Would you play CoD if the roles were reversed?

[King Billi]

I recall in Call of Duty 1 & 2 the playbale character switched to a British and Russian perspective as well as an American one.


Also in Modern Warfare aren't the main characters British SAS? I mean you play as American Soldiers as well but they're never really the focus of the story and I think they're the characters that always end up dying...

...plus wasn't the main antagonist in Modern Warfare 2 an American General?


The point being are you sure this so called "America **** Yeah" attitude is really as prevalent as you say it is?

 

[mbkgen]

Don't think its the character that matters but the gameplay. I like cod series so it doesn't matter what role i play, i'd still play it

 

[Shoggoth2588]

I would gladly buy Call of Duty: Rise of the Reich for the novelty of being able to play as a Nazi. I wouldn't buy it day one though and I'm sure the novelty would fade quickly enough. Honestly I'd like to see Call of Duty just say 'fuck it' and introduce a WW2 game where halfway during the Normandy Landing Aliens invade and force the Allies and Axis forces to join up so as to save the world. Hell, you can even add in a moral choice system where you can side with or, preferentially treat Hitler, Mussolini, Hirohito, Churchill, Stalin, etc so as to bring that person and their country into a Super Power position after the Invasion.

 

[gyrobot_v1legacy]

I don't think COD campaigns would be made any more interesting by going down the "Russia, fuck yeah" route, or the "China, fuck yeah" one.

America isn't the problem, it's the fuck yeah attitude that's keeping the genre down.

Well there will be deliberate "KILL AS MANY CIVILIANS AS YOU CAN MISSION! YOU FAILED TO KILL THEM THE COMMISSAR SHOOTS YOU!"

 

[Loonyyy]

I don't actually have that much of a problem with the CoD western-centric perspective on things: ok, yeah, constantly playing as westerners can get a little same-y, but the series is nowhere near the jingoistic pile of propaganda that detractors seem to want it to be: Modern Warfare 1, 2 and 3 are all rather cynical of war and the US's role within it (especially MW2, which was about America's manipulation of history to portray them as "the good guys" and the out of control military-industrial complex within the US).

The only real "'Merica, fuck yea!" of the 7th gen CoD games has been Black Ops (and maybe black op 2; I haven't played it), but Black Ops was so ridiculous all round that its political statement matters no more than that of a Transformers movie. I would actually argue that Medal of Honor and the (*gasp!*) beloved Battlefield (the main series at least)are both more guilty of this kind of attitude, as a whole.

This. The first game has some criticism of US interventionism, Nuclear proliferation, and attacks the jingoistic American hero by killing him as a consequence of him acting like a hero rather than a soldier. The true stars of the story are the sociopathic SAS who torture and murder without pause, and who are expendable assets. The final mission is an actual Black Op (Black Ops had suprisingly few BLACK OPS in it) where the SAS team launch an assault on a nuclear armed facility held by the Ultranationalists.

Spoiler

They pretty much all die. You're left badly wounded on a bridge, surrounded by your dead comrades, and your badly injured CO

The second game has the US as the villain. The US military manipulates the entire thing, causing the war. The final boss? An American General.

The third game is probably the closest to the "America Fuck yeah" attitude that you'll find, but you'd be stretching to say that.

The games are certainly set-piece ladden monstrosities which have tended more towards film than game, but to call them jingoistic always makes me cringe. It's like those who criticised it have absolutely no knowledge of it. Funny that.

Would I play it from a different point of view? Yeah, sure. If you mean mechanically, play Harcore in Multiplayer, and you've got essentially that. If you mean, character wise, sure. I'd actually like playing as different protagonists. I enjoyed STALKER: COP because it had a nice setting, and was pretty interesting. Sleeping Dogs annoyed me because they saddled me with an American accented English speaking protagonist. News flash: I'm in Hong Kong! I wouldn't mind hearing some Chinese! I can handle subtitles. At the very least, some Chinese accents would have been welcome. That English was way too flawless (I work at a store with a bunch of Chinese immigrants.)

 

[Canadamus Prime]

No, but then I don't play CoD now. However if we were playing as the other side, I might be more interested in playing it.

 

[Okulossos]

No, CoD has far too many other problems then racism.
First of all the games level design is awful. you walk a corridor that could not be any straighter only to be tunneled to the next fighting-stop, where you sit in cover and shoot at scripted targets like in a shooting gallery, with the exception that you reward is just another tunnel and another shooting-gallery. People who like the campaign are possibly distracted by some eyecandy-setpieces, but I don't care for that... at all.
Second, it is the way war is portrayed in these games and that won't change no matter what kind of soldier you play as, because it has got nothing to do with the nationality. this is something that must have broken a long time ago in the brains of the developers. Some cell up in there that usually tells people "hey, war is not fun and games, it is where people die or worse..." must be removed or damaged in order for anyone to be able to think of so much terrible stuff and make a game of it. There is no other explanation... even though I am scared of all those people loving those games to death :/.
Third it is the gameplay. Aside from the theme this game could be made for small children. Crosshairs fill the complete screen making is near impossible not to it anything, there is hand-holding right through the game till the last level, enemies never truly become a threat... and so on... There is this well done video showing what is wrong with CoD aside from the whole "war is great"-thing they have going on due to their braindamage: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1ZtBCpo0eU

So would I?
No, because the complete concept of the game is downright terrible in a horrible way. So terrible in fact, that I can't even wrap my head around the game far enough to reach the racism.

 

[Yopaz]

The reason I don't play CoD is that it's just not my kind of game. I wouldn't care if they decided to invade America and call those guys heroes. I wouldn't experience it myself anyway.

However I like the idea of playing a game from the other side. It takes a lot to make it work though so it's hardly something I would trust the developers of CoD to do.

 

[Hatchet90]

There's two sides to every story so... yes. At least it would be a breath of fresh air from the usual 'Merica, fuck yeah attitude. I'd just hope they didn't fall into the trap of characterizing all the major characters with tired stereotypes and ensure that it wasn't completely obvious that you were playing the "bad guy" (Assassin's Creed III being a pretty good example).

If they were somehow able to give both sides a reasonable degree of believability when it came to their goals (not just take over the world) then I think it would be amazing if they had a game where you played both sides. Maybe it could have a scene where the two characters you've been playing as for many hours meet and you have to decide which side is more right for causing/fighting this war and play that character to the end.

Feel free to take notes Infinity Ward/Treyarch.

 

[SlaveNumber23]

The game could have you playing as Hitler fighting against small children for all I care, as long as the gameplay is the same I really couldn't care less about the characters in CoD. I don't take CoD seriously at all, just sit back and enjoy the gameplay. To be honest, changing the characters/roles around in CoD really won't make much of a difference.

 

[Saulkar]

And where the fuck is Canada in all this?

Don't know , really care , but whatever you do, do not create a thread about it ಠ_ಠ . It never ends well X_X .

 

[PrimitiveJudge]

Mixed feelings really, Command and Conquer 3 did something like this when you played the terrorists. In a call of duty setting, I could never be a Chinese or a Arab/Persian but I could probably be a Nazi SS deathhead or a russian spetznas and keep a clear mind.

 

[Ariseishirou]

If it was good, I'd play it. Same goes with any game, really.

 

[Arslan Aladeen]

I remember playing a call of duty game one time. There was a building full of terrorists, so I decided to take cover behind a wall and shoot a few of the enemies until I felt it was safe to move in. I had hundreds of rounds of ammunition. I died a few minutes later when I ran out of bullets. Next round, I just ran into the house and they all seemed to have went away or died by my mere presence (or me crossing the checkpoint line). I had some other problems with the game, but I think it was then I decided that CoD wasn't for me. And waving a different flag isn't really going to change that.

 

[Korten12]

I recall in Call of Duty 1 & 2 the playbale character switched to a British and Russian perspective as well as an American one.


Also in Modern Warfare aren't the main characters British SAS? I mean you play as American Soldiers as well but they're never really the focus of the story and I think they're the characters that always end up dying...

...plus wasn't the main antagonist in Modern Warfare 2 an American General?


The point being are you sure this so called "America **** Yeah" attitude is really as prevalent as you say it is?

Yeah, and in MW3, you mainly control a Russian named Yuri.

Hell in Blops 2 you fight alongside the Chinese at various points in the SP and in general with Blops 2 it's less about the countries and more about the characters.

 

[golfbraniac]

I wouldn't even play it anyhow.

No reason for it though,im sure it's good for the fans.

 

[Beautiful End]

Well, as it has already being pointed out several times, the problem is the "'Merica, fuck yeah" attitude. You know, where the US is the hero and goes off to save the world because everyone who's against the US is, by default, a bad guy.

But for the sake of the argument, let's ignore that. A game where you could play as Russians or Koreans AND kill evil Americans would be cool, if only because its different. But I can see people getting offended by it and going back to CoD because 'Merica, fuck yeah.

The other problem CoD has is that there's either really good guys or incredibly bad guys. There's no in-between. If they toned that down or created neutral characters, it would be more enjoyable. But they probably wouldn't.

The third problem is that CoD is so popular right now that most FPS follow that exact same route, with games like MoH and maybe even BF going further. The few games that dare take a step in a different direction are either overlooked or completely ignored (See: Spec Ops, Operation Rainfall, etc.)

So yeah, personally, i would. But I can see a lot of people complaining about the lack of the 'Merica attitude. Also, CoD isn't as ballsy as to try something radical.
So we're stuck with endless MW and Blops sequels.

 

[krazykidd]

And where the fuck is Canada in all this?

Don't know , really care , but whatever you do, do not create a thread about it ಠ_ಠ . It never ends well X_X .

Really? Why doesn't it end well? Seems to be a valid question to me .

 

[Trippy Turtle]

I would buy it if the gameplay was good. Same reason I buy it now. I plan on getting BO2 once the price drops a bit and I get bored of Halo 4.

 

[Baron_Rouge]

Hell yes. I like CoD a lot anyway, but I think it'd be better if you got to experience it from someone else's perspective as well. Modern conflicts are very ambiguous anyway, there hasn't been a real clear-cut big conflict since WWII. I'd love it if you got to play as a Nicaraguan who saw his home decimated by U.S sanctioned civilian attacks, or a person in Eastern Europe whose family were the victims of an ethnic cleansing precipitated by NATO attacks. Let us see it from the perspectives of someone else for once in a while. It's not like the modern world really has too many good guys anyway, and I certainly don't think the U.S army qualifies (no disrespect to soldiers, I just don't agree with the orders they have to carry out).