So, I finished the campaign of Modern Warfare 2. I found it, for the most part, very exciting, adrenaline fuelled, edge of your seat nonsense. Except for one scene, which became infamous just a matter of hours after the game’s release.
The scene in question sees you, in the role of an undercover American operative. You witness – and can participate in – the massacre of hundreds of holidaymakers at an airport.
It’s disturbing and unsettling. While I’m a huge advocate of breaking down these sort of barriers, I wish the rest of the game’s storyline had actually warranted it.
Instead, following ‘That Scene’, we get a bizarre mess of sub-Tom Clancy cliché’s (n.b. that’s NOT a good thing), pointless sub-missions and almost comical plot twists.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that – as such. It does however, make it much harder to argue in the game’s defence, when publicity-hungry MP’s are mounting campaigns to try and snaffle a few votes and increase their public profiles.
It’s analogous to Spinal Tap being reprimanded for their original cover of Smell the Glove (if only the album had been a hit, they might have got away with it.)
The MW2 scene actually felt needless and unnecessary. I’m not saying this in the interests of censorship or ‘decency’. I’m saying this because I don’t believe it made the game any better.
Would the shower scene from Psycho have been improved with the inclusion of more blatant, graphic violence? Would Sykes’ murder of Nancy in David Lean’s Oliver Twist been more frightening if he’d focussed on the act, rather than the dog cowering from the violence in the corner?
Conversely, the first half hour of Saving Private Ryan wouldn’t have been nearly as powerful without all the flying limbs and entrails. In that case, you could argue, it was necessary to show exactly ‘what happened’.
All I found myself thinking of, when I was ‘experiencing’ the MW2 scene, was the large number of kids who will play this and simply find it ‘fun’. Then they’ll post videos of themselves laughing it up on YouTube, which will then end up on the news. You can stop kidding yourself that this won’t happen, it will.
It’s almost taboo for anyone with an affection for games to say things like this, because it provides extra fuel for gaming’s already vocal opponents to increase their already rampant witch hunt.
The issue for me with with this scene and this game, however, isn’t one of poor taste, or that the game risks ‘corrupting youth’. Rather, it highlighted the need for developers to be sure they can justify the content they’re putting into their games. Because the next time, there’s an incident at an airport which includes guns, ‘that scene’ in Modern Warfare 2 will be rolled out and used as a scapegoat.
The problem is, that in the context of the game itself, there wasn’t really the need to have it in there in the first place…
- Stew (@chicknstu)
While I can see where it could be argued that this is to show that the CIA (or whatever secret organisation it happens to be) have to do unpleasant things, having some sort of “conscientious objector” achievement for getting through the level without killing anyone would have at least given the player an incentivised choice *not* to kill everyone.
Now, I just want to reinforce a single point about this section of the game – you need only VIEW the chaos, you don’t need to fire a single bullet at an unarmed civilian. You effectively project your own choices subconsciously.
Akin to when I gave my mum the pad and let her play GTA 3 many moons ago, she was walking on the pavement, driving only ‘her’ car, and driving on the right (should that be wrong?) side of the road. I even recall very distinctly her saying “sorry” to someone she’d accidentally hit. Whereas when I let my younger cousin try it, he was absolutely chaotic, exploded everything, asking “can he burn down the buildings?!”.
With regards to MW2, though, because the option is there doesn’t mean it should automatically be done; and to say it was “implied” because your teammates were doing it probably says more about your own personality. I DID shoot the civilians, but only because holding back when action is on-screen is the gaming equivalent of a big red “do not press” button.
Take that as you will!
My biggest problem with the scene is that nothing you choose to do or not do matters. The Modern Warfare developers are so utterly without imagination that the gamer is nothing more than a viewer (even if they participate) in this scene (and many others in the game). Maybe this scene would have been worth including if Infinity Ward had the moxy to create a branching storyline wherein your actions mattered. Unfortunately, they didn’t, and the entire MW2 experience is essentially an ultra-linear rail-shooter, and a complete waste of the 4 hours it took me to finish the game.