Poll: the new medal of honour; offensive and tasteless, or is that just me?

[shootthebandit]

i disagree, if anything it gives a perspective of the soldiers who are fighting. EA has spoken to real soldiers about making this game and they seem contented that it shows a realistic view of the war.

if anything i will find this game offensive and tastless because its gonna be a rip-off of BFBC2 and MW2

 

[BloodSquirrel]

Wait, hold on. Back up. FOUR dead in a week is 'SLAUGHTERED?'

I've never understood the vast disparity in death counts. It takes thousands in a few hours for third world death tolls to be news worthy (but tens of thousands over the course of several months or years isn't), it takes hundreds of first world civilian casualties before the news is interested, but less than one soldier dying per day is a national tragedy.

Jesus fucking christ.

A million is a statistic and all...

All in all, I don't see how making a video game about current events should be any different from making a movie, TV show, or book. Judge it on it's content, not it's subject matter.

 

[AllLagNoFrag]

No problem with it, I have Japanese blood and completed Cod:WaW (well, it did get banned in Japan or so I heard).

If it is a game, it is a game.

 

[electric discordian]

Why does a game offend you? When the notion of the entire war I Afganistan is an aberration to begin with, why invade a country based on the fact that it was involved in a terrorist attack that it wasn't?

Why invade a country which has never been successfully taken? Even by the Russians who were to the Geneva convention what the Jonas Brothers are to trenchant political thought.

Better yet why do it because another sovereign nation says you should despite not having the correct equipment?

I have the utmost respect for soldiers, but not the job they are being sent to do.

If this game shows the true horror of what it is actually like in the war perhaps it may make some people think twice about throwing their life away in the name of "freedom!"

 

[shootthebandit]

Wait, hold on. Back up. FOUR dead in a week is 'SLAUGHTERED?'

I've never understood the vast disparity in death counts. It takes thousands in a few hours for third world death tolls to be news worthy (but tens of thousands over the course of several months or years isn't), it takes hundreds of first world civilian casualties before the news is interested, but less than one soldier dying per day is a national tragedy.

Jesus fucking christ.

1,000,000 deaths is just a statistic, one death is a tragedy - joseph stalin

 

[tsb247]

I never really cared for modern warefare. Oh, you were talking about the new medal of honor...which looks exactly like mw2.

In all seriousness now: Never played medal of honor, new one looks like direct rip off of MW, tired of fps's

If you're going to say that the new Medal of Honor rips off of MW2, then I am compelled to point out that every other CoD game ripped off Medal of Honor in some way. Medal of Honor came first and Infinity Ward was started by some developers who left the Medal of Honor team.

As for MW2...

I agree. I didn't really care for it at all, but I am hoping that the new Medal of Honor can restore my faith in 'arcady' military FPS games.

More on topic:

I don't see how being able to play as the Taliban is any more distasteful than shooting up an airport full of civilians in MW2. Both aren't particularly family friendly subject matter, but in the context of the game, people probably won't have a problem with it.

 

[Harlemura]

You got to play as the baddies in other war games. (Various baddies in Call of Duty online, for example)
What makes those different?

 

[veloper]

no big deal.
If the gameplay turns out to be solid then it's a good game.

 

[setting_son]

Wait, hold on. Back up. FOUR dead in a week is 'SLAUGHTERED?'

I've never understood the vast disparity in death counts. It takes thousands in a few hours for third world death tolls to be news worthy (but tens of thousands over the course of several months or years isn't), it takes hundreds of first world civilian casualties before the news is interested, but less than one soldier dying per day is a national tragedy.

Jesus fucking christ.

Especially if you have any interest in history these modern day conflicts are nothing compared to the past. The British media has been going crazy because 300 people have died this year in Afganistan. Any death is sad but the media seem to be ignorant of the fact that hundreds of millions of soldiers alone died last century (In living memory), just scanning down casualty lists from WW1 and picking one battle:

Brusilov Offensive WW1 - nearly 2.5 million casualties in less than 4 months

It probably sounds offhand but when you have an interest in history (everyone should) the kind of numbers that are being reported in Iraq/Afganistan are something that would not even raise an eyebrow for a few minutes of fighting in previous conflicts. I mean did everyone either forget about the horrendous losses that are still in living memory or have the media simply decided that soldiers nowadays are worth more than people who fought in WW1/2?

It may just be me but it kind of seems disrespectful to the people who fought wars that actually meant something.

I think it's partially to do with the number of forces we have committed. In World War 1 & 2 we had tens of thousands of soldiers in theatre and now we have a far smaller force of 9500 according to the MOD. 40 Commando just a fraction of that force, I don't know the troop numbers but it isn't an awful lot.

The loss of 4 marines doesn't sound much by the standard of a World War 2 theatre but it represents a big loss to a small, close knit unit and the odds are that everyone in 40 Commando knew those who died. Slaughtered is perhaps a strong word, but the loss of 4 marines in four days is not sustainable for such a small force.

I don't think giving national attention to the deaths of a small number of soldiers in modern wars is disrespectful to those who gave their lives in previous, larger scale wars. I think it's just an artefact of the smaller force we have, where one soldier is a larger percentage of overall strength and of the fact that the media can easier report losses than they could previously - and they do so to a British public who become very discouraged by seeing coffins getting unloaded from a Hercules.

Soldiers in WW 2 made great sacrifices but I doubt there are any surviving veterans who would grudge modern soldiers the attention they get.

 

[Doomsday11]

I some times have a hard time to fell sorry for western soldiers in Afganistan.
They are there by own choice, no one forced them, they were informed of the risk.

The afhan opposition were not ALL by choice. Some are breed into it, some are forced with the threat of eternal damnation.
Most of them dident travel thousands of miles to join the fight, they simply opened their door.

Sorry but to honest it's there own fault for joining now,if they were forced to join before the invasion then fine they could have been forced into it with no outside forces however know collation forces are there and the terrorists and actually being forced to see the effects of their actions they have no sympathy in my eyes.

 

[Cynical skeptic]

one death is a tragedy

A million is a statistic

The problem with the stalin quote is the fact he only really said it to rationalize his own atrocities. Its about the same as raping someone to death then saying, "s/he was going to die anyway."

The problem is its inconsistent as hell. Each day theres hundreds of murders, each one a singular event that impacts the lives of many people. But because there isn't enough journalists, paper, or air time to report on every single one, only the most violent, gruesome, unique racially relevant murders are reported. Which in the first world means above upper middle class, white, attractive, and preferably female. This, I can understand. No one expects attractive white upper middle class females to die, when they do, shock.

But how can someone not expect a soldier to die in combat? I understand why the media plays up the death toll, but why do people just blindly accept whatever is reported?

 

[BloodSquirrel]

The problem with the stalin quote is the fact he only really said it to rationalize his own atrocities.

I don't think you really understand why the quote is famous-

It's an extremely cynical, yet true, observation of human nature. If you put a face and a story behind a death, people can comprehend it. It's sad because it's the death of a human being. But a million deaths? People have trouble wrapping their heads around it.

Humans can only deal with so much at once. The kind of impact that hundreds of murders have is too much. Too many family members, too many stories. The victims stop being individuals and start being "a bunch of people", and thus an abstraction. People don't get too upset over abstractions. Humans need things brought down to a smaller scale before they can really sympathize. It's just the reality of the limitations of human perception.

Four soldiers a week is something that they can do.

Mind you, this limitation has some serious real-world consequences. It can help people rationalize mass murder.

 

[TheSapphireKnight]

I am just shocked that anyone can be offended by this or Six Days in Fallujah(Which itself was originally pitched by people who fought in the Battle) and not Be offended by, I dunno, any other War game ever.

So WWII Veterans can't be offended simply because its been awhile? What makes these soldiers fighting in Afghanistan so special? Oh I remember now, its because people are completely selfish. Not the soldiers necessarily but any of the people who complain about this sort of thing.

People care about this because it has an immediate effect on their family or friends. Obviously WWII and Vietnam Veterans have had time to get over but new soldiers are delicate flowers who must be coddled.

Don't get me wrong I respect all Soldiers, both past and present. So why is it that it is more "disrespectful" or "offensive" to create a game about the war in Afghanistan but not in WWII? It could be the exact setting in everything but name and no one would care. It could be the war in Natsinhgfa against the Nabilat and there would be no controversy.

Its only when it relates back to an individual to people care and elevate their own status(or someone they know) in the world.

It's like when someone votes against a measure to hire more Firefighters and then complains to the city when their house burns down.

 

[BoxCutter]

It's a war game, you know what your going to get. It's not Sci-Fi or Fantasy so its likely going to be based off of an historic event. I fail to see how this game is any different than the Call of Duty Modern Warfare games that utilized the same exact regions, conflicts, and technology that is being utilized overseas right now. They just politely called it something different.

As for Medal of Honor. It's not meant to support the Taliban (is Call of Duty a homage to the Nazi's "fighting spirit" in WW2?) it merely utilizes them as an essential aspect to any game, a villain. This game is not meant to insult the men and women serving over seas, and in some cases may even be meant to idolize them. But if the developers excluded things like IEDs and character deaths in the game we would all be hassling them for making a game that is too unrealistic, or that borderlines propaganda.

I see no difference between the Modern Warfare games and the upcoming Medal of Honor, I mean really I see very little difference between the two games. I wonder why we have to have more of the same thing repackaged and resold to us as something "new".

 

[SlyderEST]

let me set the context, I have a friend in 40 Commando, and if your not British or don't follow the news, they are getting slaughtered. 4 dead in the last week, and that figure is liable to be out of date soon.

So with friends and loved ones being brought home in cold steel boxes every day, is the new Medal of Honour game, which allows people to fight as the Taliban against the Coalition Forces in Helmand province, where my friend is fighting now, today, offensive to anyone else?

I understand that games need to be a bit naughty to get attention (vis a vie modern warfare 2) but I won't be buying Medal of Honour. Its... well it makes me feel nausous turning on the news and waiting for a name i know to be listed, so why should some game devolper who wanks off to clips on youtube of IEDs destroying Humvees get my money?

Actually, PC Gamer Magazine wrote about this recently( http://www.pcgamer.com/2010/06/23/medal-of-honour-salutes-the-reality-of-modern-war/ ). In case your cautious for links, then they wrote there, that MoH's executive producer, said: "Our intent is to honour those who serve in a respectful manner."

I think PC Gamer Magazine has helped someone find the thruth once again.

And if I was late and someone already cleared that out, then I will defend myself by saying: I'm not that much of a forum reader.

 

[zxcxczczx]

The setting won't put me off buying it.

The words "Medal of Honor" in the title will.

 

[Cynical skeptic]

-snip-

I think maybe you don't understand what "rationalizing" is.

The quote, in this context, is irrelevant. We're hijacking about the media's response to death. If the quote was relevant, then there'd be no coverage of the haiti earthquake, the tsunami (I don't even have to say where, you already know which one I'm talking about), or any other natural disaster. But those always get coverage because they (can) wipe out thousands in a few moments.

Then, even so, the divorce between one death and a million deaths isn't a coping mechanism. Its simply symptomatic of the average person's inability to process any number beyond what they can easily visualize.

Now, the media's response to death is one of efficiency. People are dropping like flies all around the world, but to report every single death is attempting to drain the ocean with a straw. Not to mention theres not enough newsprint, airtime, or journalists in the world to even cover half the daily death toll. So you stick with whats relevant to your audience.

But war coverage has to happen. Since fox news exists, all news must be as sensationalist as possible, as thats whats profitable. That means prefacing stats with flowery adjectives, no matter how small they are.

The OP's views are clearly based on the coverage, rather than any amount of thought regarding the situation. They are a reaction. S/He skipped every possible thought, and simply parroted the coverage. My question/problem/issue, is how the hell can people do that?