Africa in gaming. An example from CoD MW3...

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Flip-Shying

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KwaggaDan said:
Flip-Shying said:
KwaggaDan said:
Flip-Shying said:
Why would they use lions or elephants over hyenas? Hyenas make far more sense because they are actually used in real-life. People don't have lions, elephants, or hyenas wondering around their back-garden in Africa.
Yeah, but the domesticated hyena is just as rare as a domesticated lion. My whole point was, if they were going to use hyenas, they might just as well have used lions or elephants...
Tamed hyenas are far more likely to be used and seem more reasonable, people have tamed them in the past. Besides, a hyena is closer to the canine attack-dog tradition used in previous CoD games.
Coincidentally, when I was doing my research before writing on the topic, I came across an article where they say the Hyena is closer to the feline tree than the canine one. I see the template they used, but why not just use dogs? That's my big gripe...
Agreed. They should have used dogs but I suppose they just wanted to make it seem more 'African'.
 

Slayer_2

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It's Modern Warfare... The previous game in the series featured a segment where a lone man hijacked a nuclear sub and reprogrammed a missile to detonate in the atmosphere above DC to create an EMP effect... Realism isn't what they're going for.
 

Zero47

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BloodWriter said:
Ha... dude, you're thinking African-American stereotypes with the KFC reference... Out of touch, ignorant or simply a bit racist with your assumptions?
You're right, ad hominem arguments are always effective. How does referencing a silly stereotype make me out of touch, ignorant or racist anyway? You're playing the racist card all day without reason and to be honest it's people like you that make me "racist". Yes I put racist between brackets because it's not race that annoys me, it's the sensitive attitude towards anything that could be interpeted as racism if you stretch your mind far enough. Even when you're facing actual racism online you ought to have built up a shield for that shit by now. Bottom line is you're gonna get hate online if you deal with it like a whiner (I refer you to "gingers do have souls"-guy).

EDIT: On second read, I probably misunderstood your comment somewhat. I've never really found the KFC stereotype to be exclusive to African-Americans, but if you really want a African specific read watermelons instead. No point in arguing over semantics.
 

Thaluikhain

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BloodWriter said:
Ha... dude, you're thinking African-American stereotypes with the KFC reference... Out of touch, ignorant or simply a bit racist with your assumptions?
Actually, no, although it's a US thing, it's prompted cries of racism when you have that sort of thing in nations where you don't have that stereotype, presumably by people who assume that the rest of the world is like the US.

On the other hand, if the people who create the thing are USAliens, I could see a problem with it.
 

DanielDeFig

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Zero47 said:
If you find yourself in the wrong place Africa is a massive hellhole. Same deal with any other country except for the fact that in Africa this shit happens in full view more.

You're talking about cultural stereotypes because you're hyper sensitive to it. You see a cultural stereotype where there is none. You'd have a point if you'd see those Africans hold buckets of KFC because this is actually a derogatory depiction, hyena's aren't.
KFC? You're trying to apply an american racist stereotype, to ALL dark-skinned ppl? Most ppl in Africa wouldn't even get it, or know what KFC is.
Replacing dogs with Hyenas, just because the level is suddenly in an African country? That IS a derogatory and offensive stereotype.
 

SonOfVoorhees

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Do they have attack hyenas? I dont know much about Africa, but they do have a on of hyenas that live there and its just a game. So who cares. Actually....why hasnt is PETA bitching about rats when their is hyena death going down?
 

ToxinArrow

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Wait a goddamned minute here....

You're saying something in a Modern Warfare game is both ridiculous AND unrealistic?

You'd better go and tell Ripley, 'cuz he isn't gonna believe this shit.
 

Treblaine

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thaluikhain said:
On the other hand, if the people who create the thing are USAliens, I could see a problem with it.
You keep using that word... what the hell does it mean?

Because Google gives me nothing.
 

Thaluikhain

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Treblaine said:
thaluikhain said:
On the other hand, if the people who create the thing are USAliens, I could see a problem with it.
You keep using that word... what the hell does it mean?

Because Google gives me nothing.
People from the US. "Americans" is a bit vague...apparently "United Stateser" is used in part of South America, but that's a bit long. And "spam" or "seppo" might get me in trouble.
 

Zero47

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DanielDeFig said:
Replacing dogs with Hyenas, just because the level is suddenly in an African country? That IS a derogatory and offensive stereotype.
No it's not lol. What does the presence of hyenas instead of attack dogs imply? Nothing. It's comparable to a game in Nepal having too many mountains. "Oh so just because I am in Nepal now there's mountains everywhere? WOW RACIST!"
 

Treblaine

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thaluikhain said:
Treblaine said:
thaluikhain said:
On the other hand, if the people who create the thing are USAliens, I could see a problem with it.
You keep using that word... what the hell does it mean?

Because Google gives me nothing.
People from the US. "Americans" is a bit vague...apparently "United Stateser" is used in part of South America, but that's a bit long. And "spam" or "seppo" might get me in trouble.
It's not ambiguous at all. It is painfully obvious that "American" in this context means "A citizen of the United States of America"

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/american

You know what IS incredibly vague? A term like "USAliens"! Why the hell is the "A" extended to "Aliens"!!?!?! They were born there weren't they? They grew up there? They are integrated into the society of the country? Why Alien? Because they are white?

Bullshit.

Mr Patel who lives down my street isn't white, but he's as British as they come. He was born in UK and so were is parents. To even suggest he is alien would be incredibly offensive. The idea that he "didn't belong".

Just call Americans... get ready for this... "Americans". Why are yo being so pedantic?
 

countrysteaksauce

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Does anyone remember the Russian attack bears in Red Alert 3? Or the alcoholic Russian in Mike Tyson's punch out?
These are all just stereotypes that no one really needs to get worked up over.
 

UnderCoverGuest

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Where's that video of M-Bison shouting "YES!!! YES!!!"

I'm just gonna watch the negative reviews for a while and put that on loop in the background. Finally, a CLEAR sign from gamers that they demand quality! Hopefully this trend continues.
 

Shoggoth2588

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KwaggaDan said:
My issue here is how Africa is being depicted in gaming. I'm not taking potshots at CoD. Far Cry 2 and RE5 made the same mistakes.
I don't remember being attacked by Hyenas in Resi-5...unless my TV is just THAT bad. I thought it was just the same dobermans only with a weird head deformation. Still, I've yet to play MW3 but I'm sure it's better (ie: more tolerant of Africa and, those who dwell therein) than Resi-5 which had you attacking mud-hut dwelling, grass skirt wearing humans who attacked with spears. Granted, those aren't the only Resi-5 enemies and they are a bit more accurate than Caucasian special forces with laser-scoped laser-firing death weapons. Of course they could have just used more giant spiders and other such insects...
 

DanielDeFig

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Zero47 said:
DanielDeFig said:
Replacing dogs with Hyenas, just because the level is suddenly in an African country? That IS a derogatory and offensive stereotype.
No it's not lol. What does the presence of hyenas instead of attack dogs imply? Nothing. It's comparable to a game in Nepal having too many mountains. "Oh so just because I am in Nepal now there's mountains everywhere? WOW RACIST!"
It implies that because Africa is "exotic", that the only animals there are exotic, and therfore they have exotic "equivalents" to "normal" animals like dogs and cats and cows. The Nepal thing is completely irrelevant, you might just as well have talked about sand desert cultures finding it racist to depict them surrounded by sand dunes.

BTW. Isn't it great how you can just ignore when someone makes an actual point, and you don't have a defence, by picking on a secondary point? (Not that it worked out)
 

Terrible Opinions

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Legitimate complaint in the OP.

Whole bunch of people missing the point with "Well, there are stereotypes about the US, too!" and "CoD isn't meant to be realistic!"

Things are goin' well!
 

UnderCoverGuest

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Tin Man said:
Batou667 said:
Blah blah
You sir, [Blah]

UnderCoverGuest said:
M Bison Yes Yes stuff blah blah
You're going to be watching negative reviews of MW3 for a while? You mean there some of those? It's clear that what you want isn't a negative review of an extremely well constructed game, but you want to watch someone reinforce your own opinion. You can do this in a mirror. Hope you enjoy humping the bandwagon of pointless cod hate.

The number of times I see 'You sir," like we're all pleasant English gentlemen or sommat, is driving me crazy. Anywho, good to see another amateur psychologist in the works on an internet forum, but just so you are aware, YOU ARE COMPLETELY [I put a bad word here, and realized it wasn't very nice of me, so I've taken it out]ING WRONG.

Since I'm running short on time, I'm gonna summarize: I understand the time, patience, and hard work that video game designers put in to their product. When I first played GTA4, I was like, "oh my god, this city is the most detailed virtual environment I've ever seen in a game, or even digital simulation before!", but at the same time, I didn't like the story, and I wasn't a fan of the actual game-play bit. But every second that passed by, I'd see evidence of a design team that worked their asses off to create something so detailed and astoundingly realistic that I couldn't help but go 'wow!'

Just using that as an example of how I can respect a game, but not like it. Now let's look at Modern Warfare 3 and an introduction via it's predecessors. Call of Duty 4 brought new life to FPS gaming--after the standard of Quake/Unreal Tournament style games was introduced, and with the popularity of Counter-Strike riding high, and Battlefield 2 somewhere in there, and Halo having graced the market with its own at-the-time revolutionary take on the ol' humans-versus-aliens plot device--Call of Duty 4 came along and gave us an extraordinarily face-paced action game that really got the blood flowing. It had a unique (at the time) story, some truly shocking set pieces (at the time), brilliant customization that let you play what you wanted to play in multiplayer, and was extremely nice to the PC Gamer crowd with mod support, mapping tools, developer console, dedicated servers, etcetera. It had detailed environments and terrific effects, but most importantly, it balanced itself by having a thrilling single-player story, and at the same time a fiercely competitive and action-filled multiplayer portion. It was strong on both sides.

Then Modern Warfare 2 came along. With the success of Call of Duty 4 riding high, developers began saying, "Let's take some ideas from that game, and integrate them into our own!" This became apparent in games such as Battlefield Bad Company, which took it's basic Battlefield premise and made it more about run-and-gun action. This is most easily represented by the removal of a prone ability--going prone allows you to move slow, maintain a location for a long duration of time without being spotted, and is generally recognized as a more patient form of tactic in games such as Battlefield 2, ARMA 2--any large scale combat game to a degree (this isn't one of my stronger arguments, so if you pick this one to rip apart, you're very silly). Anyway, removing prone or whatever, my point is Bad Company 2 was an attempt at earning a share of the profits being taken in from gamers with fast, action-oriented games that focus less on tactics and patience and more on excessive amounts of gunfire.

Note that I'm still not criticizing the games yet--Bad Company and Bad Company 2 I thought were okay games, I just prefer the slow tactical ones personally. But they had great destructible environments and good effects, so in terms of action, yeah, they did well. But when Modern Warfare 2 hit the road, here's where I started to develop a pessimistic attitude towards games being developed.

One, Modern Warfare 2 basically took CoD4's story and had it re-written by someone who was completely bonkers. The concept of supplementing a fast-paced action shooter with a good story seems to have been tragically lost, and the result was a ridiculous story, a tiring amount of references to The Rock (a good movie though it was), and a rather weak presentation for single-player in general. When you play a main character (or characters who every fifteen minutes or so get pulled to their feet by an aging general, get predictably found out, betrayed and then shot, get predictably betrayed again, shot, and then burned alive, AND THEN falls out of a boat, off a cliff, lands in a sandstorm, gets sucker-punched by that aging general who stabs them/you, and only finally dies after having a knife thrown into his skull like he's some kind of zombie--well, let me just say Modern Warfare 2 didn't make me feel so much like a soldier of fortune as it did a wimpy mentally-handicapped goofball, who has the ability to slaughter countless numbers of soldiers in a way that makes genocide look like a quaint get-together on the weekends, and yet is unable to recognize even the slightest hint of suspect from individuals around them...well, it made me feel like Modern Warfare 2 was giggling at how foolish I was to be playing it.

The graphics were good (though easily re-creatable in CoD4; just put in r_contrast 4, r_brightness -1, r_specularcolorintensity-something 1.7 or so in the console; ANOTHER thing that MW2 lacks), the sounds were intense, and in general it was a very well-polished game, but lacking in many key features. For one, no modding or mapping support, and no developer console. For two, they completely destroyed the community aspect of online gaming via their match-making service that does as much for socially-inclined PC gamers as an arsenical omelette does for improving one's ability to live. The multiplayer customization was still fun too, but all sense of enjoyment was lost for me, when I'd join a server and hear a bunch of people I'd never played with before yelling at one another calling each other a variety of derogatory terms that I'm not interested in repeating here. Oh, and having to 'unlock' Hardcore mode? That made me begin to -really- dislike the game.

So a silly story, over-rated popularity based on the sales figures it achieved for essentially a game whose primary focus was a) multiplayer and b) selling lots and lots of copies, a lack of acknowledgment to the PC gaming crowd, and a generally unlikable anti-community are among the reasons why I lost interest in Call of Duty as an enjoyable franchise. After the insane popularity of MW2, other games attempted to replicate it as well, just as they had done to a certain degree with Call of Duty 4. The result was a succession of first-person shooters dealing with hectic firefights, shallow single-player stories involving nukes at some point, and an emphasis on competitive multiplayer. Because of this repetition invoked by the big-name video game developers, I grew tired and disinterested in games that were being designed for consoles, in particular first-person shooters, because they really all felt the same. Some touted unique features, but in essentials, it was all so similar. You run, you shoot, bad guys die, you watch some huge explosions, you set off or defuse a nuke, you win, you play multiplayer to make up for the four-hour long singleplayer portion of the game.

Ooookay, I said I was short on time, and now I really am, so I'mma conclude quickly: when I first saw MW3, it looked exactly like MW2, just instead of ''shock and awe'' taking place in the US, now they've taken it to a variety of international locales--and I'm not impressed. I want games with depth, with interesting characters, a unique plot, a clearly defined objective, minimal use of moments where your experience is suddenly interrupted by your character being horribly molested while you sit there tapping your fingers waiting for the actual game bit to resume. Half-Life 2 did a good job of this.

Modern Warfare 3 is like a Christmas present that your uncle gave you last year--it adds nothing unique to your collection, you already have it, but the only difference is that this year it came in different wrapping paper. And that's what I don't like. That's why I was jokingly saying I was going to watch negative reviews. Because big-name developers have been at this for over four years. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare was released for PC November 5th, 2007--we're five years in the future now, almost to the exact day, and what have they done? They've released the same damn game, but now it's old and stale, and for me personally, the wrapping paper doesn't distract from that fact.

I don't like Modern Warfare 3. I haven't even played it, but I don't like it. Does that make me a hypocrite? Sure. But you know what, I'll be damned if I pay $60 for something I've already bought and paid for twice before, and wasn't very happy with in the end.