Ridiculous ban on new Medal of Honor game on military bases.

C

Clak

CAGiversary!
This invokes the same sensitivity issue that the NY mosque does, and to me it's just as ridiculous. To be clear, this isn't a ban on owning it, but no military stores (or gametops on bases) will sell it.

http://videogames.yahoo.com/events/plugged-in/military-bans-video-game-that-kills-us-troops/1410232
Past versions of the 11-year old "Medal of Honor" game have been set in World War II, allowing players to act as either members of the Allied force or the Nazi regime.
Click to expand...
To me that quote says it all, despite many of the horrible acts the Taliban may have committed, it's hard to argue that playing as German Nazis is ok, but playing as the Taliban crosses the line. It's basically arguing that the Taliban have committed worse acts than the Nazis did. I don't know if it's because WW2 is in the past and out of the minds of most people, while the current fighting of course isn't. Either way, it is basically making a judgment on one group of people being worse than another, and that's incredibly hard to argue in this case.
 
Agreed with you on all you said, though I assume the reason for the ban of playing as a member of the Taliban vs lack of a ban on playing as Nazis is we are not involved currently in active combat with any Nazis that I know of.
 
Well thats pro american mentality at its finest. When your playing as an american killing taliban then thats perfectly acceptable, but if you play as a taliban killing americans then suddenly its morally wrong and a injustice to the american flag and all that other nonsense. If its ok to be an american killing nazis, taliban, japanese and so on then how is it not ok to play as those killing americans? Either its all ok or none of its ok.

But thats how "ameri-cans!" do things. They have one hand over their heart and the other saluting the flag the mandatory 29 times a day. And what I dont get is they wont sell it at the px which is for military personel which are well, "supposed to be" mature adults. So the only people they are taking it away from are their own people who should be old enough to know if they want to buy it or not, they should be able to say if they dont like it then they just wont play it.

They are keeping just a video game from being sold simply for sake of image.
 
You can't really blame them though. As a civilian, I don't really care who the other character on my TV is that I'm shooting, but seeing as our soldiers are actively fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan you can't really blame them for not wanting that game to be sold on base. It isn't like they are banning the soldiers from owning it, they're just banning it from being sold on the base.
 
[quote name='perdition(troy']You can't really blame them though. As a civilian, I don't really care who the other character on my TV is that I'm shooting, but seeing as our soldiers are actively fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan you can't really blame them for not wanting that game to be sold on base. It isn't like they are banning the soldiers from owning it, they're just banning it from being sold on the base.[/QUOTE]

Pretty much the right way to put it.

Many, many active soldiers have had their fellow brothers killed by Taliban fighters and I would hazard a guess that they aren't too happy about that, call me crazy. Certainly they wouldn't want to relive anything of the sorts in a video game. If there were active military servicemen who had fought against Nazis I would similarly understand the hesitation to sell the game. Its just too personal for some people and that is understandable that military base stores wouldn't want to perpetuate that.

Basically it comes down to hitting too close to home and being just plain too soon for it not to offend some soldiers.
 
As hard as a job that soldier is, I'm sure this is the very least of their concerns.

Our objectives have fallen apart and we should really be talking about how we can get all of these guys back home. I was just reading that they had another stoning in Afganistan. The rural people only know a certain way of life, and it's not like you can change a tribal mentality with increased troop presence.
 
My only concern with this would be that this is a case of the Federal Government blocking free speech/freedom of expression. Beyond that, I really don't think it's that big of a deal and I doubt the solders really care that much one way or the other.
 
I'm ex-military and I'm OK with it.

This ban isn't really for active duty soldiers but for their kids. Many people forget that there are many children that live on military bases and many of their dads and moms are over in the shit right now.

Most of the soldiers understand it's a video game and don't really wrapped up in it. Besides, they're all gonna be playing Call of Duty anyway.
 
My problem with this is that the developers of this game aren't anywhere near talented enough to present this game in the mature way it's advertised as.

It's going to be some joke of a narrative and an embarrassment after all this press it's getting. Just like the airport scene in MW2.
 
[quote name='depascal22']This ban isn't really for active duty soldiers but for their kids. Many people forget that there are many children that live on military bases and many of their dads and moms are over in the shit right now.[/QUOTE]

Doesn't GameStop have a policy on M rated games? I don't know about the other stores though...
 
[quote name='panzerfaust']My problem with this is that the developers of this game aren't anywhere near talented enough to present this game in the mature way it's advertised as.

It's going to be some joke of a narrative and an embarrassment after all this press it's getting. Just like the airport scene in MW2.[/QUOTE]

If you want a mature war story, an FPS is the wrong way to look.

The most mature FPS we have is Bioshock and even that eventually falls prey to the "how many times can you shoot an enemy in the face" adage.
 
That quite stupid. What's the difference between Medal of Honor and soldiers on the ground splitting into Red Team and Blue Team to conduct war games?

If anything it could be a training aid since it shows the fight from the other side. Soldiers could take the perspective offered by the game and compare it to their real life experiences.
 
You'd think Knoell would be in here spouting 'too raw too soon open wound insensitive douchy' to sell the game on bases...

Although this is different where the government is actually banning it, instead of Gamestop deferring to 'raw sensitivities' and choosing not to sell it in those particular stores.

Whether or not its worthy of a lawsuit, would the lawsuit (based on 1st amendmenty shit like UB said) be able to overthrow the ban?
 
They're just covering their bases on a non-issue. I think it's less so some kid from Kansas can't play as the Taliban and kill "patriots", but more so some Muslim soldier doesn't file a complaint about the rednecks in his unit playing some game and constantly yelling out "I just popped a cap in that motherfuckin' raghead sand $$$$er!"
 
[quote name='RedvsBlue']Banned indeed...[/QUOTE]

[quote name='Clak']This invokes the same sensitivity issue that the NY mosque does, and to me it's just as ridiculous. To be clear, this isn't a ban on owning it, but no military stores (or gametops on bases) will sell it.[/QUOTE]

derp indeed.
 
The PC police used to piss me off to no end when I was in. And they always got it completely ass backwards. They'd get pissed about selling pornography and ban it, but no one would say a word about soldiers leaving post in Korea and banging honest to god sex slaves.
[quote name='UncleBob']My only concern with this would be that this is a case of the Federal Government blocking free speech/freedom of expression.[/QUOTE]
It's not the feds per se. The military leadership will do shit like this under the banner of protecting their soldiers.
 
On bases in Germany and Japan I'm assuming you could buy a game where you are able to play as the Germans or Japanese during WW2 and nobody would think twice about it.
 
[quote name='IRHari']You'd think Knoell would be in here spouting 'too raw too soon open wound insensitive douchy' to sell the game on bases...

Although this is different where the government is actually banning it, instead of Gamestop deferring to 'raw sensitivities' and choosing not to sell it in those particular stores.

Whether or not its worthy of a lawsuit, would the lawsuit (based on 1st amendmenty shit like UB said) be able to overthrow the ban?[/QUOTE]

[quote name='IRHari']derp indeed.[/QUOTE]

double derp?
 
[quote name='IRHari']You'd think Knoell would be in here spouting 'too raw too soon open wound insensitive douchy' to sell the game on bases...

Although this is different where the government is actually banning it, instead of Gamestop deferring to 'raw sensitivities' and choosing not to sell it in those particular stores.

Whether or not its worthy of a lawsuit, would the lawsuit (based on 1st amendmenty shit like UB said) be able to overthrow the ban?[/QUOTE]

I was watching the discussion, it was going fine. We are in an ongoing conflict with the taliban, why would the US military allow the sale of a game in which you can play as the taliban killing US soldiers, or even have soldiers killing taliban soldiers? It is tasteless for the US military to be promoting a game like that particularly when they are engaged as they are. This is why they don't care if you buy it off base.

If they banned it outright and told soldiers they would be penalized if caught playing or carrying a copy? Then sure, but the military is just taking a hands off approach to a controversial issue, better safe than sorry when some idiot across the world uses it as a propaganda tool that soldiers use video games to train to kill. Cough Thompson Cough.

Also let's be clear that it isn't outright banned, it just wont be sold and these days I don't believe a soldier would have trouble getting his hands on a copy off base or online.
 
@RedvBlue
In the sentence before that I made it clear I was talking about selling the game on bases. In that same sentence you underlined I was talking about gamestop not selling it, I just didn't say 'government is actually banning selling it.' I could've clarified for people like you but I don't think anyone else was confused by what I wrote.

Nice try though.
 
I have no idea; I lost interest in these war simulators a while back. I am kind of curious to see how ridiculously the Taliban are betrayed.
 
[quote name='IAmTheCheapestGamer']Isn't it just in the ONLINE mode(s) you can play as the Taliban as opposed to throughout the entire single player game?[/QUOTE]

Yes. It's exactly like playing as the Russians in Call of Duty 4's online deathmatch. They have to differentiate between the teams somehow.

I still don't think it's a big deal for the guys that are actually out there. It's more of an issue for the old guys and the kids of soldiers out there.
 
I remember hearing that back in GTA 3 there were actual missions that centered around a character named Darkel, who essentially wanted you to commit terrorist like acts in and around Liberty City.

Due to not wanting to offend anyone due to 9/11 having just occured prior to the game's release the missions were removed, but apparently the characters name is still listed in the credits in the instruction manual.

There's also currently a short(under a minute) video of the character supposedly just shuffling along a side street in LC, along with a bit of the backstory of the character.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZfUCswQwkQk
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
bread's done
Back
Top