Modern Warfare is a Comforting Lie

Machine Man 1992

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Grey Carter said:
Devoneaux said:
I have one geivance with your piece, it is the use of Vietnam as an example of a technologically inferior foe acheiving victory.

The Vietnamese were supplied by the soviets who gave them weapons and assets that were on-par with the american tech and in some areas, even surpassed it.
True. Washington still hasn't fully recovered from those devastating napalm strikes.
This is why it's impossible to argue on the escapist. Someone brings up a tidbit that disagrees with your preconceptions and you react with snark and dismissal.

The Vietnamese weren't a technologically inferior foe. True, the Viet Cong were basically peasants armed with punji sticks and whatever loose firarms they could get ahold of, but a lot of the time the US was facing against the regular army. The regular army armed with then-state-of-the-art Soviet hardware, and put in the hands of battle-hardend veterans who knew the terrain, and knew the people. While we couldn't figure out our asses from our elbows and thought turning the countryside into a moonscape was progress.
 

Machine Man 1992

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Jacco said:
BloodSquirrel said:
If you think that WWII was some kind of a happy success story compared to Iraq then you need to read some more history books. Germany was destroyed. Millions upon millions of Germans were killed, including civilians. Cities were left in ruble, their industry bombed to hell, and huge numbers of people were left destitute. We didn't just beat their army in an empty field, punch Hitler, and accept their surrender. Germany continued fighting long after victory was impossible, prolonging the death and destruction. By the time they surrendered it was because they had nothing left to fight with. De-nazification didn't happen overnight either.
This is kind of off topic to what you were saying, but it wasn't just Germany. All of Europe was in rubble. That's why everything there is modern and new and more efficient for the modern age (unlike most places in the US). They literally had to rebuild EVERYTHING. That was the sole reason the 50s and 60s were so prosperous for the US-- there was simply no one to compete with economically. Even the Soviet Union was in shambles and, in my educated opinion, had the allies seen fit to do it, it wouldn't have been that difficult to steamroll them and remove the Soviet Bloc once and for all.
You, I, Napoleon, and Hitler all know that getting involved in a land war with Russia is always a bad idea.
 

w00tage

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Elijah Newton said:
If I was king of the world someone would be calling you right now, offering to throw buckets of money at you to inform a new game. Personally, I think it's only a matter of time before someone makes a game like that, and once someone gets the formula for something like that right history will look at the current franchises with the same bemused tolerance / embarassment modern movie audiences give the WWII "Why We Fight" films.
That is a fascinating perspective on these types of games. I was thinking of them as "reality show" games but I like your representation better.
 

Monsterfurby

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But empowerment is actually one of the things that CoDMW does not seem to want to give to the player.

All throughout the campaign, the player tumbles, falls, slides and is chased just inches past disaster, they are knocked out, even outright killed, and most of the time have little control over where they go. The floor gives out under them, their helicopter crashes, whole buildings collapse and take the player with them. THAT is what makes CoDMW actually a pretty intriguing storytelling medium. Yes, I play MW for the storyline.
 

Ryan Hughes

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Great article. I feel the need to add though that by its very definition "realism" can never be actual reality. Thus, realism is not a portrayal of reality, but rather a set of signs that re-enforces our own per-existing set of ideologies and beliefs. The reason realism is so big in gaming nowadays is -as the article states- because it is a comforting lie. That is, it allows us to believe we are justified in ongoing warfares, it allows us to believe the soldiers have control over the situations that they find themselves in, and can survive with enough skill.

The opposite is true. Soldiers follow the orders of their commanders, and while many can be and are true heroes, often as not, no amount of expertise or training could have saved the lives of those who died. Perhaps because they were ambushed, perhaps because they were given badly thought-out orders, but sometimes death is inevitable.

Monsterfurby said:
But empowerment is actually one of the things that CoDMW does not seem to want to give to the player.

All throughout the campaign, the player tumbles, falls, slides and is chased just inches past disaster, they are knocked out, even outright killed, and most of the time have little control over where they go. The floor gives out under them, their helicopter crashes, whole buildings collapse and take the player with them. THAT is what makes CoDMW actually a pretty intriguing storytelling medium. Yes, I play MW for the storyline.
You do not seem to understand the idea of projection in storytelling, so let me explain: the MW games invite the player not to be immersed into the game, but rather to project onto the player/character. I use the slash knowingly, as to distinguish it from the kenning: player-character. The difference is subtle, so I will not go into it here. If indeed the games wished to portray the reality of death then, as soon as the player/character died, the console would shut down and never turn on again. Or, something along those lines. Instead, the player encounters the forced death, then moves with a god-like omniscience into another character, who may or may not die. This actually undermines the finality of death itself, rather than confirming it.

Also, you play MW for the story? That is like saying you listen to Niki Minaj for her artistic integrity. You do not seem to understand what a story -at its fundamental level- is, if you actually believe that modern warfare actually has one. MW simply has a string of unfounded and non-contextualized notions that it throws at the player, not a story.
 

Machine Man 1992

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Robert Rath said:
Modern Warfare is a Comforting Lie

If a game claims to be about modern warfare, then shouldn't it represent that warfare realistically?

Read Full Article
1) It isn't about modern day warfare, it's about a war that takes place in the modern day. There's a difference; one is a topic, the other is a setting.

2) No, it shouldn't treat war realistically, because it's a goddamned video game. To expect a game to be true to real life is silly, unless you're playing a simulation.

3) Where was this article on why WW2 should be treated realistically? Where's the article on why Tom Clancy games are "disrespectful of the subject matter?"

This whole article is a load, the only reason it exists in the first place is because CoD is popular now, and it's "cool" to hate on popular things. This is just dressing it up in academic sounding jargon.
 

AtheistConservative

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Probably the worst article I have ever read on the Escapist.

Why are IED's not included in video GAMES? Because they don't make sense in a FPS context. While most Iraq or Afghanistan vets probably know someone who was hit with an IED, still it's not like it's happened to the majority thankfully. If it was actual gameplay, it would just be a random game over, from which a player would restart and move on. And if it happens in some big pre-animated cut scene, is it really different than in video games where your chopper crashes or the road is blocked, so now the mandatory vehicle section is over? And this all over looking the most important part. IED's hit vehicles during boring times. Most convoys don't get attacked, so to accurately reflect the true devastation of having your friends die during a routine commute, you would need the player to just drive a truck or Humvee somewhere, hour after hour, and randomly, so possibly never for some players, they would get hit by an IED.

Games would be more realistic if characters also had to have bowel movements once in awhile. But that would be a pretty boring or very juvenile aspect of a game. Games exist to entertain, and players PLAY them. Mixed forces throughout history have found it's often hard to avoid friendly fire. In a game, either it wouldn't matter, and thus the friendly fire aspect becomes trivial and borderline sociopathic, or players would simply restart a level, until they got frustrated and quit.

Oh waaa, games don't treat the Russians nicely enough. It's not like they are backing Assad or Iran or recently invaded Georgia or anything. The Russians are not our friends.

This is just like feminists complaining that there aren't enough games made by or for women. Games didn't just fall into men's or American's laps. If some indie studio of Iranians wants to portray their side of the horror of the Iran Iraq war, that would be perfectly fine. But how many other sides should US studios have to make?

This is really an indictment of our school system than an argument about what should go into games. By that logic we should make games primarily about science and math because that's where Americans are really lagging behind.

Our tech has given us a tremendous edge. It obviously can't cover all military and strategic mistakes, but games don't incorporate those aspects to begin with. We don't have a game that combines the Sims with Civilization with a RTS with a FPS.

If the author applied the same standard from Iraq to WWII they would not say we won that war either, because reconstruction was violent and long as well.

Very few people would argue that tech is the only thing that matters. If it was, there would be no point to most RTS games or many others, because the way to win would simply stay technologically ahead of the enemy, strategy and production wouldn't matter.

The British could have afforded far more Isandlwana-esque conflicts than the Zulus could. Their casualties were atrocious and hit the Zulu nation far harder than the British losses affected Britain. even repeating it 4 times would have left 5,000 of the 125,000 Zulu men dead and another 10,000 wounded. This would have greatly impacted farming and would have had long term impacts. Meanwhile the British would have lost 3000 men, from a population of 5,750,000 men. Nor would it have impacted British farming.

In Afghanistan, the Russians were actually easily crushing the Afghanis until the US decided to give them Red Eye and few Stinger missiles.
 

Monsterfurby

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Ryan Hughes said:
You do not seem to understand the idea of projection in storytelling, so let me explain...

Also, you play MW for the story? That is like saying you listen to Niki Minaj for her artistic integrity. You do not seem to understand what a story -at its fundamental level- is, if you actually believe that modern warfare actually has one. MW simply has a string of unfounded and non-contextualized notions that it throws at the player, not a story.
I am not sure what exactly in what I have written warrants such a condescending answer. Look, there is such a thing as subjectivity. I wrote about my personal experience with the game, that may be supplemented by my own imagination and the way I consume media. Do not presume that your own limited view of such things applies to everyone else.

Very tempted to stoop to your level, but I will leave it at that.
 

Ryan Hughes

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Monsterfurby said:
Ryan Hughes said:
You do not seem to understand the idea of projection in storytelling, so let me explain...

Also, you play MW for the story? That is like saying you listen to Niki Minaj for her artistic integrity. You do not seem to understand what a story -at its fundamental level- is, if you actually believe that modern warfare actually has one. MW simply has a string of unfounded and non-contextualized notions that it throws at the player, not a story.
I am not sure what exactly in what I have written warrants such a condescending answer. Look, there is such a thing as subjectivity. I wrote about my personal experience with the game, that may be supplemented by my own imagination and the way I consume media. Do not presume that your own limited view of such things applies to everyone else.

Very tempted to stoop to your level, but I will leave it at that.
Well, if you do not understand, I will say it straight out:
The fact that you like MW's story means that you disgust me on a moral and philosophical level.

Capcha: point-blank
 

Monsterfurby

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Ryan Hughes said:
Well, if you do not understand, I will say it straight out:
The fact that you like MW's story means that you disgust me on a moral and philosophical level.

Capcha: point-blank
Wow, you have... issues.

Captcha: send packing

It's sentient already...
 

Ryan Hughes

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Monsterfurby said:
Ryan Hughes said:
Well, if you do not understand, I will say it straight out:
The fact that you like MW's story means that you disgust me on a moral and philosophical level.

Capcha: point-blank
Wow, you have... issues.

Captcha: send packing

It's sentient already...
No, I don't. You are taking me the wrong way. There is a huge difference between disgust and hate, and it is not like I hate you or anything. However, your taste is damaging you and preventing you from seeing the truth. I am just telling you that harshly.
 

Monsterfurby

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TheSniperFan said:
Well, the story of MW is as flat as a sheet of paper, but there's nothing wrong enjoying it.
But when you called CoD an "intriguing storytelling medium" I had to chuckle.
Still, you don't have to justify why you like something, so just ignore him. Smells like troll.
Thanks for that, good to see some reason in this thread.

Of course, my original statement was slightly exaggerated. This is not grand literature, but within its own genre (military action), MW has more "heart" than most of its competitors, mostly thanks to very colorful characters.

I don't enjoy many action movies, so maybe I value the fact that MW actually made me care at some point about characters like Captain Price (who admittedly is basically the single most escapist character in the entire thing) and the whole nuclear detonation sequence in MW1 a bit too highly.

What I tried to say in possibly a way that was somewhat off (I hate using the non-native speaker defense, so I won't) is this: Yes, I do play MW for the SP campaign, because I enjoy the story it tells. It is not War and Peace, Romance of the Three Kingdoms or A Song of Ice and Fire (to use three very random examples), but accepting what it actually is, it still tells a pretty good story.

I believe that there is merit in a dumb masochistic military action plot being told really well.
 

omega 616

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I'd say if you're calling it a game, which you are, you can't be realistic 'cos then it would be a sim.

If you want realistic warfare get arma 'cos it's as close as you're going to get. Thing is it's not very fun 'cos it's a sim.

Games like these are based on realism but don't follow it to the letter, things have to be made "gamey". You can't exactly say COD isn't based on realism 'cos if it wasn't you would have all kinds of guns, equipment and lunacy. They use real guns, with maybe some artistic flare (if anybody knows the peacekeeper).
 

Charles Phipps

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Well, I only played the game a couple of weeks ago so I looked this up and thought I'd get some insights. So, BEHOLD MY NECROMAY.

Wow, did the OP actually play the game?

The games about the dangers of nationalism, the consequences of war, and horrible numbers of deaths which all ended in a peace treaty because in the gameworld (like real life) complete victory is impossible? The Ultranationalists and Americans and Europe sign a peace treaty because it's a stupid war.

Life goes on.

Lots of innocent people are killed. Lots of heroes die. Lots of average people.

It's entertainment but the idea the games are one-dimensional entertainment or jingoism is just...stupid.