Posts Tagged: violence

Game Design — 8 Comments
23
Jul 10

Lay down your guns

Sculpture at the United Nations building, New York. Original image by freshwater2006 on Flickr.

I love violent games.

I love shooting. I heart punching. I make “brrrm!” noises when I move tanks around, and cackle gleefully when I make those tanks demolish other tanks or buildings. Who cheers for war? I cheer for war.

If it’s done well.

Luckily, violence is one of the easiest things to simulate in a videogame. People both inside and outside the culture of games wonder whether the popularity of realistic warfare simulators is a sign that today’s youth are becoming brutalised (as though people haven’t always been fascinated by war), but sit Jack Thompson, Michael Atkinson, Hillary Clinton and Joseph Liberman down in a Basic Game Programming 101 class and I guarantee you they will all start by making a 2D shooter (if they think nobody is watching). Continue reading →

Culture — 7 Comments
16
Nov 09

Modern Warfare’s hollow victory

modern-warfare2

Two years ago, I was first in line to praise the mature sentiment of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. Things have changed.

(The following contains strong spoilers for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.)

Almost two years ago, I wrote in praise of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare.

The game was, I suggested, about as close to an anti-war first-person shooter a videogame could get. Despite its surface of gung-ho militarism, there was a definite undercurrent of thoughtfulness.

Modern Warfare illustrated clear motivations for terrorists. It was hardly a simple case of ‘us versus them’. Things were difficult, things were complex. Our modern lexicon of images relating to the War on Terrorism was invoked, and twisted into a clever alternate meaning. War, said Modern Warfare, is not good. War, said Infinity Ward, is never good.

And despite the consequence-less appeal of multiplayer, and the cries of Infinity Ward wanting to have their non-violent cake and eat their violent fun too, I was able to argue that Modern Warfare held deeper meaning. In short, I was able to reconcile myself with the game; I was able to accept the images presented on the assumption that a greater and more important point lay underneath.

I am unable to do this with Modern Warfare 2. Continue reading →