling to acknowledge has ended because it gives them a simple Good vs Bad framework)

 

[level250geek]

Shouldn't Infinity Ward at least be given credit for being the first to go there? In a couple of years, when a game comes out where the player-character is an American spy infiltrating a terrorist organization, and you spend a lot of time getting to know the villain and doing horrible things to gain his trust, all while remaining loyal and dutiful to your country, "No Russian" will have been the inspiration for it.

With that being said, I am curious as to why the Russians are still the go-to bad guys for American military fiction. Given recent real-world events, it seems that North Korea or China would be a more ready choice. Of course, game developers may want to avoid real-world situations so as to avoid real-world political ideology, so they may be falling back on old tropes not due to intellectual laziness but due to avoid having the appearance of taking sides.

 

[DarkSaber]

It really was boring and seemingly placed in the game for the sole purpose of generating "there is controversy in this game" hype.

 

[Chipperz]

With that being said, I am curious as to why the Russians are still the go-to bad guys for American military fiction. Given recent real-world events, it seems that North Korea or China would be a more ready choice. Of course, game developers may want to avoid real-world situations so as to avoid real-world political ideology, so they may be falling back on old tropes not due to intellectual laziness but due to avoid having the appearance of taking sides.

Simple timing - We're just seeing the first groups of designers who weren't even alive when the Berlin Wall fell. This is the last few years when everyone writing the stories will have grown up with a "Russians=Bad" mentality. In Modern Warfare 2, there's some flimsy exposition (the actual scene, summing up what happened in CoD4 was great, but after that...) about how Zakiev became a martyr* for a "New Russia" that reverted to Communism, hell, the flag goes back to the Hammer and Sickle!

Also, you know you're in for some good old-fashioned right-wing commie bashing when almost every Russian soldier drops a God-damned AK-47, in a game set five years after the near future... No, no, Americans get nice, shiney ultramodern guns, but all the Russians are stuck with a gun which, in the timeline, is almost seventy years old. It makes perfect sense...

*I suspect this is to make people hate him more - all hardcore CoD4 players hate Martyrdom...

 

[Lt. Dragunov]

Please, behind every good game is a big pointless controversy about anything stupid. IT's a GAME not the an all telling truth to the future.

 

[Jonesy911]

Good games are just as respectable and take just as much work as a good book or a good film, if people had seen this scene in a film or read it in a book no one would bat an eyelid, video games are finding themselves in the same place Rock'n'Roll found itself in the 1950's. If you look at this scene and don't feel an emotional punch then you, to put it bluntly, are a tad closed minded (or a psycho killer). It takes and open mind to feel emotion for a bunch of pixels just like it does to feel emotion for a painting or an animated movie. Obviously this doesn't apply to all situations, for example you wouldn't feel emotion for a really badly characterized person in a game, or a 'painting' which it just donkey poo smeared on a canvas.

 

[Jonesy911]

Well, as a Russian I still don't like this scene and whole plot, so I won't buy this game anyway.
Overall, plot here is really stupid. What about Americans here? Aren't they offended by this scene where an elite American soldier participate in a terrorist act?

Why does it matter where the 'bad guys' come from or the undercover agent? People are individuals no matter who's soil you're born on, secondly...

*WARNING MASSIVE SPOILER AHEAD*...*SERIOUSLY IF YOU CARE ABOUT THE STORY STOP READING*

The main bad guys are all Americans anyway (except Makarov) the only people you kill in the last couple of levels are all Americans, Russians aren't even in the last two or three levels. The only good guys left are the British and the Russian Loyalists.

 

[hansari]

I can completely understand where you come from on this subject. Unfortunately I have to ask the question of why point out something so obvious? At the end of the day MWF:2 is just another shooter, and in my experience shooters have very poorly assembled stories(its one reason why I don't play them). That's not to say there aren't exceptions out there, just that to say a shooter has got a bad plot line is like telling us that an M.Night Shamalan movie has a crappy twist at the end.

Because one of the "exceptions" that you mentioned was Modern Warfare 1.

It had an actual storyline that was somewhat plausible in a modern world setting. A nuke falling into the hands of someone crazy enough to use it. Hasn't that been a constant worry in the media for a while?

Zackaev wasn't as empty as Makarov either...Zackhaev discussed how his motivations and hate for America and the West stems from how they had played with his people. Something thats believable when you take into account some disappointing things we did during the Cold War in South America and Afghanistan.

At the end with credits about to roll, a news anchor talks about a ship lost at sea. The same ship that SpecOps infiltrated at the start...the rest of the world was oblivious of what they had done to keep the world a little safe. Kind of like how we all are oblivious of the things that Navy Seals and the like actually do. (Cause their top secret and all)

It was all very clever and hinted at a new change in storytelling and video games. Its one of the reasons Modern Warfare 2 was so eagerly looked upon.

Now MW2 takes a million steps back and just goes for a "fun" experience...how disappointing...

 

[Nanaki316]

I was shocked by the initial "Holy crap I just killed all those people within seconds, this kinda shit actually happens in the real world?" But totally agree there was no real depth to the villian or what you were doing after that.
I also agree with someone above who said he felt the level was thrown in there simply to bring up this controversy.

I actually watched my bloke play the level first and I said to him "So does it effect you doing that?" And he doesn't tend to get so into his games he let it bother him, as put in the article it's just "Pixels on a screen" to him.
What's more worrying is whilst I like to get into my games, I don't get into it to a point where I would go and do this in the real world whereas some people have.

Another disappointing thing is that you just know the next time something happens like this in real life - COD will be blamed - as games are usually used as scapegoats as we all know.

 

[Jdopus]

Shouldn't Infinity Ward at least be given credit for being the first to go there? In a couple of years, when a game comes out where the player-character is an American spy infiltrating a terrorist organization, and you spend a lot of time getting to know the villain and doing horrible things to gain his trust, all while remaining loyal and dutiful to your country, "No Russian" will have been the inspiration for it.

No, they shouldn't be given credit because they did it in a cheap and tasteless way. I'm all in favour of games who cross boundaries in a meaningful way, but when they throw something in to sell more copies I'm actually inclined to agree that it shouldn't be there.

 

[MDSnowman]

Yeah the scene didn't make the impact on me that I was expecting. I was more shocked by getting shot at the end of the mission than anything I did at the start of it. Hell Makorov is such a flat villain that he gets sidelined three quarters of the way through the game.

 

[DTWolfwood]

I agree.

I haven't played the game (pc gamer with rage) so i can't say for certain, but if i do play the lvl you be damn sure ill try to rack up a higher kill count than any of the terrorists. Why? because i do that in all the GTA games, I did that in Overlord, I did it in Sim City. WITHOUT CONTEXT, killing 'civilians' in a videogame is just stress relief.

Y would your moral standing be affected in anyway whether you kill 'civilians' or enemy soldiers? what the other soldiers are simply doing is what they are told, who are you to say they are 'bad' guys? The fact that your a one man army with a kill count higher than any of the Snipers of Soviet Russia from WWII doesn't bother you, but killing innocence does in a videogame? yeah brilliant logic.

IW PR department all need to be given raises! first the PC controversy now this. Awesome way to make publicity! ^-^ b

Had their been a reason for that lvl it would have been great. Some kind of achievement or consequence for Killing or not Killing would have been nice. Killing them, you dont get shot at the end, not killing them you do get shot. SOMETHING would have been nice <.<

 

[Wandrecanada]

Poking the Hornet?s Nest

The controversial scene in Modern Warfare 2 isn't as controversial as everyone may believe.

Read Full Article

Thank you Sean Sands for what is probably the second article I've read that speaks the language that needs to be spoken. Besides the Gametrailers segment of Invisible Walls and a very very tiny point in the G4TV mailbag article you are the first (albeit most accurate and well constructed) argument as to why it's the actual content that needs to be criticized. While some have hinted at the terrible method used to convey what you describe, most have been apologetic towards the brand they love and just left out their critical side of the debate.

It IS ok to like the game and still criticize this portion of the product as long as one remains objective. MW2's storyline is probably the biggest and most broken part of a very well made game and the early inclusion of this ludicrous scene does a great job at showcasing that failing. It's like Die Hard without character development and between Hans Gruber and Makarov I think it's far easier to hate Gruber.