Buying Medal of Honor is “Un-British”
While we certainly expect FOX News to lose its limited amount of marbles at the fact you can play as Taliban soldiers, it came as a tiny surprise to see UK Defence Secretary Liam Fox MP speak out about EA’s new ‘Medal of Honor’ game, berating it for allowing players to play as Taliban insurgents to kill a variety of Allied Troops “at all costs”.
The plot is quite clearly lost, and shows he has little knowledge of the game by twisting it to the point it makes it sound as if the game is about playing as the Taliban. “It’s shocking that someone would think it acceptable to recreate the acts of the Taliban,” said Fox.
“I am disgusted and angry. It’s hard to believe any citizen of our country would wish to buy such a thoroughly un-British game. I would urge retailers to show their support for our armed forces and ban this tasteless product.”
For EA any press is good press in promotion, even if it is damning. However as a gamer and supporter of our troops and allies, buy and completing Medal of Honour could make a lot of people more aware to what ‘our boys and girls’ were and are facing. Though it is likely to be scripted upon imaginary scenarios, the ‘experience’ would likely give those at home a taste of what they face, but with the fact it’s not game for them – it’s real.
EA have responded though by saying, “The format of the new Medal of Honour game merely reflects the fact that every conflict has two sides…We give gamers the opportunity to play both sides. Most of us have been doing this since we were seven: someone plays the cop, someone must be robber. In Medal of Honour multiplayer, someone’s got to be the Taliban.”
This harks back to the controversy surrounding Atomic Games’ ‘Six days in Fallujah’ which sees you play as virtual representations of actual soldiers who took part in that event from the living and the dead, in what was a product viewed by the gaming community as a controversial game intended to honour those involved.
Hopefully retailers will see sense, but it is most likely that anyone above 40, or has lost a respected soldier and family member in any conflict will jump on the ‘Ban this sick filth’ bandwagon.
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http://www.economania.co.uk David Ricardo
