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.
No Russian
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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.
Take a thousand xenophobes from a thousand countries and the picture doesn't change, only the title.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Khorosho.urilukin said:
Welcome and enjoy responsibly. Also, your hypothetical anti-U.S. game sounds a lot like Postal 2. A lot. Stupid magazines and all.
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
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
Anti-Russian?
YOU'RE KILLING INNOCENT RUSSIAN PEOPLE!!
If anything it's anti-terrorist, which makes total sense.
YOU'RE KILLING INNOCENT RUSSIAN PEOPLE!!
If anything it's anti-terrorist, which makes total sense.
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.
The time of Goebbels went away a long time ago.urilukin said:
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?
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 said:
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.Frostbite3789 said:
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.
They're an enemy with substance that doesn't have to be explained. Pure and simple. Sure we know they're not stereotypes, or bad but it's all about effectively setting a stage. You can't do that w/o backstory if you make up "random large enemy that's big and bad, cuz we say so."
And to the guy who didn't pay attention and said "No Russian is all about Americans killing Russians", it just shows you didn't pay attention. It was a Russian militant group setting up the one American with them.
And to the guy who didn't pay attention and said "No Russian is all about Americans killing Russians", it just shows you didn't pay attention. It was a Russian militant group setting up the one American with them.
Russia is just the standard enemy, I think, left over from times before now. It's an easy target for developers.
I would like to see something new, though. How about Australian and Portuguese mercenaries fighting against sentient cyborgs on the moon? I'd play that.
I would like to see something new, though. How about Australian and Portuguese mercenaries fighting against sentient cyborgs on the moon? I'd play that.
I got a better idea.
How about Assymetric Warfare?
You know, you play the role of an insurgent cell leader in an unnamed middle-eastern country invaded by the US. You build IEDs, research new tech like directional charges, makeshift chemical bombs and cut down american troops.
Not only that, but you wage war on different fronts. High-profile attacks like ambushing a US convoy and hanging a US govt. official off a bridge or or suicide bombing the first McDonalds in the country won't weaken the enemy much but will give you more recruitment options, publicity and generate terror. Doing systems disruption like blowing up city infrastructure will present the enemy's efforts at rebuilding as ineffective, preventing them from being viewed positively by the native population. And to limit your enemy's profits you use a number of methods, from covert to overt, to sabotage oil flow.
And you get to kill a LOT of marines.
Wouldn't that be a great game?
How about Assymetric Warfare?
You know, you play the role of an insurgent cell leader in an unnamed middle-eastern country invaded by the US. You build IEDs, research new tech like directional charges, makeshift chemical bombs and cut down american troops.
Not only that, but you wage war on different fronts. High-profile attacks like ambushing a US convoy and hanging a US govt. official off a bridge or or suicide bombing the first McDonalds in the country won't weaken the enemy much but will give you more recruitment options, publicity and generate terror. Doing systems disruption like blowing up city infrastructure will present the enemy's efforts at rebuilding as ineffective, preventing them from being viewed positively by the native population. And to limit your enemy's profits you use a number of methods, from covert to overt, to sabotage oil flow.
And you get to kill a LOT of marines.
Wouldn't that be a great game?
