Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
UK official decries video game with Taliban role
firefly2003
Member UncommonPosts: 2,527
LONDON (AP) -- A video game that allows players to adopt the role of the Taliban is a "tasteless product," Britain's defense secretary said Sunday, calling on retailers to show their support for troops by not selling it.
Liam Fox said he was "disgusted and angry" by "Medal of Honor," produced by California-based Electronic Arts Inc.
"At the hands of the Taliban, children have lost fathers and wives have lost husbands. It's shocking that someone would think it acceptable to recreate the acts of the Taliban against British soldiers," he said in a statement. "It's hard to believe any citizen of our country would wish to buy such a thoroughly un-British game. I would urge retailers to show their support for our armed forces and ban this tasteless product."
The company did not immediately respond to e-mails from the Associated Press, but spokeswoman Amanda Taggart was quoted by the Sunday Times as saying the game's format "merely reflects the fact that every conflict has two sides."
"We give gamers the opportunity to play both sides. Most of us have been doing this since we were seven: someone plays cop, someone must be robber," the newspaper quoted her as saying. "In Medal of Honor multiplayer, someone's got to be the Taliban. Nobody who plays video games is going to be shocked or surprised by this."
Other versions of "Medal of Honor" have been set in the World War II era. The new version is scheduled to be released in October.
Comments
The only defense necessary-
It is a video game. Grow up.
War in general is tasteless. Why should video games be any different?
Don't see the big deal every game needs a bad guy. Great ideal in my opinion who wouldn't want to spend a relaxing afternoon shooting taliban.
It's not about shooting the Taliban, it's about being able to play as the Taliban and shoot the British soldiers.
There is a brief portion of the game that allows you to play as a member of the taliban.
Ok my fault should have read it. Yeah that is a little low being able to play as them. Little to recent I think and the wounds to fresh.
If it's entirely relevant to the story, then I don't see an issue. Perhaps they allow you to play as the taliban member to fully see the terrible things they're doing during that time, to give you a major reason once you switch back to the other guys to really wanna kick their asses.
This is controversy much like MW2 got for that little terrorist airport mass shooting portion of the game. It'll blow over quick once people actually play it.
Isn't that why ESRB rating are for?
I believe games bought by adults for their children should be checked. Also, if anyone finds it unappropriate, they don't have to buy it. This game is telling as story about that war, not promoting talibans in any sort.
If looked carefully, the MOH game actually promotes the US army or any other military organisation, as they always have the last word in those games.
I really hate EA for what they did to major franchises, but this is stupid...
Before I type my message please understand I have 5 family members currently fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. Yes FIVE. Also, please take a look at Battlefield 2, Every sadistic murder game as well. Now that I've said that and you clearly have images in your mind of American soldiers fighting Iraqi insurgents, as well as the images of people being brutally murdered, raped, tortured and dismembered let's carry on.
Video games are interactive books, they tell a story or convey some form of entertainment. We have games about ripping peoples guts out and it's considered ok. We have games where people try to sell their daughters to win over a guild online. We have games where the walking dead come back to life and rip open human beings.
So clearly all that should be missed and we should despise one game in particular because it uses a name for one of their groups in game that's the same as one in real life. Tell me, do most people who protests these games even play video games? What about the news? Do they watch that? Because the news nowdays is far worse than any video game I've ever seen. I'll bet a good portion of suicides in my country specifically are from watching the news.
So tellm e how someone has the right to tell a whole country not to import a video game (AKA a book with pictures) because of the name of a group inside it that no one would have paid any attention to had something not been said in the first place? Do these people actively search for a way to destroy logic and knowledge?
It's pretty clear we have fanatics in our world. Look at the Jihad. Look at the Christian crusades before that. Our entire history is filled with controversy, crybabies and killing each other. Why in the world would you protest a game but not a war? That's illogical and the highest form of hypocricy I could concieve.
So it's not ok to play the Taliban, but it's ok if we play the Germans during WWII who killed more human beings than any other group since the time of Alexander the Great. Plus the way these lost souls were killed is far worse than anything the "Taliban" has done to date. I guess if it happened in the past and if 99% of the population have put it out of their mind since it was so long ago that it is ok now...
While I agree with much of what you said, the objection isn't with horrific things happening in a story but with the player being asked to take on the role and do the horrific things themselves. There's a distinct difference between reading a passage in a book about committing horrible crimes and playing a game where you are rewarded specifically for cimmitting horrible crimes.
All in all, I agree with you in that if you have a country full of people that want to play the part of the Taliban, the problem isn't the video game. If anything, they should thank the video game developers for creating a game that brings such issues to light.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
I see games as they are..just games..and btw I enjoyed that mass shooting in the airport in MW2
something different and fresh.
I'm not sure if this is 100% accurate, but I have heard that the Taliban mission is a non-combat mission, but rather an information gathering mission.
So it is ok to kill other nations but if you kill the British it is going too far...wow .. >.>
March on! - Lets Invade Pekopon
wonder if ill get to gather any information from a news reporter with a butter knife >:D
Ouch.
Maybe a bit too far.
...
Maybe not.
I don't know anymore.
Good guys & bad guys...what's the big deal. History has been used a lot in making games....dam conservatives!!
Velika: City of Wheels: Among the mortal races, the humans were the only one that never built cities or great empires; a curse laid upon them by their creator, Gidd, forced them to wander as nomads for twenty centuries...
That is not entirely true, Stalin killed more people. Not that I am saying that Nazi weren't evil or anything but they were not worse. And only god knows how many people the British themselves killed during the colonial war.
You can't really be in a war without killing people, my ancestors killed loads of Germans during the 30 year war and I can more or less promise that everyones ancestors did bad things.
The issue here, I think is the fact that England actually are in war with the talibans, and not exactly a winning war either. It is more like a game where you played nazi during WW2, would not have been so popular either.
It is of course just a game and somewhat silly but I can at least understand why they don't like it.
Cops need robbers. Indians need cowboys. It a game. Grow young.
amagawd, i luv'd playin as gorilla welfare.
"Stalin killed more people".. "my ancestors killed loads of Germans during the 30 year war"
grow up dude:)
btw its funny that your ancestors killed allies during that war
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirty_Years'_War
Liam Fox and Hugo Chavez were seperated at birth. Grow up you two, and stop trying to control video games. Both your countries have bigger problems, and both your governments yap yap yap and don't do nearly enough to address those problems (especially you, Chavez, you fake leftist).
Oh, and the US trained and equipeed the Taliban at one point in our history, knowing full well these guys were murdering extremists, because it suited US policy at the time. So Liam Fox, just call for a boycott on everything US and lets cover our bases. It's not like you're crying about people playing CIA agents in games, and the CIA is just as much a bunch of murdering terrorists as the Taliban ever thought of being.
I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by an educational system which would be oriented toward social goals.
~Albert Einstein
A game where Russia and it's allies aren't the OpFor? Impossible!