No Russian

RamirezDoEverything

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Jan 31, 2010
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urilukin said:
I think the reason why the Russians are the constant enemy in today's games, is simply because Russia has been seen as America's enemy since Post WW2, regardless of the fall of the Soviets.

Besides, there's PLENTY of American stereotypes flying around the internet that I'm not too fond of.
 

88chaz88

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urilukin said:
88chaz88 said:
Play MW2. Seriously if you just watch the No Russian mission then you take the entire game out of context. The CoD games have always been great at portraying things without a simple good/evil line. MW2 is no different.
Dude, i played MW2 and its full of "evil" Russians
No, it's full of Russian soldiers shooting at you. This doesn't make them evil. In Assassin's Creed you're killing guards on both sides of the crusades, guards that are only doing their jobs, does this make them evil? No.

If you fully understand the story in MW2 you find out that the only "evil" Russians are those that you're playing with in the No Russian mission. The worst offender in the game is an American.

In fact I'd say the American you play in the No Russian mission certainly has questionable morals.
 

baddude1337

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Jun 9, 2010
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I didn't think it was that bad. If anything Black Ops was worse in its treatment of Russians. But then, you really shouldn't take anything from a game at face value, especially CoD.
 

Smooth Operator

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Well just look at the standard patriotic/xenophobic mindset, all who are not us are obviously evil, and in American media guess who be the baddies...

Take a thousand xenophobes from a thousand countries and the picture doesn't change, only the title.
 

BoredDragon

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Feb 9, 2011
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If an American storyteller wants his story to have a powerful enemy full of negative stereotypes all he has to say is that it's the Russians leftover from the Cold War era. I agree it's lazy writing, but it's not like it's anti-Russian. If it was then the game would claim that there is truth in what it shows, but unless it says something like that I wouldn't worry about it.

As long as I have a good reason for doing so, I would kill any enemy in a game despite their nationality. Say I was playing a game that depicted Americans as cruel monsters. Sure I might facepalm a lot as I did with the portrayal of Koreans in Homefront, but I wouldn't take it personally because it's fiction.
 

Gralian

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Sep 24, 2008
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Considering the actual antagonist of MW2, i'd say America doesn't have the best light shone on it, in the grander scheme of things. Though you have to understand - products are always made with a target demographic in mind, the one that's going to make them the mucho dinero. For western developers, it's the western market. In particular, the USA and western Europe. Britain and America are where a lot of high profile releases see a lot of returns, so the protagonists are generally going to be someone relatable to that particular audience.

That said, i do think the demonisation of Russia has gone a bit too far. We're supposed to be over the Cold War already. (though i hear Putin isn't exactly clean himself) I can almost guarantee that the enemies of the future in new modern warefare games will be Asian and Middle Eastern. We're going to see more Medal-of-Honour-Esque games with terrorists as the enemies from roughly that region, but what i honestly think is that China is going to be the next "big bad". Since they're going to be the number one economic powerhouse in the world with considerable military force to back it up, the west is going to feel somewhat scared and intimidated. I'd bet a hundred quid that in the next couple of years we're going to see a Homefront style game where China invades America or Europe. Just wait. In fact, Homefront again proves my point of Asian antagonists - North Korean enemies. Think about that.

Most races have had some form of demonising and caricaturing though. As a Brit, we're generally represnted as having an excessively (if lovable) cockney accent or we're some sort of evil mastermind or race of evil people á la Killzone series. As Yahtzee said, a British guy could talk about rainbows and unicorns and still find a way to make it sound evil with our accent. And of course you have the typical evil German / Nazi stereotype, the street gang black people (GTA), the lazy Mexican (Red Dead). In fact, with any minority displayed, they tend to accentuate the difference to make them stand out. An awfully bad (and generally fake) accent, cultural signifiers (like "bling bling" on the black gangsters, a holy cross on a latino, smart suits / ties / fedoras for Italian mobsters etc). We've got a long way to go before we reach any kind of cultural harmony in games.
 

Lazarus Long

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urilukin said:
I just wanna say that i am new to the escapist and would want to thank you guys for being so understanding of my opinion.
I really like the community here and maybe i shall continue posting and voicing my opinion.
Khorosho. :)

Welcome and enjoy responsibly. Also, your hypothetical anti-U.S. game sounds a lot like Postal 2. A lot. Stupid magazines and all.
 

jamesworkshop

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Sep 3, 2008
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No russian was not anti-russian nor is COD.

The US vs russia conflict is not a morality play, one side mistakenly takes the other as having attacked them first.

this reminds me of people that don't know the difference between a good character i.e (interesting, believable) and a morally upstanding one morally good)

http://callofduty.wikia.com/wiki/Kamarov

http://callofduty.wikia.com/wiki/Nikolai_(Modern_Warfare)


An american CIA agent killing civilians simply to gain the trust of a russian ultranationalist is hardly pro america, not to mention general shephards complicity with Makarov as well
 

SixWingedAsura

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Sep 27, 2010
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Anti-Russian?

YOU'RE KILLING INNOCENT RUSSIAN PEOPLE!!

If anything it's anti-terrorist, which makes total sense.
 

Saelune

Trump put kids in cages!
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Mar 8, 2011
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Congrats. You are the same as what you percieve as an enemy. Generalizing America is like saying the rainbow is all red. MW2 is not anti Russian. I recall a crazy American being the main bad guy, but you obviously are too short sighted to get to THAT part.
 

SilentCom

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Mar 14, 2011
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People make too many anti-Russian and anti-American games. Unfortunately developers think it's cool or something.
 

urilukin

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May 16, 2011
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I have read all the post but i must say, i am not only talking about MW3 there is BFBC2 where Russians scumbags and soon to come MW2 where Russia invades the U.S
 

fix-the-spade

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urilukin said:
So if you haven't noticed the times of Joseph Goebbels are back with Anti-Russian propaganda, with games like MW2,BFBC2,COD:Black Ops,MW3 and many more.
The time of Goebbels went away a long time ago.

What you live in now is the time of Reagan, the popular media image of Russian baddies has changed very little since the eighties.

You guys make good bad guys, what can you do?
 

Frostbite3789

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88chaz88 said:
Play MW2. Seriously if you just watch the No Russian mission then you take the entire game out of context. The CoD games have always been great at portraying things without a simple good/evil line. MW2 is no different.
Around the time you're storming the White House as an American soldier as trumpets blare, I think MW2 took that line, broke it over it's knee, laughed at it, then strolled over to a sports car with a woman on each arm.
 

88chaz88

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Jul 23, 2010
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Frostbite3789 said:
88chaz88 said:
Play MW2. Seriously if you just watch the No Russian mission then you take the entire game out of context. The CoD games have always been great at portraying things without a simple good/evil line. MW2 is no different.
Around the time you're storming the White House as an American soldier as trumpets blare, I think MW2 took that line, broke it over it's knee, laughed at it, then strolled over to a sports car with a woman on each arm.
If what you're implying is true then the mission would have been to save the president, his daughter, and a few disabled children from the Russians who when not shooting you are busy kicking puppies. No, you were trying to fight through to the top of the White House to deploy green flares so that your fellow Americans won't completely flatten the area with you still in it.

I don't think the Russians are portrayed with any less moral standing than the American protagonists in this mission. In fact I'd say the Russians are just much more efficient.
 

RedGinn

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Aug 3, 2011
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The Russians are the enemy in 90% of all american games or movies... I dont even know whats point of that anymore, it feels like they are made to make a game with the only idea of making the russians look bad.