Fourth Thursday

That being said:

Today, I finished the campaign mode in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. I was completely impressed with the gameplay, the score, the sound effects and the first-person cinematics. At times, I actually felt like the action hero in the SEALS or the Army Ranger who is defending D.C. from invaders. It has quickly become one of my favorite shooters.

When I started the game, I was told that there would be some disturbing moments and that I could skip them if I wanted to. I nodded and brushed it off. Nothing surprises me in games anymore. I've seen nukes get detonated in Call of Duty 4 and Metal Gear Solid 3, I've seen monsters savagely rape other monsters in Silent Hill 2, I've seen a family get slaughtered in Max Payne. Like I said, nothing surprises me, so I launched forward into the game expecting to be impressed.

-Spoiler alert-

A soldier you watched develop is put in Russia undercover. His name changes from Joseph to Alexi. . He's standing in an elevator in an airport with a group of armed men, and their leaders says "Remember, No Russian." The elevator opens, the men line up around a metal detector holding their guns in firing position. There's a sea of civilians in for the metal detector. One of your cohorts fires prematurely, and your line opens fire on the innocent people. Your group kills every living thing in the airport terminal, nothing is allowed to live and remember your face. Blood splatters on the walls and the floor and the air as bullets strike the panicking civilians who try fruitlessly to run away. Some security guards try to stop you, but compared to the rifles your group wields, their handguns are nothing. Your cohorts stop by people who are wounded, crawling for a place to hide and execute them in cold blood. Once there is no movement in the airport terminal, your group runs outside to escape, killing as many riot police with grenades as you can, possibly taking down a plane if you choose to take that route. You reach the escape vehicle, are shot by the leader who knew all along you were American, and left for dead so the world can blame your nation for the incident.

This scene has caused a firestorm of reactions. It has been talked about, banned from certain nations, edited in others and protested in most. It was chilling enough to be brought before the United Kingdom's House of Commons. It's easily the biggest maelstrom of reactions to a video game moment since GTA3.

And I'm torn.

Like I said, I'm usually never surprised, but the depiction of this terrorist act rocked me. The complete ruthlessness of it, the fact that you were firing on innocent civilians, the fact that someone thought to put this as an interactive moment of the game really made me uncomfortable. It seemed like no choice was the right one. If you don't fire, then you're watching your cohorts mercilessly murder about 100-150 innocent people as they scream and run from the bullets. If you fire on your cohorts, you blow your cover and sacrifice millions of lives to the ensuing war. If you fire on the civilians, then what does that say about you? It's a real damned if you do, damned if you don't situation.

It's really disturbing, but it also does something for the medium that I think people are unwilling to accept just yet. People hear the term "Video Gaming" and think "children." They don't see gaming in the same light as movies, where anything goes, and it may be because games started really tame. Y'know, pong, et (*shudder*), tetris, stuff like that. Now, Video Games are becoming more epic, more cinematic, more gritty, and attempting to break free of the children association. It's trying to claim the same legitimacy that movies have, where they can do some outlandish things and no one second guesses it.

The scene, which is tough to get through if you're in the general vicinity of a decent person, fully encapsulates the the horrors of war. Think about it, you're undercover for your nation to protect it. You have a choice between blowing that cover and causing the deaths of your compatriots or killing innocent civilians and possibly protecting millions more. What do you do? The game deals with complex issues and moral decisions that soldiers face on the regular in a way that no movie could ever do. It makes you uncomfortable, it makes you evaluate the ethics of war and it makes you more invested in the rest of the story.

Why can't a medium that is able to do this be considered a legitimate medium like movies or visual art? Is it because the word "game" is in the title?

Games like Metal Gear, GoldenEye, Uncharted and Call of Duty have pushed the boundaries of gaming, crossing into the realm of interactive movies and it seems that more games are heading in that direction. As they become more cinematic and art driven, the things done in them will be more and more controversial, especially if we keep viewing them in this childish light. Video Games are growing up. Maybe instead of being angry and banning them, its time to take a step up and let them grow strong.