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The new Medal of Honor game has been getting a lot of flak lately for allowing players to play as the Taliban in multiplayer. This has caused military bases to ban the sale of the game on their premises whether its in the local Exchange or if its a Gamestop on base. They are doing this because you play as the Taliban and shoot american soldiers.

Okay, here's the thing though, its not a new thing. Call of Duty had terrorists vs Rangers/SEALs/TF 141, so why is Medal of Honor worse than that? Is it only because of the name they applied to the terrorist organization, Op For is better than Taliban?

Personally, I don't care about the fact that you can play as the Taliban in multiplayer. They are not glorifying the Taliban, the are not endearing us to the Taliban cause, and most importantly you are not killing/shooting real american or british soldiers.

So guys, what do you think about this whole thing? Does changing the name make it worse? (In MW2 its Rangers vs Op For, in MoH its Coalition vs Taliban).

What? A game where you play terrorists/insurgents? Haven't we had like... 20 of those now...



Not that it matters. Unless EA shapes up, MoH is gonna tank, fast Anyone know if the beta saw any improvement?

Jack Thompson is on the case!

BrookM wrote:Jack Thompson is on the case!

Heh, Jack Thompson...

Didn't he lose his license or whatever? I know he got disbarred from somewhere, I think it was Florida

It's still ok to pretend to shoot Germans all we want though, right?

Well, WWII games appear to be okay now, maybe Black Ops will kick up a gak storm because of men in pajamas killing GI's and give a new generation shell shock.

Actually the american military just banned the game.

garret wrote:Actually the american military just banned the game.

No. They banned selling the game on military instillations.

I doubt anyone is going to miss it. Having been on military instillations, their game selection sucks. Most people go off base anyway. It's hardly a loss.

garret wrote:Actually the american military just banned the game.

Are you saying they are banning Call of Duty: Black Ops as well, or reiterating that the new Medal of Honor was banned on bases?

Bases. but i think that entire game should go byebye. allowing you to shoot american troops as terrorists? seems to much to me.

garret wrote:Bases. but i think that entire game should go byebye. allowing you to shoot american troops as terrorists? seems to much to me.

You shoot innocent Russian civilians in Modern Warfare 2, mow down entire crowds of confused and screaming people in GTA and Prototype, and burn harmless prisoners of war to death in World at War.

Drop the double standard. American soldiers are no more important than anyone else's soldiers, and you only play as the Taliban in multiplayer. Hell, it's no different from being able to play as the Wermacht in WaW.

garret wrote:Bases. but i think that entire game should go byebye. allowing you to shoot american troops as terrorists? seems to much to me.

What's that? People shooting US troops in video games as enemy forces? Oh my gawd that's never happened before:

Company of Heroes
Call of Duty 1-7
Battlefield
Command and Conquer
and oh right, the Medal of Honor series!

Please. People shooting US troops? Whoopdy flipp'n doo. It's been done so many times in games set in the modern era I can have an easier time counting games in the setting that DON'T have you shooting US soldiers of some nature.

We've seen terrorists/insurgents shooting American's in plenty of games. Only difference is that we're actually calling them taliban this time instead of some nameless/fictional group. I'm not seeing a problem here. This is like complaining that The Old Republic will allow Sith to kill Jedi. That's never happened before!

I participated in the beta

And I Found it to be allot like the Insurgency Mod for Half Life 2

You shoot Americans in that mod and you play as Insurgents in Iraq... Heck i have found American service men Playing that game...

Oh the irony

http://www.insmod.org/

Just a link to the INS Mod if you are curious

Wow, a game actually gives their terrorists a real name and gets shot down for it... what a suprise... oh wait.

Yeah, its a total double standard, and its really nothing new if you think about it...

Cheese Elemental wrote:

garret wrote:Bases. but i think that entire game should go byebye. allowing you to shoot american troops as terrorists? seems to much to me.

You shoot innocent Russian civilians in Modern Warfare 2, mow down entire crowds of confused and screaming people in GTA and Prototype, and burn harmless prisoners of war to death in World at War.

Drop the double standard. American soldiers are no more important than anyone else's soldiers, and you only play as the Taliban in multiplayer. Hell, it's no different from being able to play as the Wermacht in WaW.

Never played Mow2. but gta is a game not based on real event and it is not required for gameplay and prototype is well the same. but if you wont to play medal of honor you have to play taliban at one point. its equivilent to writing a positive nazi comic book during ww2

garret wrote:its equivilent to writing a positive nazi comic book during ww2

No it's not.

Fact: World War II had two sides: Allies and Axis
Fact: In World at War, you can play as the Wermacht (part of the Axis) in multiplayer. You do not participate in Nazi atrocities.

Fact: The Afghanistan War has two sides: Coalition and Taliban
Fact: In Medal of Honour, you can play as the Taliban in multiplayer. You do not participate in Taliban atrocities.

This old story, if I had a nickel.

Didn't because in the mission your disguised as a Russian terrorist in Modern Warfare 2 and you kill those civilians cause a ruckus too?

Shadowbrand wrote:This old story, if I had a nickel.

Didn't because in the mission your disguised as a Russian terrorist in Modern Warfare 2 and you kill those civilians cause a ruckus too?

Yep. Infinity Ward even had two 'disturbing content' warnings in-game so that you could skip it if you wanted.

It didn't shut the moral guardians up.

People bitch cause its something to do.

That scene in the game really stirred my gut though especially at the end how the terrorist leader kills your character, and it triggers a USSR vs America war.

The british were a bit upset about it as well. Because the good guys were labeled as Coalition and not specific military branches/units meaning that the multiplayer included a chance to shoot a soldier of any nationality in the actual Coalition.

So far I've only heard the British and US raising a stink about it though, maybe the rest will follow.

The game's sale is banned on base, if a serviceman decides to go off base and buy a copy of the game they can still bring it onto the base and play it.

Yeah, that scene in COD2 actually made me think for the first time about violence in video games. I didn't mow anyone down when I played it through, although I did shoot a couple until I realised that you could. It was actually an interesting point in a game that had a real emotional impact on me. I don't have any issue with playing a terrorist in a game. As you have all pointed out its not the first time, and certainly won't be the last. My only issue would be if it rewarded you for doing so specifically. But it raises the idea of games becoming essentially a form of expression, artistic or otherwise and gaining a serious role in how the non gaming world views them. While its a controversial subject it fascinates me how the virtual world is intruding so much on our collective consciousness now. That being said, I have to admit to mowing down hundreds of pedestrians in Saints row and cackling gleefully, so the arguement goes both ways!

You mean CoD 6: MW2 or the actual CoD2?

I think people are just pissed off about this thing because we're (as in our countries) CURRENTLY fighting the Taliban. And then there's the fact that because they're terrorists, they're automatically associated with things like 9/11.

i would think that the multi player "sides" choosing would be much like it is in MW2, where you wait in a chatroom holding area, load the map, and discover that you are a taliban fighter this round?

Honestly, theres no harm in that, because you inevitably will play both sides of the war in multiplayer.

As for bases boycotting the game, this doesnt surprise me either, our bases will boycott all sorts of crazy nonsense (and sadly, being stationed in Germany makes things all the worse because i can't just take a quick hop out to the local Game Stop, because they sell Region 2 discs)

garret wrote:Bases. but i think that entire game should go byebye. allowing you to shoot American troops as terrorists? seems to much to me.

So? are your soldiers more worth than others? And back on topic. I don`t find it particular tasteful but I have no problem with it because its just a game.

No you are misconstruing my words. I just think that making a game where you shoot Troops as religious zealots beant on killing every human that doesnt think like them is just Rude.

But it was cool to play as Op-For in MW1-2, yeah?

CrashUSAR wrote:But it was cool to play as Op-For in MW1-2, yeah?

But therein lies the difference, wouldn't you say?

"Taliban" brings to mind the actual organization and its policies.
"Op-For", to a non-militarily informed individual, is just some wacky fictional terrorist organization staffed by Arabs who like to dress the same.

Me personally, I don't really see a difference. It's a video game, I highly doubt anyone's gonna step away from the multiplayer experiace saying "man, I really wanna join the Taliban! It's so exciting!" But that's just me. They're making it very well known that the Taliban is the other faction in multiplayer, so it's not gonna come as a shock to people buying the game. If you don't like the idea, don't buy the game, or just stay out of multiplayer.