DaMan1500 said:
So, I've been watching the trailers for the new Medal of Honor, and while the game itself looks fine, I couldn't help but feel a little put off by the fact that it's set in the actual War on Terror, a conflict that has and is still leading to the deaths of real people. I'm not saying there should be a law against this sort of thing, or that it's necessarily going to be a bad game, but does anyone else think it's in poor taste to turn a present day war into a videogame, or any other real-life war, for that matter?
I will say that it should be done more often, and more vigorously. One of the biggest problems with "The War On Terror" is that the left wing/peace at any price crowd has been given FAR too much abillity to derail the goverment. Our goverment has also had no real effort put into propaganda, and honestly wars are won and lost based on propaganda and the abillity to rally your people behind a conflict.
Don't misunderstand this, I'm a big believer in the freedom of speech and such, however I believe the exception is when it relates to international affairs during a time of crisis. The goverment has need to control information at that time. For all my comments about our brutality during World War II, I also make the point that it was nessicary, and it was the demonization of the Nazis (which remains to this day) that allowed us to wage war so effectively and then come home and claim we were White Knights afterwards.
I see a lot of what going on as akin to say having given Jane Fonda goverment sponsorship during Vietnam. That was another example of a war where tighter information control was needed. Her antics in Hanoi were one of the more over the top aspects of the whole thing nowadays, and truthfully I think a lot of people especially in the media are taking things even further than she did in many respects.
At any rate, as this relates to games, I very much believe that we should not only be making games based around real world politics, but that we should use the platform to demonize our own enemies and blow our own horn. What's more as silly as it sounds, one of the most powerful things we can do is to spread our own ideas, and the media is good for that. Release stuff like that (done right) internationally and it wins people to your point of view, again the Nazis are a good example. That was very much a propaganda war, and Hitler was an international man of the year. He had a LOT Of supporters and people who were fairly neutral about him despite how things are made to seem now. Oh sure, the Nazis really weren't making handicrafts out of human flesh, nor did they have portable bone grinding machines, but like it or not stuff like that was part of how we won the war.
So basically take everything Yahtzee said about how Adolscent power fantasy shouldn't be blended with real world politics in his "Army Of Two" review, turn it on the head, introduce a healthy dose of pro-America/Our Side to the mix, and that's pretty much what I figure our media should be like during time of crisis, and that includes video games.
I don't expect a lot of people here to like this, or agree with me, but when I was a kid I visited the Smithsonian in DC, and they had a whole section on World War II propaganda, and the logic behind it. It made some very interesting points about the nature of war and how important psychology is to it. If it wasn't for that I never would have done as much digging into World War II and what it actually took to win as I did.
Today very pro-American "War On Terror" games are right alongside the posters, radio broadcasts, and even TV/theater blurbs of the 1940s. Granted the style needs to change, but
I very much believe that's a key element of winning a war.
