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Call of Duty Modern Warfare blames Russia for the Tariq Almawt' bombings (AKA Highway of Death)
- Thread starter Deleted member 51539
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I don't know why they just didn't based the atrocities off the Soviet-Afghan war that Russia actually took part in.
Also where the US military massacred over 20 civilians
Does the game touch on that at all?
But women in WWII! It is an insult to MEN who lost their lives protecting the honor of their countries.
Seriously though, they won't care and will go back to the good ol' "its just a video game with no politics" defence.
The game casts very little scrutiny on the U.S and its allies, so not really. Not in a "USA good" way, admittedly, but it just shies away from mentioning how much we've done to destabilize the Middle East, as well as our many other transgressions.
On topic, I've never really looked into the Highway of Death, so this kind of comes as a shock to me. This game really doesn't want you to know how sus we are/have been.
What the fuck is wrong with these devs? Did they decide to just copy and paste a bunch of controversial names into their game to make it more edgy?Not really that fictional...
I don't get it. Placing real events inside fictional stories gives the creators of those stories a pass on changing details of those events however they please. Specifically if those events led to the loss of multiple lives?
I think if you're going to paint your game as being an accurate portrayal on the realities of war you need to do everything you can to avoid shit like this while also openly admitting to the US involvement in the Middle East. IW did not do this it seems. CoD has always been a very "action movie" like franchise. Idk why they would try to present it as something else if they were going to do stuff like this🤷♂️
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Wasn't this incident considered a war crime by some due to evidence that the Americans knew full well the Iraqis were retreating prior to the bombing campaign, and thus the bombing wasn't lawful under international law? A bit ridiculous to replicate the incident in a game, and then go Russia is bad for doing this, when America actually did it.
I think the real question here with stuff like this is that yes, the specific location is indeed fictional and thus events within it fictional, but the narrative framework so blatantly references, and practically relies on, very real historic events to contextualise its setting and premise, yet haphazardly reframes said history in such a way that nations/military guilty of questionable action, that it conjures an unsettling and kinda obnoxious dissonance.
Like yeah, okay; the game is set in a fictional Middle Eastern country, yet said fiction is so heavily influenced by modern Middle Eastern conflict that it's basically the real thing under a different name and sensationalised. A narrative beat introduces an event wherein the Russians bombed a highway littered with fleeing opposing forces, but the writers go out of their way to name it explicitly after a real historic event where the United States military did this instead. So much so that they use both the English translation and the native Arabic title.
It's like...why? If you wanna reconstruct this historic event as something fictional, in a fictional Middle Eastern country, in a fictional conflict, why not call it something else? Why use literally the exact name of an actual event yet reframe it to excuse America and blame someone else. Anybody familiar with the event in history is obviously going to immediately be conscious of the reference here.
I think we know it's not in our reality. It's just highlighting the very unusual narrative trope of taking a real historic event, a very specific one, using its specific name in both English and Arabic, frame the event as exactly the same as the historic one, yet reframe the perpetrator as someone else and try to pass it off as fictional.
I'd be like me writing a military game and having a narrative beat wherein the fictional American city "New Brooklyn" two airlines hijacked by Chinese nationalists are flown into the National Trade Towers on September 11th 2021, and is henceforth known as the "9/11 Event", which triggered an invasion of mainland China. It's all just fiction in a fictional city but nobody who knows about 9/11 is going to read that and go "hang on what".
I don't think anybody has an issue with history influencing writing in fiction. It's just weird to frame an event as basically exactly the same as a historic one, right down to the name, but swap out the guilty party for someone else.
Like yeah, okay; the game is set in a fictional Middle Eastern country, yet said fiction is so heavily influenced by modern Middle Eastern conflict that it's basically the real thing under a different name and sensationalised. A narrative beat introduces an event wherein the Russians bombed a highway littered with fleeing opposing forces, but the writers go out of their way to name it explicitly after a real historic event where the United States military did this instead. So much so that they use both the English translation and the native Arabic title.
It's like...why? If you wanna reconstruct this historic event as something fictional, in a fictional Middle Eastern country, in a fictional conflict, why not call it something else? Why use literally the exact name of an actual event yet reframe it to excuse America and blame someone else. Anybody familiar with the event in history is obviously going to immediately be conscious of the reference here.
I think we know it's not in our reality. It's just highlighting the very unusual narrative trope of taking a real historic event, a very specific one, using its specific name in both English and Arabic, frame the event as exactly the same as the historic one, yet reframe the perpetrator as someone else and try to pass it off as fictional.
I'd be like me writing a military game and having a narrative beat wherein the fictional American city "New Brooklyn" two airlines hijacked by Chinese nationalists are flown into the National Trade Towers on September 11th 2021, and is henceforth known as the "9/11 Event", which triggered an invasion of mainland China. It's all just fiction in a fictional city but nobody who knows about 9/11 is going to read that and go "hang on what".
I don't think anybody has an issue with history influencing writing in fiction. It's just weird to frame an event as basically exactly the same as a historic one, right down to the name, but swap out the guilty party for someone else.
Maybe in the next game they'll have a mission where you have to defend the small village of Sơn Mỹ from being attacked. But in the end it turns out to be a diabolical scheme by the evil russians to frame the heroic americans as bad guys.
I'm a half glass full kind of guy.... so hopefully folks who play this game and are doing so just for fun, will not care where it took place and thus don't believe these things are true anyway...
And for the folks who might get affected by the propaganda, well HOPEFULLY they will try to google some of these things like "highway of death" or some of the names of towns in this game.....and they will actually see the truth.
So if this game accidentally brings more awareness to the horrible shit the U.S. and countries have done in the past, great.
Edit- whew, still alittle dizzy from all that spinning.
But seriously if I were Russian, I'd be pissed as shit.
And for the folks who might get affected by the propaganda, well HOPEFULLY they will try to google some of these things like "highway of death" or some of the names of towns in this game.....and they will actually see the truth.
So if this game accidentally brings more awareness to the horrible shit the U.S. and countries have done in the past, great.
Edit- whew, still alittle dizzy from all that spinning.
But seriously if I were Russian, I'd be pissed as shit.
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It is banned on PS4. And on PC & Xbox you can buy only digital version.
There's a huge difference in the game narrative vs real life. In game, Russia killed fleeing civilians. In real life, it was against invading Iraq armory trying to escape from Kuwait back to Iraq. Pretty sure, allied forces had UN resolutions to remove Iraq occupation of Kuwait.
This 100%. The pulling off of the sticker that says USA and slapping a new one that says Russia onto this specific event (google Highway of Death and the event is the first thing that comes up) is so brazen I actually didn't know what to make of it when I saw it.
The way I see it the acts the Russians do and the way they are portrayed is awfully similar to how the US acted during their invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan(minus chemical weapons). Something I don't think is unintentional, but also something I don't think they could ever explicitly say in a title this big without causing actual problems. It's ok when the Russians are killing (Muslim) men, women, and children, but if the US was then that would be "too controversial." Even though you spend a majority of the game killing Muslim people, I'm really getting sick and tired of it tbh.
Either way, it's Call of Duty and it was never not going to be about anything other than military exceptionalism and how great some of these tier one operators are.
Either way, it's Call of Duty and it was never not going to be about anything other than military exceptionalism and how great some of these tier one operators are.
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CoD has always been "USA #1!" propaganda BS but it was particularly egregious here, with the Al-Qaeda stand-in group introducing themselves as "The Killers" and the Russians talking about how everything is for the motherland.
Pretty shameless.
Pretty shameless.
It kinda makes it not very fun to play, because even if you ignore how offensive it is, it's boring and amaturish to just make bad stereotypes carry your entire story. Shame because the scripting and scenario work is as strong as ever from what I've played so far, but the writing is the weakest it has ever been.
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We can get into a really long talk about just how far off this game misses the mark they were clearly trying (if you can even call it that) to strive for.
Killing some civilians during a raid or terrorist attack and the ramifications is like one line of dialogue of "checking your fire". Killing a women who grabs a gun in a kill house is meant to be "super realistic" and shit.
"Kyle" at the start of the game literally goes on this patriotic rendition about how "we're fighting with our hands tied behind our backs", about how rules of engagement are pointless in this war and so forth. Price just goes "yea ok random dude I met, you seem pretty fucking angry so join my squad and lets go around the world killing some folks"
There is no insight to these characters, when in reality these people are clearly sociopaths that could actually be interesting to follow of the writers actually took five seconds to look at the work they were writing.
Which is fucking amazing to me considering how they clearly took inspiration from Zero Dark Thirty, you know, the movie that people wrongly accuse of "glorifying torture" when the movie's big twist is the torture they've been doing was pointless and didn't actually get them closer to Bin Laden at all, or how it did nothing to prevent the major terrorist attack that the CIA knew was happening but not where. How the movie ends with the main character basically sulking and crying alone because her entire life has been devoted to capture one guy which in the grand scheme of things changes nothing, and how the final taste of revenge rings so hollow she realizes she has wasted a decade of her life and her own soul for nothing.
Or the fact that they also clearly take inspiration from Sicario in respects to it's design of combat/the night raid (similar to ZDT). The irony being they MISS THE ENTIRE POINT again with Sicario with the basic fact that everyone in that movie other than the main character are borderline psychopathic government hired killers that aren't making the world a better place. The movie ends with the main character with a gun to her face being forced to never talk about what she did because of the clandestine nature of the operation that was only "legal" because she was involved.
The game tried so hard to be edgy and took inspiration from actual movies that make it clear that the people "saving the world" are not in fact saving the world, but are just doing the dirty work of people above them in an endless cycle of violence that exists because that's just how the world works.
Instead of diving into the characters and exploring the shit they ripped off, they just took the "gritty" stuff and slapped it into an arcade shooter. Everyone is a hero, nobody has any revelations or character growth, it literally just ends with "some bad Russian dude" getting killed and that's that.
This whole game is a mess, and I have no idea why they have so clearly wrapped their fictional insane world of geopolitics with our current contemporary geopolitical situation when
The game takes place in TOTALLY NOT SYRIA, with Russians (who apparently are the bad Russians and the actual good Russians are... good?), White Hats (look them up if you need to), what I assume are basically the Kurds (in an ironic twist given the recent events that have transpired with Trump leaving them to die in the last month) and is invoking contemporary imagery while trying to have it's cake and eat it with it's action movie pacing, story and character design of everyone is a hero.
Killing some civilians during a raid or terrorist attack and the ramifications is like one line of dialogue of "checking your fire". Killing a women who grabs a gun in a kill house is meant to be "super realistic" and shit.
"Kyle" at the start of the game literally goes on this patriotic rendition about how "we're fighting with our hands tied behind our backs", about how rules of engagement are pointless in this war and so forth. Price just goes "yea ok random dude I met, you seem pretty fucking angry so join my squad and lets go around the world killing some folks"
There is no insight to these characters, when in reality these people are clearly sociopaths that could actually be interesting to follow of the writers actually took five seconds to look at the work they were writing.
Which is fucking amazing to me considering how they clearly took inspiration from Zero Dark Thirty, you know, the movie that people wrongly accuse of "glorifying torture" when the movie's big twist is the torture they've been doing was pointless and didn't actually get them closer to Bin Laden at all, or how it did nothing to prevent the major terrorist attack that the CIA knew was happening but not where. How the movie ends with the main character basically sulking and crying alone because her entire life has been devoted to capture one guy which in the grand scheme of things changes nothing, and how the final taste of revenge rings so hollow she realizes she has wasted a decade of her life and her own soul for nothing.
Or the fact that they also clearly take inspiration from Sicario in respects to it's design of combat/the night raid (similar to ZDT). The irony being they MISS THE ENTIRE POINT again with Sicario with the basic fact that everyone in that movie other than the main character are borderline psychopathic government hired killers that aren't making the world a better place. The movie ends with the main character with a gun to her face being forced to never talk about what she did because of the clandestine nature of the operation that was only "legal" because she was involved.
The game tried so hard to be edgy and took inspiration from actual movies that make it clear that the people "saving the world" are not in fact saving the world, but are just doing the dirty work of people above them in an endless cycle of violence that exists because that's just how the world works.
Instead of diving into the characters and exploring the shit they ripped off, they just took the "gritty" stuff and slapped it into an arcade shooter. Everyone is a hero, nobody has any revelations or character growth, it literally just ends with "some bad Russian dude" getting killed and that's that.
This whole game is a mess, and I have no idea why they have so clearly wrapped their fictional insane world of geopolitics with our current contemporary geopolitical situation when
they are literally teasing that the next game will be a full on re-make of CoD4 and the insane action packed, nuke exploding action movie that it was, which is followed by the name drop of Sheppard who is a crazy General that helps launch World War III.
The game takes place in TOTALLY NOT SYRIA, with Russians (who apparently are the bad Russians and the actual good Russians are... good?), White Hats (look them up if you need to), what I assume are basically the Kurds (in an ironic twist given the recent events that have transpired with Trump leaving them to die in the last month) and is invoking contemporary imagery while trying to have it's cake and eat it with it's action movie pacing, story and character design of everyone is a hero.
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I don't think criticizing the US for not being war hungry enough really addresses the issue here.
The game absolutely loves to make you kill women in those missions. There's never a man scripted to give you doubt.
I think one of the guys you flashbang has his hands in front of him screaming "no wait, don't!".
But yea, it's shock for shock, and like, the game doesn't spend any time exploring the fact that Kyle is basically on a murderous revenge fueled mission that Price has completely taken advantage of for his clandestine, totally illegal international operations. (Which for some reason an SAS officer is in constant command with the CIA and is almost never seen talking to MI6 or his own military command).
The game is so American they don't even bother with the fucking British CoC lol
COD being base propaganda bullshit? Why I never!!!
It's always been pathetic wank material for war mongering idiots that think throwing in military jargon counts as Nuance.
It's always been pathetic wank material for war mongering idiots that think throwing in military jargon counts as Nuance.
Yes, as much as I enjoyed the campaign for the mission design and ultra slick presentation, the story was..... questionable to say the least. I'd actually argue that it's the weakest MW game of the bunch in terms of narrative/writing. MW3 was just a bunch of set pieces one after the other, but at least it was honest about what it was.
I really miss it when each mission started with a proper briefing, letting the player be aware of what is going on with the world, the politics, motivations, etc.
Here, it felt ridiculously surface level and janky... often leaving me confused why exactly this conflict is even happening.
I really miss it when each mission started with a proper briefing, letting the player be aware of what is going on with the world, the politics, motivations, etc.
Here, it felt ridiculously surface level and janky... often leaving me confused why exactly this conflict is even happening.
Interviewer: What's the story about?
Dev: A very relevant contemporary war story.
Interviewer: Is this game political?
Dev (with a straight face): No
Interviewer: Really?
Dev: No
Interviewer: Really?
Dev: No, we're just making games
Interviewer: That seems insane!
Dev (same straight face): It seems insane to get political to me
So you see, this game is totally not about a proxy war between Russia and US fought in the midst of a civil war in Syria. Because it's actually set in a fictional Middle Eastern country called Urzikstan, which is undergoing a civil war where Russia and US are fighting a proxy war and there's a power hungry Russian leader. But you see the leader is a military leader and not a political leader. So it's all 100% fiction and entirely non political obviously.
IW pls
It is mostly non-political in the sense that they they're not thinking about what it means to rip stuff from the headlines on the most surface level possible and stuffing a power fantasy into it, even though making the choice to not care is very political.
Nah America is always innocent in those stories. Great hero uncle sam.
Also, can someone tell IW what a proxy war actually means?
Cause there have been a fair number of Russian soldiers (who in the game are clearly part of the state military) who get clearly killed by US/British soldiers in both present day and flashbacks.
That would be kinda a big fucking deal since, "A very relevant contemporary war story."
Cause there have been a fair number of Russian soldiers (who in the game are clearly part of the state military) who get clearly killed by US/British soldiers in both present day and flashbacks.
That would be kinda a big fucking deal since, "A very relevant contemporary war story."
Is this a sarcastic post?
Cause the game is literally a standard CoD shooter that sprinkles in the characters kinda doing some "ehh" stuff but are totally justified in story, while reframing contemporary terrorist attacks, wars, civil wars in their own h\Hollywood action movie reality that the CoD universe functions in.
The game is trying to have its cake and eating it while failing pretty spectacularly in terms of representing the "realities of war" beyond some really bland stereotypical attempts at shock.
It'd still be called Tiananmen Square Massacre, but be in the fictional location of Beijing, Taiwanistan
While the campaign is fun to play, the story is just super basic with a lot of shock moments thrown in. They don't really explore any of the repercussions of anything that happens. The scene where we are supposed to think "How can the good guys do this is?" Is dealt with in a couple of sentences and then never brought up again. Thematically the game could be more interesting, but you would need some Zero Dark Thirty or Sicario level of writing which this game clearly doesn't have.
The best part about that scene is...
The game delineates who you are and aren't allowed to shoot by giving them blue or red nameplates. The Butcher had a red nameplate so I killed him. Price and Nikolai didn't react at all.
... writing fiction isn't illegal
nor is writing non-fiction that you lie about
I feel like people saying that the game paints the Middle East as bad isn't really true?
Like even the bad eggs are given justification for why they are how they are.
I can't imagine playing Farahs levels and coming out with: "The game is saying middle eastern people are bad"
What would the laws be here...?
Anyway, tasteless. In an especially needless manner. Like...maybe don't call it that? There's "making reference to this real world event as a concept" and then there's "using the same name and swapping the perpetrators". Like, maybe, charitably, if "highways of death" as a residual of modern fighting were a semi-common occurrence over the last few decades, but it's....not.
