Wow. I am normally a negative person but, i have nothing bad to say here. So well done you get my applause. *applauds*
Right now? You mean like? Aww, no.JakubK666 said:*chlip
If I was a girl I'd totally fuck you for this review...in fact I'd totally fuck you right now anyway...and I'll probably have to go to the end of the line first.
In my defence, I think I called them "terrorists" rather than terrorists, because I wanted to get across how murky the motives were for the game's war. It's not really explained, although if it were a "war on terror" it would seem justifiable given that the chaps do seem to actually have nuclear weapons. Recent wars have been started for less.shufflemonkey16 said:seeing as this has been resurrected from this past June, I'd like to point out that there was no instance in the game in which the middle eastern foes were called "terrorists". Actually they aren't really called anything. The only hint you get as to what they are or why they're doing whatever they're doing is that Al-Asad kills the president of the ambiguous country (which appears to be Saudi Arabia) and whatever kind of revolution they're going for is begun.
Calling them terrorists would make the political message of the game much different (depending on the manner of labeling them as such). It would probably be assumed that it's advocating the US's invasion of Iraq and other aspects American foreign policy.
I'd certainly incline more toward it showing a case of the Americans forcing their opponents hand, and everybody suffering as a consequence. I don't think the game wants to come down on either side, precisely because when a nuclear bomb goes off, there aren't really any winners. Just survivors. That was a bit naff. Oh well.shufflemonkey16 said:The political message of the game is rather malleable depending on one's own political viewpoint.
Someone who believes in America's foreign policy will view the detonation of the nuclear bomb as saying "Middle Eastern terrorists place no value on human life and their only purpose is to destroy as much as possible without restraint, thus they must be neutralized" A more skeptical person will interpret it much the same way as Gigantor. The case is similar for the actions of the Ultra-nationalist enemies in the SAS part of the campaign. Evil commies destroying freedom or embittered revenge seekers. The game does more to show the revenge motives of Zakhaiv though.
As per the marines, I think the point of rescuing that downed pilot is that it's an action which suddenly becomes completely pointless. The player is so involved in their own little gung-ho macho microcosm, only for the perspective to zoom out, and for that one act to become completely insignificant when the nuke goes off. At least there's a certain straight-forward honesty about the Americans, unlike the SAS, who provide all sorts of moral quandaries.shufflemonkey16 said:There are other subtle messages in the game. The Marines are given some glory in their death by a gigantic nuclear boom in that they stop to rescue the pilot of a downed helicopter, which wastes just enough time to get them all killed anyways. The SAS are portrayed as cold, "ends justify the means", and indiscriminately destructive with the killing of unarmed crew members on the ship in the prologue and the torture and execution of Al-Asad in the safehouse.
I suppose Al-Asad's death was meant to give him an almost identical end to the one he gave the president of the ambiguous country.
Believe it or not, that's not exactly true. While it would be a waste for our SF and Deltas to pull guard duty and civil policing, safe civil discourse and cultural classes are mandatory predeployment classes.BallPtPenTheif said:this is true. the specialized skill required for certain divisions can be more difficult to master. however, there are still tasks that "grunts" are better suited for. for example, if you have to police an Iraqi suburb, you wouldn't have a bunch of Delta Force guys checking IDs. beyond the waste of resources, the training that Delta Force receives isn't condusive to safe civil discourse. one could even argue that typical army training isn't suited for safe civil discourse, but between the choices available they would be the best option.Gigantor said:At the same time, the majority of soldiers who try to get into special forces...don't. If five people don't get in, and one person does, isn't it reasonable to assume that the one who does would be the best at doing what was needed of them in that instance?
Maybe it's just that the SAS are best at what the SAS do, and other soldiers are best at what they do: specialisation, like.
As a counterpoint look up the various instances incidents involving the Paras when they were stationed in Northern Ireland as security forces. The whole thing was a cluster fuck because highly motivated assault troops don't mesh with sensitive peace keeping operations.Heathen92 said:Believe it or not, that's not exactly true. While it would be a waste for our SF and Deltas to pull guard duty and civil policing, safe civil discourse and cultural classes are mandatory predeployment classes.BallPtPenTheif said:this is true. the specialized skill required for certain divisions can be more difficult to master. however, there are still tasks that "grunts" are better suited for. for example, if you have to police an Iraqi suburb, you wouldn't have a bunch of Delta Force guys checking IDs. beyond the waste of resources, the training that Delta Force receives isn't condusive to safe civil discourse. one could even argue that typical army training isn't suited for safe civil discourse, but between the choices available they would be the best option.Gigantor said:At the same time, the majority of soldiers who try to get into special forces...don't. If five people don't get in, and one person does, isn't it reasonable to assume that the one who does would be the best at doing what was needed of them in that instance?
Maybe it's just that the SAS are best at what the SAS do, and other soldiers are best at what they do: specialisation, like.
The unconventional warfare manual advocates cultural awareness as a means of enlisting the aid of local forces. The SF receive extensive language and cultural awareness training and are experts at entering an area and building a rapport the locals, It just makes more sense to take advantage of on site assets rather than depending on what you could bring to bear yourself. If your interested, you could research the Tiger02 team and their work with General Dostrum in Northern Afganistan during the opening months of the war.
As much as I was going to try to disagree with you, you're actually right....JakubK666 said:Okay...it's not shallow...just a very poor portrayal of War.The same squad of jackasses single-handedly killing instantly-respawning terrorists that so far starred in every single other war movie/game.As for the story it is thick with patriotism.We got nukes and "Nazis of the new era" - Russians and Terrorists.In the end I wouldn't be too suprised if Griggs was replaced with Cole Train from GoW.nilcypher said:If you really believe that, then, without meaning to offend, a lot of CoD4 clearly went over your head.JakubK666 said:CoD4 is a really shallow shooter and it doesn't deserve the amount of philosophical preaching bullshit it received from you.Awesome but totally out of context.
I'm still sticking to my original statement because imo,it's like discussing Xenophobia and (Flood's) Utopian Society in Halo.