During our discussion the other day on Crysis 2's ashen New York City in the context of the attack earlier this decade, Modern Warfare 2 and its imagery -- however nonspecific it aims to be -- of a fresher conflict came up. No, the Modern Warfare games are not explicitly "about" nor are they set in the real Iraq and Afghan wars, but to say that absolves them from a relationship to current events gives them too easy a pass. They are a reflection of our times.
Because of its ability to make me think about real soldiers, real foreign combatants and real war, I've never enjoyed the Modern Warfare games' campaigns. Regardless of political stance, to "enjoy" war or think of it as something to "play" is anathema to me. The franchise's success is primarily attributable to its multiplayer, of course, but its spirit isn't something I think can be so easily divorced from it no matter what mode you're playing. Imagery's imagery and association is association.
As the game is apparently quite decisively the "biggest entertainment launch of all time," or so says the Guinness Book of World Records today, the things about it that bother me clearly don't bother an unprecedentedly large portion of the global population. Either that, or it does bother them, and they like to be bothered.
I strongly believe the thing about the Modern Warfare games that nobody ever admits is that they must be for many people -- consciously or subconsciously -- an outlet for common feelings like anxiety about the global environment, or nationalism; in some cases they must be outlets for darker feelings, like revenge fantasies, xenophobia or political supremacy. Frankly, it creeps me out, but not as much as the fact that it's never discussed.
Real-world soldiers must take a very specific psychological approach to a job where they daily know they may end up losing their own lives or needing to end someone else's. They tend to be cavalier or even upbeat about it probably by personal necessity. They are allowed to cheer and fistbump when they blow up a helicopter. Gamers doing that is a different matter to me.
I've added a new poll to the SVGL sidebar: Does Modern Warfare make you uncomfortable, or is it "just a game?
32 comments:
Unless I completely shut down my brain and forgot about the story - Modern Warfare 2 was kinda disturbing. Not because it made me think about real war, but rather because it made me think about some fist-bumping rah rah fantasy version war. The No Russian was a sinkhole of WTF and the idiotic plotline made me wonder if it hadn't been typed by monkeys.
Gruesome depictions of violence deserve more reverence than Infinity Ward was capable of delivering.
I'm not sure that there's enough thought that went into MW2 to be uncomfortable about. Sure, it presents some potentially disturbing scenarios, but it's done with all the dudebro mass market appeal of any Hollywood blockbuster.
I'm not going to waste my time being uncomfortable about garbage like Transformers 2, either, even if it also contains things that are questionable. These are big, dumb products, not artistic statements. I'd rather spend the time on the things that do reward the in depth thought.
Maybe it's because I'm not American and the wars going on in the middle east have little importance and make little sense to me but I can't say it bugs me all that much.
I think some elements of patriotism are involved but obviously not completely as the game still sold well in the UK as well.
I dunno. I think alot of this comes from being American and the larger affect the wars in the middle east have on you.
I find both games to be very good. They are commendable, blockbusterly essays about war and how war sucks, how expendable are soldiers, and etc. Compare them to Crysis and Halo, for example, and they have a more careful message or, actually, at least SOME message to them. Crysis is a souless shooter without any, ANY kind of social commentary whatsoever, just random aliens and koreans on a nameless island and you are the superhero. Same can be said to Halo and it's power fantasy and uncritical plot and setting.
MW are, of course, first and foremost, moneymakers and pretty effective at it.
Also, unfortunately the majority of blockbuster consumers aren't known for approaching what they experience in a critical or even attentive way, so, most of the message is shamefully lost or ignored to the general public.
Leigh,
You appear to be suggesting that the high sales of the MW series are most simply ascribed to its jingoistic overtones.
[T]hey must be for many people -- consciously or subconsciously -- an outlet for common feelings like anxiety about the global environment, or nationalism; in some cases they must be outlets for darker feelings, like revenge fantasies, xenophobia or political supremacy.
I have some skepticism. Does the same logic apply to the Halo Franchise? While the original MW outsold Halo 3(given twice as many platforms), they are both blockbuster shooter franchises about war. Yet any nationalistic subtext in the Halo universe is at least more obscured than in MW.
It would seem that we would either have to suggest that average Halo consumers are subconsciously drawing parallels between the Covenant and real world military conflicts or we would have to discount MW's off-the-charts sales by Halo's lesser, but still astronomical sales.
Also, I find the mission to "defend Burger Town!" in MW2 a very interesting metaphor to what actually is said everytime somebody says "We have to defend America!".
So saying the games represent mindless patriotism is very incorrect in my opinion.
I automatically saw the question as 'Does MW2 represent something uncomfortable?'. That might be because I haven't played the 2nd game, but I have played the first and if I'm allowed to partially extrapolate that experience towards this one, I'm somewhat in agreement with Josh up there.
There's also the question of what patriotism can even mean to a gamer. Does MW2 represent a garbled mess of such? It's either that or swallowing the fact that IW wrapped something nilly-willy around quality play-time and then proceeded to rely upon the success of what many now recognize as the game's main selling point, its multiplayer.
In your defense though, I don't think it's completely off the mark to at least suggest the game standing for ambient patriotism. I just suggest sucking in other examples so that the personally involved don't begin crying about you attacking their game (obscuring a worthwhile dialouge).
Personally though, I'm only interested in how OTHER countries depict America. It's akin to me looking in the mirror. I already know what I look like, what's intriguing is being enriched with what everybody else sees.
I've seen several mentions of U.S. soldiers playing CoD, even while stationed in Iraq. The best ref I could find with a quick search is this. I think if a soldier exposed to the realities of war can see a game like CoD for what it is- an entertainment product in a familiar setting- then I think it's fair that the rest of the public can see that too.
IMHO, the real "Ick Factor" is the fist-bumping behavior from actual, real life, modern warfare.
That's a bloody complicated question since there are so many ways to look at it. I can only speak for myself, so... here goes:
I'm a veteran. I served in Iraq and to me it's impossible to look at the Modern Warfare games and not draw comparisons with the actual Iraq. Speaking in terms of my personal feelings of the games, I would say that I've become more comfortable with them over time. When Modern Warfare was first released, I had just been discharged. Perhaps back then, because the memories and experiences were still fresh in my mind, I was more sensitive to the matter but after the mission "Aftermath" I put the controller down and I haven't touched the game since.
Cut to now, a couple of years after the fact, and I was able to sit through all of Modern Warfare 2 without so much as batting an eyelash. I think part of it had to do with the absurdity of the plot.
In Iraq, I remember playing games like Halo, Call of Duty 2 and the like to unwind. But it wasn't so much an "entertainment" thing as it was theraputic. Before every mission we'd get so amped up and ready for a fight that, when we'd come back without so much as squeezing off a warning shot, we'd go stir crazy. In that respect, these kinds of games served as a sort of necessary outlet to get those feelings of anxiety and stress and aggression out.
And that, honestly, is where I think most of the emotional investment comes in. Sure, you'll have your bigots and nationalists who are living out their fantasies, but for most people who put any emotional investment into those games are using them to alleviate stress brought on by things they can't control.
Oh, and just a quick rebuttal to Bobby A's "Ick Factor" comment: I've seen that video and I completely understand the fist-bumping, light-hearted behavior of those soldiers. When you're in a combat zone, on high-alert almost constantly for prolonged periods of time (remember, a lot of those guys are on their second, third, fourth-plus 12+ month tours), you almost have to be nonchalant about those things, lest you have a complete mental breakdown.
...Christ, I hope that made sense (insomnia is a punk).
@JW Thanks for the point of view, very enlightening. The trigger happy thing makes a lot of sense.
Your feedback on the helicopter vid makes sense too and is very human, but from a joe-shmoe civvy point of view, still... ick
Kids have been playing soldier and army with toy guns for as long as there have been real guns. I don't think anything about MW is distinct from that experience and I think the player motivations and enjoyment are the same.
The poll is a little too clearcut. Of course MW2 is "just a game", but it makes me feel uncomfortable at the same time.
That it makes you uncomfortable is the point.
The themes in the call of duty games don't disgust me as much as they annoy me. The last two come off as too mindless for me to be offended by it.
My biggest issue with the notion that the point of MW2 was to be disturbing is that it may suggest that it was intelligently constructed to provoke emotion.
I can kick someone in the nuts, and it will disturb them - but it isn't exactly quality storytelling.
It might be good fun - especially after a few beers ... but even Hollywood puts out better plots than MW2.
I have nothing useful or insightful to say other than that you've verbalized my own thoughts on realistic military shooters better than I ever could have done myself.
So wait, the Afghan multiplayer map in MW2 isn't set about Afghanistan?. Tricksies!.
These games, to me, are the modern day version of the "cowboys and Indians" and "fighting the Japanese" that we used to do as kids. If it wasn't for this technology and the fact that people are justifiably paranoid about kids running around a neighbourhood with toy guns they'd be fighting the "insurgents and Taliban" from their mud forts.
...and let's face it, kids play em. I had one young fella the other day on XBL barking out orders like he was "playing war". "Toy soldiers", is all it is.
To us, as we get older, the fundamentals of that mind set is still there but we appreciate it more as an interactive movie, or something, but we basically like watching our current actual, or loosely referred to, enemies being blasted to shit.
... or I could be totally full of it too.
I voted on your poll "Yes" and wanted to comment that I am uncomfortable with MW2 and other games like it because I am generally 'ick'd' out by war simulators in general. Maybe it's because I like to play games to escape the images of reality or merely because the incessant gunshot sound effects are obnoxious...
I just know that when the Army showcases a booth at a video game convention like PAX and people stand in line to play something that virtually turns them towards the armed services it seems icky.
Eh, analysis can make you read a lot into situations. A young boy hurts his knee and his mother comforts him so he hugs her. Oedipus complex? Consciously or subconsciously? While it's not only doubtful, it's a very skewed reading of a very innocent situation.
An American guy in his late teens plays MW2 with friends, particularly enjoying the Afghan maps. Xenophobic?
Why should Modern Warfare make me uncomfortable? It really is just a game. Obviously, it draws some of its content from reality, and then completely exaggerates it.
But to argue that this game must either bother you or fulfill your deep-seated desires to actually do the things that are happening on-screen, is to follow pretty closely to the Jack Thompson line of thinking. You know, that when we experience things like video games, we are really exercising for acts that we'll carry out in the real world.
Which isn't to say that I don't feel uncomfortable with the sometimes fairly heavy nationalism that "war" games play around with. But I understand that, more often that not, those things exist more as conventional memes than anything else. They aren't there so much to approve of nationalism, xenophobia, or whatever else, but to create the same atmosphere that war movies have always relied on. It's an atmospheric crutch, not an argument that I should agree or feel the same way.
I played the COD games on the really high difficulty setting, which was dumb because I'm pretty bad at FPSs. I found the constant death combined with the stress of trying to stay alive left me feeling drained and sick. The annoying quotes on the death screen just rubbed it in even more. You really get a sense of how inane war is, I found it pretty powerful.
Man, I felt uncomfortable about the Iron Man movie for basically the same reason. Low jingo tolerance I guess.
I may be, you know, completely off about it, but I had a much different take on MW2's plot than most people did. I saw it as an excellent warning against preemptive strike warfare and the futility of revenge.
http://gammelier.wordpress.com/2009/12/17/of-their-own-accord/
Sure, it resulted in a bombastic war on our home front, and the message was carried out through kiwi fist-bumps, airport shootings, and gross leaps of logic, but never discount the validity of pop-culture.
Works like Conan the Barbarian were one man's cry against modern civilization, as was the Stepford Wive's denunciation of a male-centric society.
They're not shining beacons of art, but they still have a message.
It's just a game to me, just like any other Grand Theft Auto, any Gran Turismo, any Street Fighter. Once the power's off, that's me finished with it and all ties severed.
I can't shoot a gun, I can't beat people up, I can't drive a car (not yet anyway). I play the games of them because it allows me to do stuff I can't do in real life. It's why I stopped playing Guitar Hero: because I learned how to play the guitar for real and the satisfaction of learning a song for real far outweighs any score that a screen tells me I got.
Anyway, I digress. I guess not a lot of people that bought Modern Warfare 2 would put too much thought into it (mainly because the vast majority probably only bought it for the multiplayer), but for as messed up as the plot was - seriously, one minute a guy's in Afghanistan and less than 12 hours later he's one of the most trusted people in a terrorist cell? WTF - the HOLY SHIT factor just kinda made it a bit unbelievable for me. And not exactly in a good sense. Now fon't get me wrong, I love me some boom-boom-pow explosions and blowing shit up, but when there's no tangible meaning behind WHY I'm doing it (because of the plotholes and instant-retcons) then the whole experience just kinda gets lost on me. I'd rather play some "shoot anything that moves" Doom than be forced through a story that makes more sense than the Chewbacca Defence.
Full disclosure - I have yet to play MW2, so I am at least partially ignorant of its storyline. My comment will deal specifically with portraying war in video games.
I truly believe that video games are, if not already there, right on the threshold of become true works of art and social commentary on par with television and film. In that sort of medium, you MUST tell a gripping story in order to keep fans interested enough to see the story through.
As I said, I have not played MW2, but I did play the first MW. Its story was pretty good, but the problem I noticed was that I had a hard time truly engaging or connecting with any of the characters in a meaningful way. And I think that's because in video games, a premium is placed on the action over the story.
And for that reason, I have begun to share some of your concerns with the fps genre in particular. Gamers want a fast-paced action thrill-ride, which necessarily means less character and plot development. And when there is less character and plot development, there is much less room for social commentary.
I think the best fps game/series I've seen in a long time in terms of story is the Halo trilogy (disclosure - I also haven't played any of Half-Life, which I hear is very good in this regard). Within the action, Bungie managed to develop a story that hit on themes of religious oppression, power-hungry leaders, prejudice, camaraderie, and ultimately unity.
I know that the first MW game didn't really touch any of those themes for me in a meaningful way, and I doubt that MW2 does, either. So if the question is, "What does it say about gamers who revel in a graphic action shooter that is devoid of any sort of meaningful message?", I think the answer is, "Nothing good…"
If MW2 makes you uncomfortable, I really wonder what you would think of Arma II.A game were you spend literally(yeah, really) hours running around trying to shoot people (and most of the time failing) in the most realistic way possible.
im not sure im with you on that one, leigh, especially the "imagery is imagery" part, as if there was no way around acknowledgingly facing the atrocities of a very specific war of our time when looking at or playing one of the modern warfare games. (i also only played the first one - but then, some of its sequels points were quite impossible to overlook even from a distance)
no, id wager that it is absolutely possible (maybe not for everyone, and probably very especially not when you have served in iraq or afghanistan) to just see it as a setting for an entertainment thrillride. how comes no-one discussed those psychological backward reasonings with the ww2 call of duties? was everyone who played those a secret avenging angel? how about vietnam settings and the conclusions we could draw from that?
while ww2 most likely is something the average gamer has an abstract relation to, most of them dont know more of modern war than tv imagery either. so, its a topic of discussion, too, but still - that doesnt force the player to silent approval of war, this special war, some of the very questionable motives in discussion or anything.
just think of the debate about that "rassistic" imagery in resident evil. the argument was exactly the same - that you could not, under any circumstances, deny what is seemingly written in stone when a military clothed white man kills black men in a video game. nothing else does matter because racism trumps and you cant play re5 without secretly acknowledging racist ideologies. like, yeah.
what were doing when playing a game is sitting in front of a very hightech campfire and listen to a story (sometimes more, sometimes less, but some kind of narrative is there, lest we are talking about competitive play). whether the story tells us something for or lives depends on the story, but through enjoying a story, we dont automatically subscribe every questionable point of debate thats tied to its setting, fictional, nonfictional, or so-close-as-to-not-having-any-deniability-about-it-at-all.
Another Iraq Vet here (NOV03-NOV04 specifically, mostly in Mosul and Tal Afar with some side trips to Al Anbar and Baghdad), and I think that to simply characterize enjoyment of violent imagery as jingoistic and simplistic and therefore icky is itself a bit simplistic.
There's a quote attributed to General Robert Lee during the Civil War that's been used multiple times for the death screens in the CoD series. The exact form of the quote varies, but supposedly Robert E. Lee was watching his artillery and massed infantry fires break a Union charge and his infantry move out on the counterattack when he said "It's well that war is so terrible, else we should grow too fond of it".
He was watching the crude butchery of dozens or hundreds of men. Seeing musket balls and cannon shot dismember and cripple and maim. He was also watching all his hard work with his subordinate commanders, all his men's training, and his own plans for the battle come to fruition. He was watching a victory and a tragedy at the same time.
There's a reason that humanity has a tendency to "grow so fond" of war. There's exhilaration and triumph and glamor and all manner of positive emotions associated very, very intensely with the experiences of wartime. Winston Churchill commented on another aspect of it: "There is nothing more exhilarating than to be shot at without result."
Now, I think that Modern Warfare and many other games don't do a good job of balancing these two conflicting sets of feelings, but it's a mistake to frame things in terms of "this is glorifying war too much, we need to make this less attractive to be responsible citizens". I think that MW2 screwed up in many ways, but as stupidly clumsy as "No Russian" is it can be used in a good way: as a precedent for future developers.
So, anyone out there reading this who's working on a FPS or mods for FPSes: If Infinity Ward can put kill-able civilians in their FPS, so can you. And since they did it in a very clumsy and incomplete way (notice that there were no American civilians all through the Ranger campaign in MW2?) you now have a chance to say that in at least one respect you are a better designer of First-Person Shooters than the team at IW.
Spoilers ahead... but who cares.
Brer makes a great point about the lack of civilians in the Army Ranger missions. I played through the campaign missions twice in MW2, not because of completion or anything: I was showing a friend who didn't get the game the story of the campaign. He isn't the kind of person to play multiplayer FPSs, so he had no real interest in picking it up. The first time I played through No Russian, it took me about halfway through the massacre (where I walked along not shooting) to turn my weapons on the NPCs I was supposed to be helping. I was quite annoyed that the game doesn't even give you the cathartic pleasure of defeating the monster here, but instead has them all turn on you, invincible as they are, and murder you, which if you waited a while, would happen anyway.
The writing in the game leaves much to be desired. The telling of a good story has to actually give the player good reason to suspect a twist, or it becomes a "shocking swerve" to use a term from TVTropes. Even though something felt off about the General right at the beginning, I was rather annoyed that IW decided to again deny me the satisfaction of going after the guy they built you up to hate the whole time. Honestly though, what annoyed me the most was the Russians in the game. Somehow, they apparently resurrected Stalin and pulled a Red Dawn-esque invasion of the US off. Modern Warfare the first was compelling, creating an image of tragedy and hope as it built to a rather cold and vicious conclusion, going over the top with its ideas just enough to work. MW2 threw the idea of restraint out the window, and while it made for a fun action experience at times, it also may have tried a bit too hard to disturb or excite the audience.
In closing though, I would like to point out the part of the game that disturbed me the most. No, it wasn't No Russian, that made me angry at what seems like a plot hole that the stage has. What disturbed me was a scene in the second to last mission, as you rappel down a cliff, you drop onto an unsuspecting soldier, pulling him up and stabbing him, as you look into his eyes and watch him die. It is perhaps a bit scary to think about the fact that I could keep playing after that.
It's interesting how your choice of wording influenced the way I voted. Had you presented a yes/no choice, I might have chosen yes, but you went with yes/nah, and I had to choose nah.
Because "Nah" summarizes my feelings on Modern Warfare 2 pretty well.
I'm "only" (ha!) 28 at this point, but I grew up reading Asimov/Heinlen era SF, which was originally published before my time, back when the idea was you could explore any crazy/stupid/tasteless idea you wanted in speculative fiction provided you executed it with some finesse. This gave us, for example, Heinlen exploring the idea of what sex means in a future where it's entirely divorced from the context of reproduction and health risks by writing about the technologically-made immortal man Lazarus Long having a "healthy" (within the context of the fiction) polygamous relationship with a bunch of women who include among their number his own mother and daughters. ("Hey, stripped of outside context it's just really fun aerobics, right?")
Looking back, it's, uh, ick, but at the time it just felt like intellectual exploration of far-out concepts. And I'm pretty sure Heinlen wasn't trying to be icky. He was just trying to explore ideas.
So No Russian doesn't bother me as a concept.
But it was executed without any finesse. I think you could write an interesting scenario involving an American CIA agent protagonist infiltrating a Russian terrorist cell who shoot up a public airport to incite warmongering in public opinion, but if the payoff is Red Dawn, it doesn't work.
The whole game is like that, just scene after scene that seems cool on its own but becomes ridiculous within the larger context.
As for war games in general, I used to feel really uncomfortable about them, but then I read that article on... was it Kotaku..? about/by (I forget) a Jewish man who'd been haunted all his life by repeating nightmares of being hunted down by Nazis, and who got over them by playing a WWII Call of Duty game where the Nazis were, in essence, non-threatening targets to be mowed down. I thought that was kind of neat, and it made me reconsider possible reasons society might want to memorialize WWII by making video games of it.
Playing these kind of war games is not an outlet for xenophobia, nationalism or jingoism etc. It just isn't. It's a way to have fun, and shoot some guys online, in a more realistic setting than fragging people with a rocket launcher in Quake, which is more appealing to a lot of people.
I haven't played MW2 though i've seen some matches, but I used to play a lot of Battlefield 2. Most people there were in it for the added challenge that came with more realistic portrayals of gun physics, infantry movement and so on, as well as the team play which was a big part and a lot of the fun for me.
Sure you would get the guys on the forums who would obsess over the weapons and vehicles, but I think that's more of a geeky hardware thing rather than displaying the want to kill someone in real life or whatever.
I'm not a fan of military shooters, but I picked up MW2 recently to give it a shot and because I wanted to write a comparison between Japanese and American games about war.
I'll save my opinions for that, but here's something that happens to me all the time in MW2; every time I chance across an enemy that isn't capable of returning fire, like someone wounded, I always hesitate. Do I kill him? Do I let him go?
The one mission that informed my decisions on this issue happened early on in Rio De Janeiro. It has a dog suddenly lunging at you, blocked by a chain-link fence, and I ignored it initially because I like dogs and I assumed that the fence was enough to keep it away. Ten seconds later, the mutt was at my throat.
That's the bit that unnerves me most about the game; it teaches you that anything that poses even the -slightest- threat has to be utterly destroyed. I didn't feel anything during the No Russian mission simply because it was a farce to begin with, but in every one of those moments where I came across an enemy soldier that was unable to retaliate, I would hesitate.
And then I would knife them, because that's what the game taught me to do. To me, that's far more disturbing than any chest-thumping jingoism or threat of nuclear war the game ultimately proposes.
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