No Russian

[spartandude]

well....we dont really see anybody as big takeing up arms with america, and the PC crowd tend to flip shit when we actually put the taliban or iraqis in a game.

also, 'no russian' is stupid because its already filled with plot holes, not just because its murdering russians. dont use something like call of duty as an example.

at least Battlefield tones down the stereotyping a lot and makes them pretty competent.

Ah but thats the thing, In CoD they are still portrayes as the bad guys and it seems still so in MW3 but it was an American who killed the civillians (who could have just as easily killed the bad guy and ended it all) but we are still expected to see the whole of Russia as bad while only seeing ONE american as the bad guy rather than both countries as bad or a couple of individuals.

and i know CoD is meant to be simplistic but its still stupid

maybe im seeing too much in to this but still putting America in the position of Russia in all honesty quite a few people would go insane

 

[slarrs]

The Villains aren't Russians, they're terrorists. Russian terrorists, yes, but the main villain INTENTIONALLY turns the US and Russia against each other without either side particularly noticing.

And when something as ludicrously over the top as "Satanist dictionary" is taken seriously, I think you're missing the point.

 

[Kargathia]

From a simplistic (read: American) view, .

Talk like that only makes you sound worse than the very people you're trying to insult. Don't generalize.

Perhaps I should have specified. I'm trying much harder to refer to my own mostly-ignorant view of international politics than to make any sweeping generalizations.
That said, Americans not paying much attention to anything outside of America is a stereotype much closer to the truth than "Vodka Today."

About the American not paying attention to the outside world, that is kind of the fault of our news, if you watch it, they only show info from other countries if its death destruction or disease, its actually pretty frustrating. It can be pretty hard to find good info or news from other countries even online here because everything is always funneled back to our own news sources. Generally the only network ill watch is BBC News we get over here because they actually talk about other countries involving normal things.

It's also a hint you can pick up when paying attention to US politics. Whether it's your news or not, it's still a rather large pointer that so far nobody has been elected president on a campaign that more than fleetingly mentioned foreign affairs.

But in general, the only real difference here is not the sentiment, but the name of the players.

"We always have been, we are, and I hope that we always shall be detested in France."
~Arthur Wellesley, The Duke of Wellington.

Read this, and imagine who the players would be if you made CoD in the mid 19th century, at a time of peace between England and France.

 

[Asehujiko]

reading comprehension fail, part III

I was responding to to somebody who claimed that CoD games are morally gray, which they aren't. In every single WWII CoD, americans and british are portrayed heroic and completely glossing over all of their war crimes while both germans and russians* characters commit them constantly.

*In addition to that, every single Soviet character has a russian accent, follows hollywood perceptions of russian culture and has a russian name. According to CoD, Ukraine, Belarus, Georgia and the other satellite states simply don't exist.

You know, saying the words "reading comprehension fail" doesn't really make it so. This is the FIRST time you've written something that actually outlines what you were trying to say. Seriously. And hey, look at that, it's not a bad argument at all now that you've actually, you know, used sentences to say it.

I do remember some war crimes in CoD 5 but I for the life of me can't remember any in CoD 1 or 2. Do you remember some specific examples?

1 has teamkilling commissars and snipers, UO has penal battalions, in 2 your teammates shoot civilians for simply being in the way and in 3 your own side shoots cannons at tanks that you are trying to put sticky bombs on.

 

[Jegsimmons]

well....we dont really see anybody as big takeing up arms with america, and the PC crowd tend to flip shit when we actually put the taliban or iraqis in a game.

also, 'no russian' is stupid because its already filled with plot holes, not just because its murdering russians. dont use something like call of duty as an example.

at least Battlefield tones down the stereotyping a lot and makes them pretty competent.

Ah but thats the thing, In CoD they are still portrayes as the bad guys and it seems still so in MW3 but it was an American who killed the civillians (who could have just as easily killed the bad guy and ended it all) but we are still expected to see the whole of Russia as bad while only seeing ONE american as the bad guy rather than both countries as bad or a couple of individuals.

and i know CoD is meant to be simplistic but its still stupid

maybe im seeing too much in to this but still putting America in the position of Russia in all honesty quite a few people would go insane

everything you pointed out.... is a reason why it's a giant plot hole...

 

[urilukin]

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.
Writing this i am watching the mission "No Russian" from MW2 and to tell the truth, in my opinion it is disgusting, and the amount of anti-Russian games coming out of the american game industry is quite worrying.
It seems that in almost every american game Russians are the enemy and not only that, the amount of stereotypes that get worked in to these games is also worrying because in the news stand at the Moscow airport in MW2 you can see magazines like "vodka today" and "Satanist dictionary" and my favorite "duck killer" What?! you thought that Russians read Tolstoy and Pushkin Fuck no, we read "vodka drinker".
And what if Russia brought out a game where you go around killing hyper-fat Americans and the magazines they were reading were "How to bomb brown people" and "How to get you IQ up to 73" and "The REAL way to clean a shotgun" well, you get my point.
So it is time for us to get rid of this insulting, lazy and old way of writing scripts it may have worked in "Rocky IV" but not in the 21 century...

a) you can skip the mission and it has no effect on the storyline

b) you dont HAVE to shoot at civillians.

You still see Russians being shot...

 

[tthor]

Yeah i'm with the op here, the middle east and asia as a whole get hit hard by american studios too. It seems due to a lack of america having no great opposite on an international scale any more, causing the studios to go for old stereotypes and relying on nobody questioning them for hostile factions you don't have much dialogue with.

Take homefront for example. Big bad asians coming in and being generically evil, as the easiest way to make an asian antagonist is just to base them on the very worst memories of the Japanese that ww2 has to offer. It's a shame the very worst is used rather than the very best when it comes to stereotypes.

you know something, this got me thinking.. i kinda want a videogame/story, where there are no villains. I've seen stories where there are no heroes, but it would be interesting to see a story play out where nobody is made out to be the villain; instead, every side has its goals it needs to accomplish possibly for survival, the conflict arising not from someone being an evil asshole, but instead from the fact that each group's survival/etc conflicts in part with the other's

 

[mezorin]

Here's a game you'll never see made: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Reversed

You're a Russian Federation Spetsnaz trooper. The game starts out with your team responding to an american group of Private Military Contractor spooks attacking an oil pipeline in northeastern Russia, there purely to destabilize oil prices by starting shit in Russia's back yard. The game goes into a limited cloak and dagger war across Europe and the middle east between Russia and irregular US forces, along with our Mercenary bad guys. Said mercenary forces are lead by a Boss Hog styled Texan stereotype who wears a big ten gallon texan hat, smokes big cigars and weighs 300 pounds. You guys, being the heroic good guys, thwart the every move of the mercenary forces, moving step by step to uncover the mercenary plot until tragedy strikes: a small nuclear bomb is detonated by Boss Hog in a Polish city to be blamed on a middle eastern terrorist attack, killing your teammate Sasha (who bravely stayed behind to save the rest of your team and tell the world the truth).


You then find out the entire conflict was engineered by Wallstreet Tycoons who wanted to 1- sell a lot of arms, and 2- create an environment fertile for a fascist style take over. Upon revelation of this, a political conflict in America breaks out where the 'bad rich Americans' (Wallstreet Fascist Mercenary) and the 'good average Americans'(Good US Volunteer Army/ Working class) are in an internal political and even military struggle and its up to you and your wise cracking spetznas buddies to help defuse the whole thing. Your team eventually arrives in Washington DC, and helps save America from a coop lead by Rick Kainney, former vice president and current head of the 'bad American' corporate mercenary forces. The game's finale ends with your squad leading an assault on Capitol Hill, and disposing of the new self appointed president. In the nick of time, America and the world is saved from the horrors of fascism by the brave men and women of the Russian Federation armed forces, in particular a nameless every-man Spetznas trooper (you).

 

[mezorin]

Edit: Double post delay fail.

 

[MrJKapowey]

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

Not really - one evil Russian (Vladimir Makarov) The rest are attacking AMerica to avenge the deaths of civilians at the hands of what looks like a CIA Special Activities Division unit (or something).

The rest is subjective - all the Rangers complain about how evil the RUssians - because they just got invaded.

 

[MrJKapowey]

Here's a game you'll never see made: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Reversed

You're a Russian Federation Spetsnaz trooper. The game starts out with your team responding to an american group of Private Military Contractor spooks attacking an oil pipeline in northeastern Russia, there purely to destabilize oil prices by starting shit in Russia's back yard. The game goes into a limited cloak and dagger war across Europe and the middle east between Russia and irregular US forces, along with our Mercenary bad guys. Said mercenary forces are lead by a Boss Hog styled Texan stereotype who wears a big ten gallon texan hat, smokes big cigars and weighs 300 pounds. You guys, being the heroic good guys, thwart the every move of the mercenary forces, moving step by step to uncover the mercenary plot until tragedy strikes: a small nuclear bomb is detonated by Boss Hog in a Polish city to be blamed on a middle eastern terrorist attack, killing your teammate Sasha (who bravely stayed behind to save the rest of your team and tell the world the truth).


You then find out the entire conflict was engineered by Wallstreet Tycoons who wanted to 1- sell a lot of arms, and 2- create an environment fertile for a fascist style take over. Upon revelation of this, a political conflict in America breaks out where the 'bad rich Americans' (Wallstreet Fascist Mercenary) and the 'good average Americans'(Good US Volunteer Army/ Working class) are in an internal political and even military struggle and its up to you and your wise cracking spetznas buddies to help defuse the whole thing. Your team eventually arrives in Washington DC, and helps save America from a coop lead by Rick Kainney, former vice president and current head of the 'bad American' corporate mercenary forces. The game's finale ends with your squad leading an assault on Capitol Hill, and disposing of the new self appointed president. In the nick of time, America and the world is saved from the horrors of fascism by the brave men and women of the Russian Federation armed forces, in particular a nameless every-man Spetznas trooper (you).

I know I'm double posting but that is amazing. Did you have that stored ready to use or did you come up with that just now?

 

[mezorin]

That was actually just thought up, on the spur of the moment of how a "Russians are the good guys, big bad Wallstreet are the bad guys" game would be played out ala COD4/6 in reverse.

 

[MrJKapowey]

Ah but thats the thing, In CoD they are still portrayes as the bad guys...

Only one in MW2 is bad, the rest is subjective and relies purely on the opinion of the team mates - most of whom are American patriots who have joined the US armed forces to defend their country.

...seems still so in MW3...

Well, if the Kotaku leak is true then...

Spoiler

...you at one point play as an FSB agent assigned to protect the President as he flies to a peace talk, but an Ultranationalist attacks to sabotage the peace mission

(who could have just as easily killed the bad guy and ended it all)

Well, Allen had been told that Makarov was effectively a Mercenary ('...Working for the highest bidder'). Killing him would achieve fuck all whilst finding out who ordered the attacks could be crucial.

...but we are still expected to see the whole of Russia as bad while only seeing ONE american as the bad guy rather than both countries as bad or a couple of individuals.

See my above post regarding the multitude of bad Russians. The rest is because in this instance the Rangers are spotless - combat troops completing legit and above board missions - whilst the one-fourty-one and SEALs are special forces doing SF things which are allowed within the rules of War.

Sorry about the triple post and the Wall above. I just hate it when people don't actually pay attention to a games story and then formulate flawed arguments.

 

[mezorin]

Note, my above plot line was just an ab lib reversal of major players in the MW universe. Just use the same template Tom Clancy uses, and you too can come up with amazing Call of Duty Plots!



(Tom Clancy Novel/Modern Warfare Game Plot Form #526)

_________ identifiable good guys respond to _______ henchmen terrorist attacking in _________ , who were trying to blow up/kill/terrorize ________ for the purpose of _________. This immediately starts a war between _______ (the protagonist country) and the nation of _________ (the Other Country). Conspiracy is abound! The _________ Bad guys (lead by the comical _________ stereotype) attempt to take over the government of ________ (Other Country) via _________. The one honorable General from _________ (Other Country) who Good Guys have been fighting half game hears our the Good Guys and calls for peace when he realizes he has been manipulated. He is then killed by _________ stereotype bad guy, right before the Bad Guys attempt a coup de tait.

The ________ good guys assault the _______ land mark to save the day for _________ and the world, and the ________ stereotype gets shot in the head in slow motion Matrix style, thus bringing an end to the conflict.


(Fill in "Russian, American, Mercenary, Islamic Terrorists, evil Space Bunnies, what ever")

 

[Instant K4rma]

I thought the bad guy in WM2 was

Spoiler

Shepherd

who is, in fact, an American.

 

[mezorin]

I thought the bad guy in WM2 was

Spoiler

Shepherd

who is, in fact, an American.

Yeah you are right, although "US getting invaded by Russia" is still the big central theme of the game, and you're still Joe American. I will admit the plot themes of "the war was manufactured, and Shepard is in cahoots with the bad guys" are more ballsy than COD's usual outings, though.

EDIT: I'm hearing rumors that in MW3, part of the game you play as one of the Russian Loyalists on the good guy side. Could be an interesting change of pace if large part of the game is shown through the eyes of 'the other'.

 

[LetalisK]

And what if Russia brought out a game where you go around killing hyper-fat Americans and the magazines they were reading were "How to bomb brown people" and "How to get you IQ up to 73" and "The REAL way to clean a shotgun" well, you get my point.

Actually, I don't, because I wouldn't give a fuck since I have better things to do with my life. Also, the reason Russians are used so much is because 1) There was a long standing rivalry between Russian communists and Western capitalists and it makes a natural stage for games, especially war games and 2) Russian communists are generally considered a white population so developers can demonize the antagonists, which is story-telling 101, without being sensationally labeled as racists.

 

[aprildog18]

What LetalisK said (post 138). Look what happened to Resident Evil 5. Americans killing Spaniards are ok but Americans killing Africans are downright racist (according to some).

And because Russia was communist and we all know being communist is the worst and most evil thing that can happen in the universe.

 

[TheTim]

It's not "anti-russian" the mission sets the tone for the rest of the game, with an american being antagonist. Russia is just the next military power next to the U.S. so they are naturally the enemy in games that involve total war.