Does Call of Duty Believe in Anything?

[@JacobGeller]

Hey folks, KZbin has demonetized this video based on "content not being suitable for advertisers." If you enjoyed this video and want to support more like it, I'd love for you to support me on Patreon. I'll even be releasing a full-length video director's commentary there with everything I couldn't fit in.

[@bb2fiddler]

Can't exactly blame youtube... No one wants their product associated with content like this. Nonetheless, this video was a real eye-opener, eloquent and thought-provoking as always.

[@gentlemanscarecrow5987]

Huh, do they allow monetization of other videos containing footage captured from the same game?

[@crackedemerald4930]

Of course it isn't suitable for advertisers, if the message sold, they wouldn't have called it apolitical.

[@arke7248]

That was expecting, great video!!!

[@justacupomacaroni6387]

Not surprised. I hope you get double the income from this one, brilliant work.

[@sethx9659]

"If there had come a point in the game where Captain Price made the decision to use chemical weapons against the enemy, the game would have framed it as a tough choice, but we need people who can make tough choices to protect our freedom." Fun fact, that's exactly what he did in Modern Warfare 3. He gases a man for information, then kills him when he gets the information.

[@scav3167]

You also use chemical weapons at the start of the game, white phosphorous.

[@Kriegter]

look familiar?

[@noahert1337]

You do realize killing a terrorist is COMPLETLY different from helping a terrorist steal weapons to kill civilians right? One is Price, the other is Hadir. >_>

[@spartan20005]

​At one point during the story of the new Modern Warfare game, Marines fire rockets from attack helicopters and the cannon of a Bradley into a hospital filled with people and it's not even remarked upon. A frightening and chilling reference to Kunduz that I don't even think the developers intended

[@massengsle8779]

And he launched a nuclear weapon at the USA to ensure victory during the battle of Washington DC.

[@PanEtRosa]

I'm surprised you didn't talk about how in their "neutrality", Middle Eastern countries have to be euphemized to avoid the appearance of politics but the UK gets to retain its identity.

[@a.n.l.aantineoliberalismas4504]

The UK and America and Russia gets to keep their identity but not a Middle Eastern country has to get changed to avoid controversy

[@SaidMetiche-qy9hb]

@@a.n.l.aantineoliberalismas4504 USA funded ISIS, bet you will never see that in a game, or in real life. Same for the real history of this country, 9/11, other false flag attacks and religious debates.

[@SuperMarkHere]

Brutal truth that they don’t want to be linked to anything extreme coming out of that part of the world, in the sense that they would have “provoked” anything that could happen. Not that bad things and actors don’t come out of the USA UK or Russia but that is what it is

[@SaidMetiche-qy9hb]

@@SuperMarkHere Yeah in these games you're always the savior, the good guy

[@nightlyterror]

It’s because, let’s face it, to americans, the “Middle East” is a fictional orient/monolith with no real ethnic or geographic borders.

[@bartimaeusofuruk9681]

For some people, apolitical = in line with their worldview And they don't even realize it.

[@pluebaw3364]

Well we human is a political animal

[@Desi-qw9fc]

This is true for basically anyone who hasn’t examined their own political position.

[@lilwest1999]

@@Desi-qw9fc You hit the nail on the fucking head.

[@sword_of_damocle5]

powerful ideology is often invisible

[@TheNobleFive]

That's all I and a lot of other people wanted out of this game.

[@josephsmith2682]

Rewatching this, and I realized that MW actually displays torture as working perfectly, when in reality torture is an extremely unreliable way of getting information

[@guilhermegabrielmelodafons359]

Mw franchise and the whole cod franchise always done that

[@ryanoneal8480]

What could possibly be political about torture?

[@Dr.Nightmayor]

well, you get information. whether or not it's reliable is debatable. i mean, you can also learn a lot from a lie, as well. sh.t. this topic gets convoluted, quickly.

[@ryanoneal8480]

@@Dr.Nightmayor it's not debatable. There has never been a terror attack stopped by torture. If torture worked the cia would be screaming it from the rooftops. There is no grey area here.

[@Ghanemq8]

@@Dr.Nightmayor You're missing the point

[@angelfoto4795]

The games is not political, that's why we made sponsoship agreements with the U.S Army Esports and its recruitment technics.

[@TahtahmesDiary]

🙌🏾🙌🏾🙌🏾

[@GeusGames]

@@Battle_One Supporting the status quo is definitely not apolitical, tho.

[@TheManinBlack9054]

Supporting US Army is not political tho, it's just normal. If they've supported Chinese military then that would have been another story.

[@GeusGames]

@@TheManinBlack9054 Are you serious?

[@angelfoto4795]

@@TheManinBlack9054 "Militarism is only bad when is do by people I don't like" Militarism and policing sucks, in the USA, in Europe, in China and everywhere and they defend the same institutions. I'm sick of this cold war and chauvinist (and xenofobus) of "free world vs the baddies" when in reality both collaborate with each other and provide feedback to each other. Both represent the two sides of the same coin.

[@icky46111]

When you play a game like this with a story like this, it is inherently political. They were just using market-speak to appeal to their demographic. A real apolitical game is Pong.

[@jvukovic4]

Pong is inherently a political game bro

[@suhasop4919]

@@jvukovic4 how

[@jvukovic4]

@@suhasop4919 there's plenty of angles you can take with this. Pong was one of the first games to get sued for patent infringement, as it was taking heavy inspiration from Magnavox Odyssey. The ensuing legal battle is certainly political, as Pong's message is trying to discern the line from where inspiration stops and stealing begins. If you want to analyze pong the game itself, their is plenty in the game to analyze. The fact that Pong is a 1 on 1 game, and that for every game only 50% of your players will win at any given point, Pong is fine with having people lose, in the name of sportsmanship. Anybody who says games aren't political is just a big dumb dumb

[@suhasop4919]

@@jvukovic4 woah

[@suhasop4919]

@@jvukovic4 that last line is true

[@davidbondy2250]

COD's developers: this game isn't political Also COD's developers during the same interview: this game deals with themes like imperialism

[@cam4636]

"I don't understand why you're telling me I don't have cake anymore just because I ate it already. It seems insane to me that I can't have my cake and eat it too."

[@fish_birb]

They're also being too much of a wuss to portray the _real_ capital I Imperialism which has done way more harm for the rest of the world compared to their fictional one - their own country (US)'s imperialism.

[@aristoddle7947]

@@JakeznkBait comment

[@tr0ubleM4ker111]

@@Jakeznk cry about what

[@Storse]

​@@Jakeznkhow does that boot taste, bud?

[@drakeafletcher]

“Disco Elysium isn’t about real life so it’s not political” is quite a take

[@marcfyre]

The exact game that popped into my mind all throughout this video - more specifically, almost everything to do with the Krenel Mercenaries.

[@Geothesponge111]

"Say one of these fascist or communist things, or fuck off"

[@memeweirdguyn.0019]

Whenever I hear that take being said not sarcastically, the words "My brother in The Pale, *everything is political in Disco Elysium* " come to my mouth naturally

[@AD-dg3zz]

I guess we'll just chuck out all works of fiction ever. 1984 certainly wasn't political since it wasn't depicting the real world, right?

[@XRXaholic]

Is this game political? *Performs extrajudicial murder of a civilian in a war zone* No.

[@SimianEncounter]

'WE DRAW THE LINE WHEREVER WE NEED IT'

[@simon9978h]

Is this game political? *Actively propagates and encourages the continued use of immoral war practice* No.

[@evanhuffman520]

Simon Yeeter lol ‘propagate’ ’encourage’. Need me to hold your narrative so you can think unabated?

[@thevoicej2511]

XRXaholic okay, hold up a second. Please name the political party that is in favour of extrajudicial murders?

[@SaidMetiche-qy9hb]

Well TBF, in MW2 you mow down a whole crowd of civilians

[@razbuten]

I'll take 5 politics, please.

[@ReallyRoland701]

What is this, a crossover episode?

[@livelife4928]

Nice to see you here.

[@livelife4928]

Waiting for your vid

[@ImTyMac]

Would you like some fries with that?

[@HxH2011DRA]

Who the hell ordered all this politics & anime titty?!

[@SirHarryDave]

Ah yes, the secret technique of turning your head a little while being waterboarded. Checkmate torture.

[@DankSpoony]

"Damn you're good" says the torturer to the tortured

[@SeaSerpentLevi]

he he he heh you're good

[@nefnef7474bepis]

i would simply drink all of the water

[@diegorincon4673]

@@nefnef7474bepis slurp slurp Mmmmm

[@deemwinch]

@@nefnef7474bepis genius

[@0The_Farlander0]

I admire their commitment to their cowardice. It takes real guts to not stand for anything, and even more to obviously have an opinion and direction and lie about it.

[@DIGITALGH05T]

reminds me of that quote, "I know authors who use subtext and they're all cowards!"

[@lad7436]

It's call of duty you clown.

[@TimmyStreams]

@@DIGITALGH05T GARTH MARENGHI!

[@imChabs]

Either they are lying to try and mitigate, or they truly do believe that. I find the latter far worse.

[@kwarra-an]

This sounds like a line from Catch-22

[@ryanmielcarek8420]

As a veteran I completely agree with your assessment. I've seen plenty of soldiers feel the way activision and other military based games have portrayed them. As heroes who if needed will do what the others can not. What the sheep can not. Honestly this whole mindset comes down to the whole "killology" by Grossman. It was sick to see the mindset of some people in my unit.

[@solknuckles2408]

Every time I've heard someone talk about why they want to enlist, it's either because they feel like higher education is too hard and the work force isn't for them + health benefits... Which is fair. The other reason being a disturbing enthusiasm to kill people. The idea that because you kill people in the rival army, that you are a hero no matter what.

[@ryanmielcarek8420]

@@solknuckles2408 exactly, it was honestly disturbing. Granted, I am sure most of them just say it to sound cool or they think it makes them some special breed of "warrior" but, a lot of them repeat this "badass" notation over and over again in their heads. I saw people reenlist because they didnt want people to see them as a civilian, but as a "warrior" they wanted to keep posting cringy military posts and angrily look at people with their gruntstyle attire. Which now in my home town is sold at the local gunshop so everyone wears those things here.

[@saudade7842]

@@solknuckles2408 Yeah, some other reasons i've heard is they want to live up to someone's legacy or they want some form of purpose in their lives. I'll admit, if I thought a war was just then I might try to join the US airborne for no other reason than my grandfather was a paratrooper during WW2.

[@radiolicker]

I enlisted with the typical mindset of wanting to serve and that the potentiality of going to war was part of that process. I'm about two years into my contract with my unit and I will say I still feel like I'm preforming a duty but as far as the concept of going to war has changed for me. I'd gladly go and take up arms but almost solely for the men I serve with. I have made amazing friends in my time in and would do everything in my power to protect them as I know they would also do for me. I've never been comfortable with the idea of war being fun and that killing the enemy is the sole objective and is badass. It sits wrong in my gut.

[@wasd____]

This is why I quit the military (by which I mean I didn't reenlist, you obv can't just "quit"). These people are toxic, backward, and disgusting, and as such they made the environment as a whole reflect the same sickness. I had to decide what kind of people I was gonna spend the next 20 years around, and it was NOT gonna be people like them.

[@mr.antaeus5730]

"I can't shoot Captain Price, but I can shoot this baby" Damn..

[@harbl99]

That moment when COD is more hardcore about throwing player choices back into their face than Spec Ops: The Line.

[@Slackerz]

To be fair Price is required to continue the story, the baby is not.

[@DIGITALGH05T]

@@harbl99 is it? spec ops the line definitely hit harder for me

[@oddacity5883]

harbl99 Not really, Spec Ops kinda just either rolls with your murdering of civies while COD just outright halts the level when you kill a civvie. MW is a little softer than Spec Ops, the punches don’t hit as hard imo

[@FelonyArson]

What if the game had an alternative ending, in wich you shoot Captain Price and then you have to justify your action in front of a military court. The message could be, that the US sees you as a traitor for going against US soldiers, even if its the right thing to do

[@rajshekhar4083]

Thought this was clickbait - turns out its a Ph.D. thesis on the philosophy of COD ...say what you will, this man does his research

[@iandonahue8280]

Legit one of the best commentary on current military situation

[@JaydevRaol]

Agree!

[@abecat]

Better than a PhD thesis because it does not spend 25 pages explaining how his theory works in the context of [insert philosopher you have to pay your dues to here]

[@sophiasavellos9324]

I know I’m late to the party here, but Jacob’s conclusion as to what CoD actually believes in reminds me strongly of the conclusion that Shaun came to regarding the politics of the Harry Potter series: there are no good or bad actions. There are only good and bad teams. If the bad team does something heinous, it’s simply because they’re The Bad Guys. If the good team does something heinous, it’s actually fine, because, well, they’re The Good Guys. Actions do not determine the goodness or badness of a particular group or individual; instead, the goodness or badness of the *action* is determined by whether it was committed by The Good Guys or The Bad Guys.

[@hexlart8481]

Ultimately the politics of CoD and the politics of HP come from the same place, roughly. A glorification of the status quo. A status quo that in Harry Potter must be understood as flawed but never allowed to change, and in CoD must be spread to the entire world so everyone can enjoy our glorious status quo.

[@alexisborden3191]

I know this is a bit later, but I wanted to add on. I do agree with you completely, because I think making it all about teams or ends is foolish. But I think people sometimes go too far the otherway and try and both sides things. But also they sometimes treat a tactic as an end. I'm reminded of dumbass rightwingers trying to equate autonomy for abortion, and autonomy for vaccination. Which is a silly position to take because they're always virtue signalling, they want to restrict abortion and only present this expression as a gotcha. equating them gives them one situation they hate, whether its abortion or vaccination. Because in a way they already recognize that there's a difference because they themselves hold these 2 paired positons of anti-abortion and anti-vaccination. They don't believe them to be contradictory, but will claim the inverse of each to be contradictory. In this example, healthcare laws are a tactic for advancing a position. It could be said of protesting and J6 vs BLM. I think some people are forgetting to examine underlying ideologies.

[@JMarchel]

This comment gave me absolute CHILLS. Love both KZbin creators but I would've never drawn this connection on my own.

[@realkraid]

There's only one line of analysis that gives consistently objective and correct results on the national and international level, and it's class analysis. Trying to apply individual morality to corporate (in the sense of large, organized groups of people) actions is like trying to survey a landscape with a only a meter stick; you not only won't end up with the correct answer, you won't even get as far as getting any answer at all unless you cheat and skip steps

[@NulixFTW]

who is Shaun!? Would love to watch

[@carterburkhart4336]

The game gives a no no to chemical warfare, but in the first mission you call in white phosphorus.

[@JacobGeller]

holy shit I didn't even think of this

[@lorddiethorn]

Spec ops is not a good war game it’s not という本

[@CallyMayz]

The Spec Ops white phosphorous scene breaks as soon as you try to not follow the game's railroad. The game burns those civilians to death then blames you for it. I was actually kinda hit hard by it up until the shoehorned "oh no you killed civilians because we made you you're bad" completely ignoring the harm I did to all the enemies before these civilians. If anything what I did to them was less horrific, they were apparently instantly vaporized unlike the soldiers still screaming in pain as they burn alive 10 metres behind me.

[@cheesypoohalo]

@@Mortablunt 'Spec Ops made YOU deciding to use the chemical weapons' You lost me already. The player doesn't decide to use the weapon, when I played the game I looked through the scope and saw the crowd of civilians so I decided to try something else, but there is no other option. The game forces you to kill those civilians if you want to keep playing the game, which is not a choice and shouldn't be seen as one.

[@jaycehfilms8741]

@@cheesypoohalo you have an option, which is stopping to play. according to some old print article i remember reading on it, this is the actual choice the devs are on about. the player continuing to interact with the software despite doing horrible things? you dont want to get called a monster? stop playing. you dont want to commit crimes against humanity? stop playing.

[@jonskowitz]

"In a country that is totally not Syria..." I guess what bothers me is that intelligence is always right and the ends are always justifiable and never mistaken.

[@fuzzydunlop7928]

Meanwhile, in the real world - everyone in the unit is pissed off because the LT's lost in land nav again and everyone oscillates between having the shits and being constipated - some poor bastards seem to be both at once, to the doc's utter fascination and bewilderment. He considers it some sort of medical miracle, nobody shares his enthusiasm. Everyone smokes cigarettes or chews tobacco now because it's so goddamn cheap you can't afford NOT to smoke or dip, so everyone is spitting up vileness all over the place. Back hurts. Little to no sleep. Wife fucked fives guys while you were away and you're now afraid of fireworks. But yes the antics of Captain Price and his merry band of extrajudicial tacti-cool operators with a capital O are the center of attention, all of the resources and intel in the world and literally NONE of the restrictions - which I can only surmise to the devs means all of the fun. Why let a pesky little thing like ROE get in the way of a perfectly healthy war? They're not ingratiating themselves to the boys already in uniform, because their mission is to put more boys in uniforms in the first place.

[@anessenator]

@@fuzzydunlop7928 "They're not ingratiating themselves to the boys already in uniform, because their mission is to put more boys in uniforms in the first place." This is important. Games and movies functioning as recruitment tools. The Pentagon even offering up conditional support to developers and movie makers.

[@PancakemonsterFO4]

@@anessenator blackwater even put out their own game to clean their message and win over more potential mercenaries

[@PancakemonsterFO4]

@Chewbacca yeah, and it's awful

[@J1mmymadeit]

the irony of a Ellie Wiesel quote and a Chris Kyle quote together is insane

[@safe-keeper1042]

Also true. CoD using quotes like that just comes across as insincere. "Look at us trying to be all deep and wise and shit!"

[@bogmanhimself4656]

they couldn't have had more cognitive dissonance if they had paired a quote from jesus christ and a roman centurion

[@joshuadehler5039]

It's called different perspectives guys

[@BookwormCowboy]

@@joshuadehler5039 a little more that that bud

[@samt3412]

@@bogmanhimself4656 unless it's that one centurion in Acts that got converted, then yes

[@darthbob88]

1:57 A thing that strikes me about these "morally grey, no good or evil" stories is that they almost never justify the other side. They'll say that Captain Price made the hard decision to nuke DC, or threaten to kill a man's family, but never say that the terrorists or the Russians had a good reason for vaporizing a little girl. What they mean is that there is a pure evil, but that our side cannot be pure good, which is very troubling.

[@Roler42]

What's funny is that during the original Modern Warfare trilogy, the motivation for the Ultra-Nationalist Russians is only said in passing: The world is getting westernized, Russia itself and the middle eastern country in the first game are colluding too much with the US, and thus... It's time to take the guns and maintain their own status quo. AKA communism. Modern Warfare 1 nukes an entire city, Modern Warfare 2 bloodies an airport and burns DC to the ground, and Modern Warfare 3 reduces Europe to ashes... Because one Russian wants to take over the world...

[@baneofbanes]

@@Roler42 geez it’s almost like that’s the motivation for a bunch of armed groups and dictators or something. Hell there’s an ongoing war involving Russia and Ukraine precisely because of that.

[@raulfernandez57]

So instead of grey vs gray, it's black vs grey in this game eh? It's kinda ironic since apparently Barkov is "willing to go all way" to protect Mother Russia from terrorism too: including imprisonment and torture... Plus, now that you and the comment above me mention it: there is also something that strikes me about "realistic war games". Not because they have to be unrealistic, but because they ignore (or want to ignore) the real causes for war and only focus on the realism of combat. Think about it. Who is Al-Qatala? A bunch of Anti-Western terrorists who also happen to fight Russia. Who is Russia, besides a country that is against NATO and the U.S? (And just in case: no, they only disowned Barkov at most after his death). And the Urzikstani Liberation Force? That insider group in Urzikstan that we have to lend support to because they fight Al-Qatala and the Russian Army. *That's it*. Weren't they Islamists, didn't they want to win and then impose their own version of Islam on Urzikstan like the Al-Qaeda group they so fucking obviously rip their name off of? Doesn't the Russian government have it's own imperialist interests in the country, like in real life with Syria? Doesn't the U.S and British government has their own, for that matter? How did they gain their support inside the country? It even does the same dehumanization to the U.S and British soldiers, for fuck's sake. Who are we, U.S and British military, if not a force for good who supports democracy because our enemies don't? That's it, just tools of warfare. A role you're supposed to fulfill. It really seems *it's just these soldiers* who wanted to join war, isn't it? Hopefully it's just me, but I'm amazed CoD decided to portray the story of two victims of war, even if only to justify their revenge later. Again, hopefully I'm wrong about that. Is there anyone who started the Urzikstani Civil War first? Did the British Parliament and the U.S Congress give any permission to assist the Urzik Militia? Are you even sure that when the Urzik Militia win, they ain't gonna turn against the U.S and the British agencies, whatever the reason you think it may be?

[@darthbob88]

@@raulfernandez57 Yeah, Jacob kinda touches on that with his disbelief at claiming any art can be non-political, but it's especially bad for a war story, since "war is the continuation of politics by other means". It's all political.

[@sadpee7710]

they are saying "our" side is pure good. "morally grey" is a euphemism for controversy. when you're the right person, the wrong thing to do is the right thing to do. this is the contrast they call "morally grey". it's just the good guy doing bad things for good reasons. it's ultimately framed as good but it's "dirty" good. morally grey heroes are "heroes that get their gloves dirty" as they put it. but everything they do is framed as 100% good.

[@paperbackwriter1111]

I had an exam on political theory and one task was that I had to write a page about an example of how the culture industry might negatively impact democracy and this video popped in my head, so I wrote about Call of Duty as an example of the popular image of „the troops“ and basically a generation uninformed voters on the subject sprouting from its teenage playerbase. Got an A, so thanks!

[@JacobGeller]

Hell yeah!

[@jiib7770]

So you openly admit to plagiarism? Lol jk

[@paperbackwriter1111]

@@jiib7770 nah, I think I even cited the video.

[@SmashingCapital]

Whats culture industry

[@SpoopySquid]

@@SmashingCapital the term was coined by philosophers Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer and refers to the way mainstream culture is mass produced similar to commodities in a factory. Specifically, Adorno & Horkheimer explored how the culture industry served to reinforce capitalist hegemony

[@ericb.4313]

I've said it once, I'll say it again, if your game focuses on warfare in any way, it's a political game. War is an inherently political process.

[@benjaminangrignon3916]

I cant think of anything more political than war.

[@lorddiethorn]

No shit but here is the thing not every war game nor movie is political the longest day is very apolitical it does not go into the political nature of the war hell it look at the D-Day invasions from all sides the Germans the allies even the french Resistance. It did not even say the Germans were bad because it was only looking at the battle. And yes everyone knows war is hell.

[@gur262]

@@lorddiethorn still political. There are people who said they like war. And staying neutral kind of isn't neutral. There's really not a way to show real war somewhat realistic without being somewhat political. Both sides/all sides is political too.

[@lorddiethorn]

There are a ton of ways to show war without being political again if they remade the longest day but keep it like the original that is makeing nearly non political because it’s not showing the Germans as bad most of the Germans were not nazi hell most were not even Germans who fought in d day. In saving private ryan those Germans are not Germans they were Czech because they were not Germans. That is not being political outside of the statement that war is hell. But most would agree that is not really that big of a political statement. But I don’t think call of duty is Propaganda. Mainly because it’s made by a american company and they are try to make money. By the way compared to russian films like furious and Stalingrad these games are tame. But I don’t notice anyone on the left bitching about those movies. Also just so you know the highway of death was not a war crime. But the The Baku-Rostov highway bombing was the russian military was found guilty On February 24, 2005, the European Court of Human Rights found Russia guilty of violention of the right to life and other human rights violations in the case of the attack on the "safe passage" convoy after a joint complaint was submitted to the Court by three various survivors in 2003,[6] summing up the established facts in its verdict:[2] The reason why that was a war crime and the highway of death was not the highway of death target was military targets such as tanks and soldiers which is not a war crime unless there is a ceasefire which there was not. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baku-Rostov_highway_bombing

[@BookwormCowboy]

Cullen Diethron while stories can be made inherently apolitical, every story retains some form of politics.

[@DerKonigVonStrategie]

"This is not political" Literally rewrites history describing the highway of death.

[@bogmanhimself4656]

my PTSD addled uncle who got roped into the navy had to clean up the viscera and gore left over from that specific war crime. he still wakes up screaming a lot of nights and he made me realize how completely fucking evil this nation can be i wonder how the "apolitical" devs would handle a conversation with someone like him

[@bonjolor8298]

May I ask, what is the highway of death, I hear abt it but i don’t know what it is?

[@bonjolor8298]

Also holy shit, BOGMAN, I hope you guys are alright.

[@bogmanhimself4656]

@@bonjolor8298 I'm living lol, and the highway of death was a war crime the US did back in the 1990's. In the 80's we propped up Saddam Hussein during the iran-iraq war by giving him chemical weapons, military vehicles, and financial support. After the war ended in 88, he made a multi million dollar infrastructure deal with Kuwait to allow Iraq access to their ports, as the country was land locked and in debt. Kuwait didn't hold up their end of the deal, so he launched an invasion to take the country in 1991. In response, we sent troops to kuwait and drove him back into iraq with air support the highway of death was when the iraqi troops were retreating, notably with a significant amount of civilians in tow (mostly the wives and children of iraqi soldiers). Rather than letting them retreat, we flew in bombers and killed around 2,000 people, all in violation of international law. Saddam was undeniably an evil bastard, but he wouldn't have been in power had we not propped him up and the mass murder of civilians was completely avoidable. Unfortunately, my uncle didn't realize this until he had to carry a dead toddler off to a mass grave in a country whose history he barely understood. in summary, i don't reccomend joining the military. (especially given the context of how we erroneously linked 9/11 to saddam as justification to invade for oil, whoops!)

[@bogmanhimself4656]

@Craigishere 1 if you think that's bad, check out the genocides we did in indonesia and guatemala! we hired nazis into the CIA to put together kill lists of ethnic minorities and communists in both countries or the 1917 bath riots, where we loaded people into camps at the southern border and sprayed them with zyklon B (or today when we're doing the same with HDQ neutral) i think if people were actually aware, it would be almost unanimous that America is a modern day nazi germany. this country is seriously the greatest threat to international stability IMO but the propaganda is so strong that nobody is really aware

[@randobandobby6443]

The part that blew my mind when it came to COD MW 2019 was the part where Captain Price said "we draw the line wherever we need it to be." but not because it was "badass" or "cool". it was because it reminded me of Spec Ops The Line, and it's counter argument. The quote went something like this "we drew the line and kept walking" or was "we drew the line, that was our starting point.", Hell there was the phosphorous scene in spec ops the line that was similar to MW, but the difference was the attitude, While MW kind of treated it like a "yeah we did that" and crossed its arm around its chest and stood there smugly, Spec Ops treated it like "holy shit, what have we done.". If I had to describe MW and Spec Ops in one quote it would be this. In MW its hard to be the hero but everyone shouldn't question your action cause, well, your the hero, your the only one capable of saving the world, NO MATTER THE COST. while Spec Ops ask, "Do you feel like a hero yet?"

[@ki3657]

Spec Ops The Line (for all it's flaws) is one of my favorite games of all times, purely for the "feel like a hero yet?" loading screen text. At first I laughed - cheeky, cheeky - but by the end I felt very different. No more amusement, just a dull sense of "oh". I saw that bit coming but it still kinda hit home despite all the foreshadowing. In fact, the overbearing foreshadowing is WHY it hit home. The themes were hammered home like my very real PTSD hammers at my brain, and finally it clicked: there is no nuance. War is hell. A few years later I spoke to some actual survivors of real war and... yep. There is no nuance. There is no doubt. Only delusion by a handful of people but even then, deep down, you can feel they know there's no nuance to what they suffered either, only the mental castles built to preserve their sanity (and can you blane anyone for doing that?) The writers & designers of spec ops clearly understood this and wanted to share. Idk what COD's about except cash grabs galore. Definitely nothing like what war truly is, at least as far as I can tell from the people I met & the stories they told.

[@ЧелТы-э1п]

​@@ki3657 COD writers could learn a thing or two from this game

[@ladywaffle2210]

The exact same quote, in different contexts. In Modern Warfare, right after you disarm the nuke, or reach the Reichstag, or get the Medal of Honor for your "valorous" deeds, your character would be a little breathless and their squadmate would clap them on the shoulder and cheekily ask, "Do you feel like a hero yet?" as a nice little callback to the beginning of the game where your character stated they joined the Army to be a hero. In Spec Ops: The Line, well... the fact that no one says it out loud says a lot. It's almost murmured, but you can hear it in your mind in so many different ways. The venomous words of a woman who lost her son to your bullets; _"Do you feel like a hero yet?!"_ A traumatized squadmate looking over a sea of bodies; _"...do you feel like a hero yet?"_ A disgusted father looking over the blood you spilled; "Do you feel like a _hero_ yet?"

[@thermonuclear8335]

This is kind of a retarded comparison since you kill civilians in Spec Ops but not in MW’s white phosphorous. You kill Russian soldiers. You don’t feel bad in Spec Ops until you see dead civilians. War itself is a crime so there’s really no “moral” way to make it fun for a videogame. But here we are with you pussies complaining

[@ziwuri]

It's been years since I played a COD game on xbox 360 as a kid. Haven't picked one up on PC since then because of the seemingly stale formula and, well, the infuriating politics. Should I play spec ops: the line?

[@pavarottiaardvark3431]

In London in 2005, two weeks after the 7/7 bombings, British Police perused a man through Stockwell Underground Station and shot him after he boarded a train. They officers were sure that they had positive ID on a terrorist. He was completely innocent, a student from Brazil. Police fired 11 shots, only seven of them hit him. This is why the gloves stay on.

[@agentc7020]

G. G. Yeah, shit happens, it’d be bad if shit happened to you but I’m sure you’d understand right?

[@brandenlebowski6826]

Its as easy as you point it out to be. Everybody who does not get it is an idiot or a troll.

[@psmt1234]

@G. G. I hope one day your the person the 'gloves come off' for...prick

[@illuminaticomfirmed6948]

Actually thats an inaccurate story. He was an illegal immigrant from Brazil whom tried rushing into the subway. They decided that no risks were to be taken and shot him. Somewhat questionable but they weren't tracking him. That is if we re thinking of the same thing.

[@illuminaticomfirmed6948]

@@psmt1234 Well too bad mate sometimes its entirely necessary and our fears. desires, aspirations, emotions and all that sentimental crap doesn't matter in the moment. For the greater good is not a phrase for no reason. Sometimes the risks too far outweigh the benefits to risk saving everyone. Its a part of life and everyone should accept it. lets say terrorists have a nuclear bomb and 100 children hostage, you have to raid them and risk the children's lives because that nuke is worse. Simple math really. Being emotional while running a nation is how you run a nation into the ground.

[@QuikVidGuy]

-fictional city in the middle east with a name ending in -stan ah so we're just not even trying to get the right ethnicities

[@yaruyaru]

Nah, they were just too scared of including a real middle east country in their game.

[@benedekhorvath7191]

Yeah, but at least they shoulda known that that ending is a Persian word which is not the same as Arabic, in case that needs pointing out

[@commanderbenson4121]

Looks at how CoD 4 Modern Warfare was banned in the UAE for the location of the US campaign Gee I wonder why

[@lorddiethorn]

@@commanderbenson4121 no it was not banned for that it was Ann because the enemy looked like them

[@ZephLodwick]

Well, given that the Russians were invading, I assume it was near the Russian border.

[@jnyerere]

Political = I don't agree with this ideology Apolitical = This ideology aligns with my personal beliefs.

[@thomasffrench3639]

That’s not true. It means that it doesn’t shove into their face.

[@masoclevine836]

@@thomasffrench3639 like for example:?

[@Lambda_Ovine]

A woman featured in a video game and someone briefly says she's strong and independent = "GET YOUR POLITICS OUT OF MY VIDEO GAMES!11!" Stereotypical soldier man committing war crimes because America is the good guy and that's the core of the entire advertising campaign = "That's what I'm talking bout"

[@doctorwholover1012]

Literally. My existence is deemed "political" because I am gay, trans, have a vagina, am disabled, etc. By virtue of existing in physical + digital spaces, my existence is reviewed, discussed, debated, evaluated, mocked, belittled, demeaned, questioned, refused, ignored, spotlighted, dismissed, harassed, etc. I am never allowed to just exist within the space. Meanwhile, the 'non-political' existences are never questioned, never debated, never ignored or reviewed or harassed. They are assumed, allowed, enabled, acknowledged, assured, etc. They are given permission to exist, are encouraged to existed, are assumed to exist, appealed to, etc. The existence of a fictional character like me in anything is a political statement. The existence of a Straight, White, Cis, Able/Neurotypical Male in any area is considered 'Standard' (excusing the rare occasion such as Bronies, in which men were the exception, which was/is so rare that its a decade old and still notable just via the fandom nickname used) 99% of the time people do not notice the list of Political Identifiers when they make up the 'Standard', instead only noticing when something is *wrong* - aka when one of the Identifiers has been altered to something *different* - as soon as one factor is different, the entire character is relegated to the 'political character/statement' section. It's hysterical to me sometimes, because the 'political character/statement' section contains thousands of different combos, a wealth of human experiences, thousands of interesting and intriguing stories and histories and contexts, which would be so exciting to explore, but we're stuck with 5-10-20 or more of the same bland-ass 'Standard' character, because God forbid we do anything Different 🙄

[@bearonthewall7078]

@@Lambda_OvineReally depends. A good written strong woman/lgbt/poc that kicks ass and a good character? No problem. But a poorly written token woman/lgbt/poc that is only strong just because is just tokenism.

[@EayuProuxm]

Fun fact; If your game is being assissted by the united states military, you're not presenting all perspectives. They don't assist if you don't portray them in a positive light.

[@howtomundane3109]

In movies, and other media too. There's a contract between Hollywood & DoD since the 70s.

[@sadpee7710]

this. i wish he mentioned this in the video. it's literally a condition of their cooperation. the US military has to greenlight everything that makes it's way into your game/movie about war.

[@myyoutubeaccount4167]

​@@sadpee7710 Didn't know this. That's interesting

[@KasumiRINA]

There's tons of anti-war movies and games made in USA from Full Metal Jacket and Apocalypse now to Spec Ops: the Line, it's just falls into "do not do this cool thing" effect when it makes the thing they critique look badass.

[@totallytherealbasil]

@@KasumiRINA all quiet on the western front is also a great anti-war movie

[@vinicius99157]

the fact that they made a fictional middle eastern country attack a real european city shows really clear what kind of politics they had in mind

[@jaywalmoose9623]

Recent events probably ruined any hope that this will change in a future game.

[@jayhoustonhynd81]

i think it was because they wouldn't've gotten away unscathed if they say made syria do it.

[@skuuuker1060]

They made a terrorist group but yeh

[@crikeybikey1]

@@skuuuker1060 i think they came up with the name by putting “kill” into google translate for arabic. low effort stuff lmao (put in القتل)

[@Ajc-ni3xn]

I mean I guess they’re partially going for that semi realistic, propagandist shock value punch to the gut feeling. Edit: actually thinking about it more critically it would’ve made more sense if it was like a white nationalist group

[@cdhr6743]

As Yahtzee from Zero-Punctuation said in that one video: ``You either die Spec Ops: The Line or live long enough to see yourself become Call of Duty: Modern Warfare.``

[@Tokito935]

Eh No

[@corielldoghc]

You either die a mediocre game or live long enough to see yourself become what many people consider the best shooter of all time? Sounds pretty njce

[@corielldoghc]

@Source Reserve look, im not saying you have to believe it. I dont believe call of duty has been very good since world at war personally. Im just saying what i've heard people say. When i ask friends their favorite shooter, ive never heard someone say spec ops the line, i have heard people (and seen people online) say CoD Modern warfare

[@cdhr6743]

@@corielldoghc I'm currently referencing the Call of Duty in question, that being the 2019 one.

[@yashwinning]

@@corielldoghc right so you call MW "the best shooter of all time" because you've heard some people say it, so tell who you've heard say Spec Ops: The Line is a mediocre game? Or was the first one your low IQ opinion?

[@a.foster199]

I can’t help but feel like call of duty believes: War = Cool But they’ve stepped up to: War = Hell = Cool To obscure how much they just want you to believe War = Cool

[@toribiogubert7729]

More about war=cool but a large part of our players are ptsd military so we gonna sell more if we show some respect for what the troops do. Thats why the field agents are right and the higher hanked inteligence offices are wrong.

[@gabrielegenota1480]

@@loubloom1941 And the 'unintended' effect of making war out to be flashy and cool is that people may glorify war as flashy and cool.

[@estebanod]

No shit, that's the point of a game. BF does the same thing, R6S too, EFT too, Insurgency Sandstorm too, Arma too, DCS too. GTA says killing people is cool too

[@gabrielegenota1480]

@@estebanod "everyone does it so we're not gonna bother doing anything about it"

[@Crackedcripple]

Someone’s never played world at war. THAT was War = hell personified.

[@ferghalicious1480]

I’ve never liked that the Modern Warfare games reset you back to a checkpoint if you harm civilians, as if that’s something an SAS operative would NEVER do.

[@whatevers31]

"Is this game political?" *Every mission has some form of war crime porn* "No."

[@noctain6683]

War crime porn is the best porn ever. Why is it not in Pornhub yet.

[@John-X]

It's political from literally the very first line in the game: *"Our war is not for our faith."* Immediately tries to distance its middle eastern villains from Islam. That alone is implying that "Islam has nothing to do with terrorism" which anybody who has even a minor understanding of "the religion of peace" would know that is false, and any soldier will tell you that regular western people have no idea just how much their religion plays a role into all of the conflict in The Middle East. The second line: *"We fight to remove all foreign powers from our soil."* only reinforces the leftist belief that the real bad guys are the western powers who are fighting to protect our freedom from Radical Islamic Terrorism.

[@shruk4]

​@@John-X damn ur stupid

[@kaptenlemper]

@@John-X "fighting to protect our freedom" Lmao if you believe this unironically. The correct line is "fighting to protect the bottom line of the oligarchs running the country at the expense of the rest and faceless foreigners".

[@alin9727]

@@John-X lmao you have *such* a hard-on for 'RADICAL ISLAMIC TERRORISM' don't you?

[@DeltaDanner]

“This isn’t political” -civil conflict in the Middle East featuring proxy wars, terror groups, Russian occupation, and US/NATO occupation -the Highway of Death (except the Russians did it) -no knock raids against citizens -terrorists based out of the Middle East (or at least being ethnically Middle Eastern) against a real western city -a Benghazi mission -black ops between Western nations and Russia -freedom fighter groups backed by the CIA being given air support against Russians -freedom fighter groups backed by the CIA being put on the CIAs terrorist group list -debate over the rules of engagement when it comes to terrorists -the mixing of terrorists within the civilian population -the mixing of terrorists and civilians in a hospital setting -the White Helmets (except from a fake country) -the manufacturing and use of chemical weapons by both Russians and CIA backed terror/militia groups -recorded executions for propaganda purposes (stopped by the player character) -the invasion of an embassy in a Middle Eastern country -the use of torture by Russians and Western special forces That’s just off the top of my head after not playing the campaign since the game came out. That’s also without diving into the rest of the Modern Warfare series. The game is fun and playing it solely because it’s a fun CoD game is totally fine but to say it’s not political at all is ridiculous.

[@kenet362]

Let’s be real here, most COD players don’t give af about “political messages” there just here to shoot and blow up bad guys while playing with price and the boys once again.

[@tomaszsotysik9438]

Morons will still say this game is not political because there are no LGBTQ characters and "woke culture" in it. That is probably how many gamers understood the message.

[@RogerCharlamange]

Yeah except the thing is, the games missions are HEAVILY based on movies, and things that actually happened in real life. So call it political all you want, it's just retelling stories lmao.

[@papervulture]

​@@RogerCharlamangeThings that happen in real life can never be political, surely.

[@sealeo5772]

@@RogerCharlamange It's sop funny to see a comment saying gamers have no understanding of what "political" means and then someone responding showing that he has no idea what "political" means. Congrats on proving the point, I guess.

[@Linkcrossing]

“These men were given a presidential pardon” my vision blurred that’s absolutely horrible

[@andrewpereira888]

I feel sick

[@jnyerere]

Honestly it's on-brand for the U.S. It's very rare that state-sanctioned killers pay for their crimes against humanity. This is true from the local police all the way up to the U.S. military and CIA.

[@Indoor_Carrot]

The Blackwater mercs who shot up 17 civilians (including children) in nisour square were pardoned by Trump right before the end of his term. If you want to become a murderer and get away with it, join the army, I guess

[@stupialtdeadname9234]

It's pretty hard to find war criminals who are sentenced for 10 years or higher. The Abu Ghraib tortures were photographed with the perpetrators posing and smiling but the highest sentence given I could find was 8 years.

[@ButterDog42069]

They quite literally qustify war crimes and then tell everybody they are the ones fighting war criminals

[@banannixx2907]

One of my favorite quotes ever regarding a COD game was about World At War. People may have dismissed its darker tone as edgy back then, and while it certainly has had more love thrown its way nowadays, WAW was the only one that I've played thus far where I actively feared the enemy combatants. But the scariest part is when you remember that you're fighting against other humans. "WAW is a horror game where the monsters look exactly like you."

[@overlord5186]

I liked that one of the npcs in game remark on your brutality or sympathy despite Reznov repeatedly asking you to slaughter them. They dont explicitly try to show an example of a example of "good German" but it does remind you at times that they are just human beings too.

[@TheRealGuywithoutaMustache]

This is a pretty in-depth and thorough analysis of the game. Nice job on this, Jacob.

[@TheSporewow]

You again!

[@BaneDane_JB]

Your that guy who... never mind I was thinking of someone WITH a mustache, carry on.

[@ChrisKnowles1170]

It seems that way, provided you haven't played the game.

[@nocap7885]

You don't even have a fucking mustache.

[@Nateda_]

Here to aye

[@qbQubii]

when i was playing the "clean house" mission i was hoping that everything was for nothing and you killed a few civilians who were just shocked that a military group raids their house. not because i want to be cool or edgy but because i wanted this side of the story once from call of duty which i expected when i first seen the trailer. i was hoping they would finally show that not every mission turns out to be great or show the perspective of the russians and the situations that caused them to execute certain actions. instead it was the same as always, just a bit more realistic.

[@lachlanchester8142]

One of the sas lads gets shot if that counts

[@pineboxboy]

@@lachlanchester8142 u can save him too if you shoot through the door before he passes. pretty sure there's an achievement for it

[@lachlanchester8142]

Declan Swade 👁👄👁 how did I not think of that, i need the gamerscore

[@pineboxboy]

@@lachlanchester8142 its pretty cool, Cpt. Price even comments on it if you pull it off lol

[@deepalperera4592]

That's what I love about the COD4 nuke scene, you're the "hero", bit that doesn't always mean that you defeat the bad guys.

[@09Scherzo]

I came to a similar conclusion when playing it; for all its talk of 'Proxy Wars' and such, the game is completely uninterested in the overall geopolitics of why the US is involved in Urzikstan, or why Al-Qatala is opposed to American involvement, except in the sense of we, the audience, just understand 'anti-americanism' to be a trait the 'bad guys' have. It just presents the situation as if it were immutable, a problem to be dealt with by force. The funny thing is I actually liked the campaign, but it definitely is pro-American agitprop.

[@kathand1729]

The sad thing is, I feel the second half of your paragraph there is actually how many people actually are starting to see the situation in the Middle East in real life.

[@Elvalley]

@Lilac Milton which in turn makes it have a grain of truth. USA has been meddling with the middle east for so long that the apparent "anti-americanist" sentiment becomes a necessary reality. Of course it's just a facet of anti-interventionism, but if the americans put themselves in front, fingers will obviously be ponted at them, with reason.

[@TheTongueTwisler]

The funniest part of gamers who say, "I'm sick of politics in my video games!" is that they LOVE politics in video games. They're just sick of seeing politics THEY don't agree with in video games.

[@wrestlinganime4life288]

Lol they don't even understand the games they played. Metal gear Solid are some of the most political games ever, but nah Solid Go bruuuhh

[@notnot9476]

@@wrestlinganime4life288 politics in action games is best when you don't notice it without turning off monkey shooty shooty slice slice brain. well it depends on the game.

[@wrestlinganime4life288]

@@notnot9476 Yeah no shit, except that those who complain about modern politics were too dense to understand it in the first place. Kojima was personally upset with the way fans dick ride Solid Snake, missing the point of the character, and thus leading to Raiden whom initially was conceived as less masculine as Snake.

[@gwen9939]

​@@wrestlinganime4life288 tbf you can absolutely play Metal gear games and just bask in the bat-shit insanity that is Kojima storytelling and homoerotic supertext. Established military and international conflict is so normalized to millenials and zoomers that it's just familiar background noise that what ends up mattering in the story are the things that stand out. The characters, the sci-fi, the plot, all the unique stuff. What's crazy is when someone walks away from MGS/MGR with the complete opposite conclusion of what the games were trying to say, agreeing that they are political but that it's in fact their pro-US, pro-establishment, pro-right wing politics that it's agreeing with. They'll play CoD and then play MGS and believe they're saying the same things because both are featuring gritty army guys who get the job done.

[@majortom9397]

Most of the people simply don't give a fuck about any of this, they just wanna jump in the multiplayer and start grinding to unlock stuff. The people complainig are just a small minority compared and represent a very small fraction of the market

[@weepingbelle4528]

10:18 this line about "actionable intel" hits even harder in the wake of the recent, highly-publicized murder by drone strike of an aid worker and 7 children carrying water in Afghanistan. The strike was carried out because of "actionable intel" that the car was actually a suicide bomber with high explosives. It's unclear where the mix-up happened; some say the intel was bad from the start, others say the aid worker's car looked similar to one the U.S. was tracking beforehand. Either way, it's clear that "actionable intel" isn't nearly good enough to justify killing anyone at all.

[@alexstrauss5264]

yeah and biden just brushes this event off like "ah shit sorry guys had a mix up with which car to dronestrike ah im super duper sorry guys hope we can be friends again"

[@lulu4882]

@@alexstrauss5264 except the military didn't even apologize for it lol, just called it an unfortunate mixup

[@darkartsdabbler2407]

@@alexstrauss5264 welcome to America where essentially every modern president is a war criminal

[@oldschoolChazzed]

i don't think you can fuck up when you're tracking them inside your own country for weeks

[@oldschoolChazzed]

i mean i'm not justifying that, but just clarifying what he said in the game

[@Lily-zy6uk]

"Perspectives" I'm still waiting for the MW game from the perspective of a starving kid in half real Syria

[@exkdvs]

@@straatee6566 you play as the girl actually, farah.

[@johnynoway9127]

@@straatee6566 which game is that?

[@johnynoway9127]

@@straatee6566 ???

[@johnynoway9127]

@@straatee6566 i guess i never played it?

[@prxnv]

dude yes, I want it to be a suffering kid who joins an insurgency, where we play as the insurgency

[@sayanApprentice095]

So they wanted to be "Spec Ops: the line" but didn´t commit to tell the player he was wrong, only to shock him once a while

[@TheSorrel]

You don't even have to tell the player he's wrong, per se. You just don't need to constantly tell him he's right. Like, imagine the Clean House Mission was a dud. You killed a few terrorists but got no information out of it and in fact, the other cells are now warned that the government is onto them and get more careful. Was it a mistake to raid the house? Yes. Should you have not done it? I dunno, maybe the risk was still worth it. CoD still fails to portray war as messy. In CoDs universe, the Western powers don't make mistakes. Its the illusion of a clean war, in which you get exactly as much dirt on your hands as you're willing to take, nothing more. And that is not true.

[@sayanApprentice095]

@@TheSorrel Totally agree, it feels that all of the morally ambiguous actions of the Main characters are justified because of the lack of negative consecuences in their results, All conflicts based on agression (specially war) have terrible consecuenses for his soldiers and civilians, no matter the cause or the country. And one of the horrors of war that this game ignores is having to deal with the consecuenses of a terrible choice.

[@winnietheflu4633]

You’re never wrong in Modern warfare unless you shoot civilians that’s it. Every one else is a combatant

[@TheSorrel]

@@winnietheflu4633 I dont think you understand what we're talking about here

[@keithklassen5320]

Him?

[@ekki1993]

All of those interviews scream "frat boy bootlicker" so hard it made me cringe. They represent all of the things that, ironically, make so many mainstream games still feel immature. The anti-politics political stance, the glorification of edgy people with power over others, the use of "controversy" for the design that was clearly made to draw attention like an edgy teen would, the facade of maturity in "war is hell" edgy imagery. They refuse to take their very political stance honestly and analise it seriously and, in turn, end up looking like manchildren with way too much money for their project.

[@Gabriel-ie1mk]

Summed up my feeling exactly

[@AdamNoizer]

Boom.

[@WaxMeber]

dumb leftoid inyenzi think that watching youtube videos is the same thing as "media literacy". Try reading Adorno instead and stop playing with toys

[@MrLukasboys]

My personal take is: When somebody in the gaming industry says "This game is not political" that person most likely means to say "This game will not cause anger with the majority of (vocal) gamers" Let's face it folks, the game can pretty much justify torture and the most vocal part of the player base will stay silent if not bursting into praise about the developers not falling into the trap of making the game political. If CoD were to show war crimes being committed by the player's side and condem those actions and not blow into the same horn that Gallagher blows into by claiming "they have to make the tough choices we don't want to make in order to save lives" the same player base would riot.

[@sugarblunt]

NexoFX ISKU so true Honestly anybody who still plays call of duty is someone I wouldn’t even wanna be friends with because What is wrong with you why do you want to keep doing the same fucking thing over and over and over and over and over and over None of those games do anything groundbreaking unless you call the ability to fucking straight up murder babies groundbreaking. The only people I ever hear talk about it anymore are Those people who want to fit in desperately and because it’s a generic ass game they think that they’re cool for liking it somehow or they’ll fit in But we’re always like level up douche bag I feel like most of the people obsessed with it are just because it’s the only battle that they’ll win all day and they feel like they accomplished something, have a skill or are better than other people but they’re not it’s just a shit game with no message integrity or worthwhile commentary It’s worthless Except for a meta-commentary on the way that men Cling to it like it’s something that’s going to prove their pathetic ego’s idea of masculinity

[@delusional2335]

I pressed "read more" and was like, NOPE, not gonna read that🤣

[@MrLukasboys]

@@delusional2335 I can understand that. TLDR: apolitical for gamers = in line with their worldview

[@thatonefpsgamer1339]

I'm kind of on the fence here because while I agree some games can be political, not every game has to make a political statement.

[@MrLukasboys]

@@thatonefpsgamer1339 That much is true. My main gripe is that most games which are inherently political, like a Call of Duty set in the modern times, are described by the developers as apolitical because the politics and political statements in the game don't anger their playerbase.

[@zoe_astra]

I remember back when I was at school and we were learning about the Vietnam war, one day my teacher brought in the film Platoon for us to watch. It was at the bit where the film depicts the American soldiers performing a massacre in a small village, based on the real Mai Lai massacre. Everyone in my class was in a silent state of shock, some even crying when this guy just announces ‘I don’t see what you are all so freaked out about, if I was there I would have done the same thing, it’s just like Call of Duty innit?’ It really surprised me at the time to hear someone say something like that so blatantly and without emotion, even if he didn’t completely mean it it freaked everyone out.

[@safe-keeper1042]

It's amazing what you can make people in civilized countries justify.

[@comradepolarbear6920]

Lol, that sucks

[@bulletsandmilk1985]

This is why cod is an M rated game

[@verchojanskij]

I remember watching a documentary about the violence and war crimes committed on civilians and prisoners by some American soldiers in Europe after D-day 'till the end of WW2. The narrative of the documentary is quite logical, it follows the path of the army, first liberating France then setting foot in Germany and facing the last desperate fanatics in Berlin. But this progression was very interesting in a very personal and self-reflecting way. I was at first, utterly disgusted by the crimes on civilian population obviously. But as the film kept running, my view began to shift slightly, yet I didn't noticed it at first. I was then hit by a brick when the film started talking about the soldiers liberating the camps, and what they did to the SS still operating them. My mind totally flipped in one second, and I immediately felt I was in the boots of those American soldiers, and I stopped having any empathy the ones that fell victims to them. It just felt like crossing a line, but I couldn't define it. What was the difference between the victims in the first part of the film and the SS portrayed at the end ? To me, the second ones didn't felt like humans anymore, and I was deeply scared at me for being able to have this thought.

[@Puppy_Puppington]

Some people are easily influenced that way. Especially when people join for example. The marines. They get brain washed so hard.

[@cac_deadlyrang]

“There’s no mercy in war” LITERALLY A SECOND LATER “Slav bad Burger good”

[@alberthwang2900]

You know, after Spec Ops: The Line came out and laid bare all of the toxic assumptions behind the modern shooter genre, we were supposed to. . . do better. . . not wallow in it.

[@baneofbanes]

Yah that’s really never how shit works.

[@KiwiLombax15]

To quote Yahtzee: "I thought we were over the whole Modern Warfare thing. It had its fun for a while, systematically abusing the word "realistic", but then Spec Ops: The Line came along and showed us what a bunch of violent paranoid glory-boy twats the whole genre was making us all look like. You were supposed to slink off in shame! Nanny caught you with your hand in the cookie jar, you don't just continue eating the cookies."

[@BobbinRobbin777]

@@KiwiLombax15 lmao that’s good God i love that guy…

[@alexbrangan2885]

Unfortunately, we now live in a post-shame society. Why should you do better when you can just bully everyone telling you to do better and not suffer consequences for it?

[@raulfernandez57]

@@KiwiLombax15 But that's only if granny -isn't willing to give you a share of the cookies- doesn't see you stealing them a.k.a The Line unfortunately isn't as famous as CoD is. Even when nowadays it is thankfully recieving more attention, it is kind of niche. It's easy to imagine why. In the first place, it's almost a miracle a videogame developer and publisher decided to release a game such as Spec Ops. Secondly, I doubt marketing of the game went as far as to advertise it the same way Destiny did or CoD does with their games (maybe I'm wrong though). I mean, even if people believe it's just another generic shooter and miss the surprise, or pan it because it blames you or whatever: the name of the game is widespread and KZbin existed, hence there would be more favorable reviews combined the fame, even if the surprise gets spoiled.

[@sycastells1212]

"It seems insane to get political" is an extremely political statement.

[@PsychadelicoDuck]

You could hear the anger in his voice, like an animal backed into a corner.

[@lanni5]

*makes shoot people game " no politics here" ... what?

[@Kingfisher_2376]

@@lanni5 *makes Political Violence game* "no politics here" Just meant this as a snarky 'quote-unquote correction' but I looked up the definition just to be sure...en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_violence

[@BibleStorm]

It's a really good way to hide your motives.

[@LordVader1094]

Ah the old "everything is political" bullshit.

[@Galimeer5]

"Is this game political?" -"For legal reasons, I have to answer- No" Maybe I'm giving Call of Duty the benefit of the doubt, but I think the reason the writers and developers say the game isn't political because they have to. If they openly acknowledged that their game is making political statements, they risk alienating their audience. What Call of Duty actually believes in is not risking money.

[@youdontneedtoknowwhoiam9612]

What audience will be allianated as a result though? The game is still banned in Russia. They lose nothing by stating its pro-american.

[@Neuroticmancer]

Youdontnee Dtoknowwhoiam propaganda is less effective if it acknowledges that it is propaganda

[@MrWepx-hy6sn]

@@youdontneedtoknowwhoiam9612 Yes because for some reason people these days think "political" = "critizicing the exact politics I like/don't like". The games are extremely political but in a broader sense, hell if anything they are a political analysis on fictional case studies. No different than hypothetical thought experiments you do in Poli Sci or International Relations theory classes. But nowadays people think political "Oh it's against the Right wing (whatever the fuck that is, because the rightwing today is pretty leftist)" or "Oh it's against the liberals (again whatever the fuck that is because they sometimes seem pretty right leaning to me)"

[@YEs69th420]

@@MrWepx-hy6sn funny comment

[@ianism3]

yes it feels like the devs in those interviews were reciting answers that they'd discussed at a meeting and then practised. still though, you can just get a job elsewhere. you don't end up working on a game like this by accident. the dude with glasses has camo pants and military style boots for fuck's sake.

[@shootinbruin3614]

At least Spec Ops: The Line was willing to admit to what they were trying to do and actually had the balls to carry it through

[@yourdeath7820]

It's also one of the few games where you can shoot American soldiers

[@lorddiethorn]

There are a ton of games call of duty

[@catfish552]

Eh. Where CoD makes the "tough choices" and assures you they were right, Spec Ops forces you to do certain things and then calls you a monster for it. And also reveals that the things it told you (and that you might have based actions on) weren't so. It's a different perspective, but it's not really any more sophisticated.

[@Fenrick]

@@yourdeath7820 Except you're kind of the bad guy for doing it, so.

[@cxeroannuki2840]

@@catfish552 it is absolutely more sophisticated, both for (initially) presenting it like any other game in the genre and presenting another perspective in a genre that is mostly devoted to glorifying war and making the player out as a war hero for actions he was forced to take. it's not exactly nuanced, but at the same time it's seriously wrong to suggest that it's not more sophisticated than a series so excruciatingly devoid of self awareness as CoD.

[@alicethetransdalek7333]

this video has been out for over 2 years, but i still can't quite get over the "it seems insane to get political to me" comment. the first half of your game's title is a direct reference to the United States Military, the second half explicitly tells us that this game is about current-day military conflict. just how insane do you have to be to even believe that it is possible to make that game apolitical

[@anon9469]

Because a certain subset of gamers are of the opinion that a "political game" means "it any sort of content in it that isn't 'straight white he-man applies violence to the other'"

[@artemismoonbow2475]

This 100%. I was one of these soldiers and I was astonished at the self-righteousness of my former "brothers" that believed to their core that they were apolitical and right in cause and action. There are genuine psychopaths in these "professions" (in scare quotes because the idea of professional soldier should be scary), but most are not. However, the whole situation is sociopathic, self-serving, self-justifying and murderous. The distain for everyone that is not them is palatable. The David Grossman framing of sheep dogs protecting the sheep should give a person pause at the arrogance. Good job, and all the way high speed. This was a good video.

[@alberthwang2900]

David Grossman did his job very well. His job was to figure out how to take a human being, a creature who at heart, does not want to kill other human beings, and convince them to do so.

[@Indoor_Carrot]

As somebody who was rejected for medical reasons, I 100% agree. I have had many instances of soldiers talking down to me or even having the gall to mock me for failing the medical. Soldiers are trained to be arrogant pricks. It's by design.

[@isaacmayer-splain8974]

Do you mean palpable instead of palatable?

[@arcovius6175]

@@alberthwang2900 I don't believe that at all. There are plenty who do want to kill and they act it out. Some just feel the need to justify it to themselves or others while other more nihilistic types won't even bother with reason. They do it because they can or because they want it at that moment, to hell with everything else. But I figure that (hopefully) it's only a small portion.

[@arcovius6175]

@Artemis Moonbow (for whatever reason it won't let me reply directly to you so I just inserted your name so hopefully you find this) I don't think the whole sheepdog protecting sheep thing is necessarily wrong in and of itself. It's dangerous but self controlled beings protecting those without the knowledge or the means to defend themselves. How many people actually embody that as opposed to manipulating and justifying their actions through that framing is another thing entirely. Everyone has ignorance to an extent, but there are definitely people more ignorant than others. I'd say it would be better if all the sheep were sheepdogs, but I don't know if the sheep are meant to be that way as a counterweight to the weight that comes with others embodying more predatory aspects. But also if you look past the surface level and start thinking about how some or a lot of sheep are just used to have their wool harvested and/or used for their meat then it gets a little darker... maybe more true.

[@erikdumas9873]

Creating a narrative which "doesn't contain a perspective," seems a lot like when someone claims they "don't see color." They're utterly blind to their own biases.

[@kloggmonkey]

well said

[@erikdumas9873]

@MAX POWERS *"Well it does contain perspective."* That's my point. Stories inherently have a perspective. It's completely unavoidable. So when a developer claims their game doesn't contain a perspective, it just means they're so used to thinking of their own point of view as the default that they don't think of it as a perspective. They think it's neutral. *"If you look at the story and what the bad people do in the game not in real life then the good guys are the good guys. It’s only when you compare the game to real life that you have questions about it."* But why shouldn't we compare it to real life? The game is obviously referencing real world events. Players can't help but make comparisons, even if it's at a subconscious level. Also, I would argue that there are definitely some things that the "good guys" do in this game that I would definitely question regardless of real world comparisons. I don't need real world examples to know that threatening to kill a man's wife and child to get him to talk is not typically a "good guy" move. *"I think you just need to keep in mind that with these people want to make is a cool game about army men blowing things up"* And that's fine, but they've also injected some of their own politics into the game in the course of making it. That's not an inherently bad thing, by the way, but my concern is in that they don't seem to be at all aware (or willing to admit when it's pointed out to them) that they've done so. If they just wanted to have army men blowing stuff up, that could have been easily accomplished without creating any controversy. *"I don’t think the developers care very much about the politics"* They put their blood, sweat, and tears into making this game, and the game has a political perspective. So I would argue that they very much care about the politics contained in their game, they just don't think about it as being political. Because, again, they're not used to seeing their own opinions as being anything besides the default or neutral. *"this is not a dialectical materialistic Game about trends in the Middle East it’s just about price and his guys blowing up bad people"* The developers themselves said the game deals with themes of colonialism, occupation, independence, freedom, and moral gray areas. That seems to be pretty incompatible with a simple story of "good guys blow up bad guys."

[@firstprimehunter]

That’s a bit of a hot take. There’s nothing wrong with choosing to see people as people.

[@whiteglint7694]

What? If the story has no good or bad perspective how is it biased? If it doesn't comment on the things happening, how is it biased. Why are you leftists always dragging people who don't want to be political into it by saying that they CANT stay on the sidelines. Seriously. Fuck you people.

[@erikdumas9873]

@@whiteglint7694 *"What? If the story has no good or bad perspective how is it biased?"* But the game clearly has a perspective. And perspectives mean bias. Of course, all good stories have a perspective (and therefore a bias), so I don't mean to imply that having a perspective (even one I disagree with) is automatically bad. But there is something gross about insisting that your story is totally neutral when it clearly isn't. It primes the player to uncritically adopt the developer's bias. *"If it doesn't comment on the things happening, how is it biased."* The game has a clear set of protagonists and antagonists with opposing viewpoints. And the setting is obviously referencing events happening in the real world right now. The game is commenting on things. This is exactly the problem I was getting at in my previous paragraph. You, as a player, have taken the developers word that the game is completely apolitical and without any bias. So now you seem to be completely blind to the game's commentary on the world you live in. *"Why are you leftists always dragging people who don't want to be political into it by saying that they CANT stay on the sidelines. Seriously. Fuck you people."* If they wanted to be apolitical, then they should have made a completely different game. Because the characters, setting, and themes the developers decided to craft this game around inherently carry a hell of a lot of political baggage. I'm not dragging them off the sidelines. They're smack dab in the middle of the damn game, wearing one of the team's colors, and actively playing. No amount of declaring their non-participation to the audience is going to make that not true.

[@Matt-ux2wg]

The russians in the original MW trilogy were more humanized than this

[@lorddiethorn]

Not all of them

[@ThemomSlapper]

*cannon foddler

[@EagleSix52]

There was a reason why they invade us (even if the massacre in airport was dumb (i mean come on they don't even use masks)) and also civil war/ultra nationalism before mw2

[@xzraiderzx308]

Yea the russians in the new MW feel like cartoon villians with no redeemable qualities

[@현정우-s4s]

that's my biggest beef with the game, the original trilogy gets ragged on for russians bad but like, everyone but the ultranationalists are basically decent people. MW2019 has literally one good russian (not counting kamarov) and it's "i brought truth serum" nikolai

[@SpoonyBard88]

Anyone who says their story about war is not political is a huge coward and should be mocked mercilessly.

[@joringedamke5597]

Do you think said mockery will have the intended effect of changing the developers' minds? Or were you thinking of a different effect? In other words, *why* should they be mocked?

[@Errenium]

@@joringedamke5597 to discourage such behavior, both from the target and from others in the same role in the future, through the process of learning.

[@ladywaffle2210]

"War is just diplomacy by other means." -Otto von Bismarck, noted militarist

[@AdamNoizer]

@@ladywaffle2210 Clausewitz I think.

[@ladywaffle2210]

@@AdamNoizer It was and I am a fool. That being said, Clausewitz was also a noted militarist.

[@Joe-po9xn]

Fun fact: The Pentagon gets to sift through media and games about the military for accuracy and attention to....detail.

[@robertstan298]

US military has it's hand in basically each and every Hollywood movie that has anything even remotely to do with the US and war/combat. Recently, even in the SF genre (with movies like Independence Day 2). They keep expertise and material freebies (such as military props) out of reach, unless the producers are willing to toe the line in regards to portraying the US military as a absolute force for good or glorify the military service. So pretty much either 1. manufacturing consent that the US can do no wrong or 2. recruitment tools (gotta keep a good stock of fresh sociopaths, eh, those 3rd world villagers won't drone themselves will they?). Or both of course.

[@birubu]

What’s the difference between an artist and a sniper?

[@thechosenundead2718]

@@birubu DETAILS

[@trobertt7271]

Hey man I want to research this can you give me a few sources I want to read about this.

[@sippy1sippy]

@@trobertt7271 If you haven't seen it, there's a video called one marvelous scene - military ads in marvel that discusses the topic with the main focus being mcu movies of course

[@javierivanreyes8608]

I can't believe I just saw this. Absolutely spot on. Four Blackwater mercenaries who committed the real lifr equivalent of "No Russia" were recently pardoned as well. Fucking disgusting.

[@diegorincon4673]

Yup. At one point, American news media tried to justify it. A 7 year old boy was killed, and another person, a doctor who wanted to help, was found with his head blown off. When the us army found the site, the were horrified, and reported it.

[@ButterDog42069]

Can you please give more detail about this Blackwater incident? Never heard of it, it probably was only talked about in US

[@emilefoy-legault1031]

@@ButterDog42069 three arrows has a great video called « whitewashing an atrocity ». I highly recommend it.

[@darkartsdabbler2407]

Man, fuck blackwater. PSA to anyone who stumbles on this comment: eric prince (the founder) or however the fuck you spell his name is still alive, and has tried rebranding his PMC

[@darkartsdabbler2407]

@@diegorincon4673 America basically outsourced murder to a bunch of mafia goons with zero accountability... oh wait, they did that before too I'm glad you're spreading the awareness, we can't forget what was allowed to happen

[@KennyHazy97]

"Oversight and red tape just causes long-term harm, to truly achieve peace you need to trust the guys on the ground with the tools they need." Guy on the ground: *uses chemical weapons to liberate his country* "No, not like that."

[@soiboi4497]

Gamers will scream to the heavens that they don’t want “politics in games” yet each call of duty after the next is just borderline military propaganda. Think about this, how many of the gamers who were saying “death to the MPLA” as a meme a few years ago even know who the MPLA is?

[@fish_birb]

It won't be surprising that COD is the primary basis of anti-communism in most people. The MPLA was indeed a revolutionary communist movement opposing the former Portuguese colonial government, that was being opposed by the former Maoist but at the time right-wing CIA-backed Jonas Savimbi, which was portrayed by BO2 as the Good Guy. The MPLA is responsible for Angola's liberation from its former Portuguese colonizers, or at least before they became revisionists after the 90s. However the CIA-backed UNITA (Savimbi) weren't so much so in the end anyway, as the US and eventually the apartheid South Africa was supporting them in the name of imperialism and neo-colonialism.

[@Panchoproductions2069]

Yeah but communism sucks dick

[@iYehuk]

As Clausewitz said: "War is the continuation of politics by other means." How can a game about war be not political?

[@pettersandburanden6296]

Anyone remember the seen in MW3 were price commits war crimes by withholding a mask from a guy he's interogating as he releases poison gas in the room? They managed to justify chemical weaponry then, why is it suddenly bad? is it because they rebooted price or just a general loss of memory on the developers' side?

[@LWoodGaming]

Dude, it has been nine year since mw3.

[@Branquelo454]

@@LWoodGaming yeah and besides most developers that worked in mw3 probaly weren't present in the devlopment(is this the correct spelling) team of the game

[@trager8933]

@@Branquelo454 Infinity Ward. The developer behind MW2019 have changed 3 times. The first Infinity Ward(cod4 and MW2) have departed becaus of a fiasco with activison In 2010. The second Infinity Ward made mw3 and cod ghosts. Becaus of the way ghosts was recieved activison fired more than half of the devs and replaced them with new ones. Then that Infinity Ward made cod Infinite warfare. And we all know how that turned out. A lot of devs were fired or simply left. Some stayed like the two directors from naughty dog that worked on uncharted games. Then In 2017, 10 devs from respawn came back to Infinity Ward(some of them worked on mw2). Thats the whole story In short.

[@june570]

Don't forget we used white phosphorus in the first mission

[@5ft4inprotagonist24]

"This is a game about colonialism." "Is this game political? no" make up your mind

[@xXSgtJackXx]

portraying russia as imperialists = apolitical portraying the us as imperialists = political this shit is straight up propaganda lol

[@lad7436]

@@xXSgtJackXx But Russia is imperialist, by definition. And the Modern United States isn't.

[@evelynryan8564]

@@lad7436 Definition of imperialism is "a policy of extending a country's power and influence through diplomacy or military force." The US absolutely does that. The US is very imperialist.

[@lad7436]

@@evelynryan8564 What a dogshit definition lmfao, a policy of extending power via diplomcay? really? that's imperialism? You dumb as hell. And no actually that isn't the definition of Imperialism, not even close. "Imperialism is the state policy, practice, or advocacy of extending power and dominion, especially by direct territorial acquisition or by gaining political and economic control of other areas, often through employing hard power (economic and military power), but also soft power (cultural and diplomatic power). While related to the concepts of colonialism and empire, imperialism is a distinct concept that can apply to other forms of expansion and many forms of government." The Modern United states doesn't do this.

[@Deadflower019]

@@lad7436 You don't want to say America is imperialist, because that implies that America might be flawed. Which it absolutely fucking is.

[@I_am_a_human_not_a_commodity]

Now, for what every Call of Duty game _really_ is: *_a recruitment tool._*

[@nordikkai7185]

Which is a shame, because it's a lot of people's go to game for some mindless fun. But on the bright side, I don't think many people play the campaigns

[@nocturem]

​@@nordikkai7185 the mindless fun aspect is kinda how it gets you though, it leaves intangible impressions of ideas about good guys and bad guys, what they look like and how they sound which are then carried over to real life tucked in your subconscious pattern recognition without ever realising it, its how we develop unconscious biases that we are only later confronted with and often end up trying to rationalise rather than address. Most effective propaganda is subtle and background vibe shit that you don't really notice is being fed into your basic assumptions about a narrative.

[@45acpeggsandwich]

@@nocturem Good post

[@Жойлес]

Ah yes, Vanguard is a *really* effective recruitment tool

[@Жойлес]

@@nocturem imagine using straight up 50s propaganda methods and calling them effective

[@eliwixson8863]

CoD Devs: "We don't want to talk about which perspective is right" MW: "This guy used chemical weapons on invaders. This is bad. Every other character introduced thinks this is bad. You need to go find this guy because of how bad this is."

[@mostafaahmedibrahim2541]

Only I can tourtre a guy and his family and not be bad because I with good guys ME GOOD

[@apacc-_-5130]

@@mostafaahmedibrahim2541 nobody ever said what they did to the butcher was good that's one of the reasons yegor stepped away from the scene they even gave u the chance not to get involved with the "negotiation" they did what they thought was needed to safe a lot of innocent lifes and stop a terrorist attack. nobody ever said what they did was good..

[@riastradh]

TheDorkKnight 25 that entire scene and the cutscene after it basically tells you “that whole thing was fucked up and probably evil” but you do what you gotta

[@LuvzToLol21]

"Chlorine gas bad. Shooting wife and child good."

[@Cenentury0941]

@@LuvzToLol21 yep sure, the game definitely told you that shooting the child was "good" 😐

[@NotSoMelancholy]

It was kind of sad to see how the campaign turned out. I loved how down and dirty it got, but I was totally expecting more moral ambiguity. I kept waiting for them to flip it on it’s head and show what the US/Brits are doing wrong or for the brother and sister to essentially take turns doing wrongs of varying degrees and have you forced to pick one in the end, but in the end it just ended up being “well we got the militia as the good guys this time, so let’s have russia fill that role as the oppressive conquerors this time around”

[@MrAsaqe]

Honestly I wouldnt mind a level where the militia had to fight their own people. Paid by Russian Rubles to turn against them with the threat of tossing them to the same camps Hadir and Farah lived in their youth to incite tensions

[@NoHandle44]

I could have sworn that there was a game that had you fight with a group, and then the 2 group leaders turned against each other and you had to choose one of them to fight for. Which ends up with you killing the opposing leader that was once your friend.

[@batti591]

@@NoHandle44 Far Cry 4, with either leader representing a horrifying future for the small Himalayan nation you're notionally fighting to free

[@NoHandle44]

@@batti591 Ah! I think it might be. I onlt remember the blonde dictator that's on the game cover.

[@sophiatrocentraisin]

Repeat after me "people who think their art is apolitical have the most dangerous politics", because they either don't have a clue about the consequences of their art, or know the consequences of their message are disgusting enough to fake being apolitical

[@seventeenseventythirteen7465]

What they deem is "political" is always just "PoC, LGBTQ people and too many women or girl bosses.". They could watch the fictional US president Mike Swaisy warcrime an entire country and have it be justified in the games eyes, but the second his secretary of estate happens to be gay THEN it's bad and "political".

[@jmaguire2232]

Or that they’re so submerged in propaganda that to them its implications are taken for granted as a fact of life

[@mauauauauaua14]

eh i just wanna draw sexy anime girls not my problem u guys take it far too seriously than me just horni

[@Barakon]

art is antipolitical. it's like trying to classify a plant as a heterotrophic organism.

[@sophiatrocentraisin]

@@Barakon Sure, Blade Runner has no political message whatsoever. And H.P. Lovecraft's whole mythos isn't based on his own crippling xenophobia. And the Lumières aren't known for their scathing criticisms, particularily against the King, which were veiled enough to avoid censorship

[@erichsieh6596]

Modern Warfare 2 Campaign Remaster: “Remember, no Russian” *”Are you serious?”* *takes you back to main menu

[@Journey_to_who_knows]

Wasn’t Makarov planning to make himself Tsar of a Russian empire by destroying America to put them first in power, oh boy Black Hundreds ideologies would be a hell of a can to open. 19th century politics can make any farleft/right fanboy bust in their panties.

[@raiorai2]

@@zacchiu6204 Why do you think discussing and criticising a game is "crying" about it? And why do you say "It's just a game", as if it was a lesd valuable form of storytelling? And, most importantly, why do you unironically use 'beta'? It's almost like you want to not think about stuff.

[@renzo9000]

7:22 I die and grenade indicator tells me: you were killed by a grenade. watch out for the grenade danger indicator.

[@safe-keeper1042]

God, I'd forgotten about that. I hated that message. The most patronizing thing I've ever seen in a video game, especially the way they showed it every single *****ing time a grenade killed you.

[@mostafaahmedibrahim2541]

REMEBER GERNADE BADD

[@Organman2410]

I could be way off, but with the discussion about how the house mission had to be justified in the end, I can't help but think that screenwriters are way more comfortable writing stories where a firefighter or doctor or heck, a superhero puts in their best efforts to save a life only for it to turn out to be pointless, but can't let american military action mean nothing. A doctor can waste time saving the 'wrong' patient, a firefighter can get themselves killed looking for a pet, a superhero all but has a rite of passage where they can't save someone no matter what. But as soon as the story shifts to someone whose job is to shoot people, they suddenly get cold feet about making it meaningless. Oh sure, they can say war is meaningless over and over in dialogue, but the actions of the soldier hero shooting bad guys has to accomplish a 'greater good' no matter what. The house just COULDN'T have been a normal house they raided over a bad lead (they don't even have to be responsible for the bad intel themselves) it IS connected to the big terrorist plot and raiding it DID help. Like I said, maybe I'm off, but it feels like there's something there.

[@nomeayano7757]

You are exactly right! And for that reason, it's said that we don't really have anti-war movies -- because for one to exist, it needs to show not only how brutal war is but also how meaningful. And, as you said, it is somehow difficult for people to write meaningless war stories.

[@BababooeyGooey]

@@nomeayano7757 The recent All Quiet on the Western Front remake I think fits the bill. Teenage boys are recruited, die, the end. Anything that happens between those points is inconsequential.

[@nomeayano7757]

@@BababooeyGooey My thoughts exactly

[@raulfernandez57]

That's a nice of putting it.

[@FlameDarkfire]

@@nomeayano7757 It's like the movie adaptation of We Were Soldiers. In reality they held that area around their initial LZ for a bit, then get rotated out for another unit to take over. Men died for no tangible benefit in the war, and ultimately the survivors went to another spot. But in the movie we can't have that; we can't have poignant scenes where the Colonel's wife hand delivers every death letter to the wives of the lost soldiers only for the unit to rotate out and not have won anything. So we get the final showdown, American might vs Vietnamese tenacity and cleverness. One final heroic charge that seems doomed, then at the last moment a deus ex machina of helicopters coming in to cover them. It's heroic, it swells pride in American accomplishment, and it's completely fictional.

[@yeeyeeyeeye]

I think that if your game was sponsored by the U.S. military, assisted by the U.S. military, glorifies the U.S military, refrences real-world military incidents, or focuses on warfare - I think it might be just a bit political.

[@wrestlinganime4life288]

Cod is straight up military ad

[@hamburger2726]

Activision: “it’s a morally gray area” Also Activision: “ROSSIA BAD MERICA GOOD BUY OUR GAME PLS”

[@actualteddybear891]

Oh yeah here take this gas grenade. I call it the pocket war crime. You wanna drop some fire ass willy pete? LET ER RRRRIP.

[@tacti-cooldude6236]

But America was bad in the originals

[@spleeneater9481]

@@tacti-cooldude6236 Shepard was bad in the originals. I don't distinctly remember america itself ever being painted as bad in mw-mw3. Unless im forgetting something.

[@broylesmal427]

@spleen eaterThat's basically this game Russia itself is not portrayed as bad but general barkov is

[@hamburger2726]

Person1 Person2 well, the Soviets are kinda portrayed as bad, and while Barkov is there there’s a lot more focus on the soldiers, whereas in the original mw makarov, zakhaev and Shepard all have their own private army when they go AWOL

[@darkartsdabbler2407]

The mind boggles that in America being a member of the troops is so often a get out of jail free card Yet, when military personnel criticize the military they are often labeled traitors. The same fool who would call gallagher a hero wouldn't hesitate call him a villain if he came out against the military

[@cam4636]

Does it boggle the mind? Frankly I can't think of anything more straight forward than "we are the Good Guys and therefore what our Guys do is Good! Kill all nonbelievers, they threaten Our Guys and our ability to be Good!"

[@DuringDark]

shoutouts Chelsea Manning

[@jamesgeorge7579]

I'm surprised you didn't even mention that time in MW3 when Price interrogates a man by trapping him in a room with a chemical weapon, while dangling a gas mask out of reach, once he has the information he shoots him.

[@bryceluther1576]

@G. G. It's also a textbook violation of the Geneva Conventions, and makes him a war criminal.

[@halfpintrr]

G. G. It shouldn’t. It keeps humanity from descending into barbarism for the most part.

[@ThemomSlapper]

Bryce Luther price was already a war criminal when he killed shepard

[@halfpintrr]

G. G. That’s not the fault of the rules themselves, but a fault of regulatory bodies not being strong enough to enforce them. The rules themselves are humane. I advocate for a stronger regulatory body.

[@halfpintrr]

G. G. I suppose but that means that you are okay with everything the Geneva Conventions forbid unless explicitly stated otherwise. Like genocide or extrajudicial torture, and are okay with potential bad actors doing those actions to you.

[@SleepyMatt-zzz]

Video games make great recruitment tools. It's a hard pill to swallow, I've had friends who wanted to and have joined the army because they thought it would be like playing a video game, and even I've felt the allure of the aesthetics of war. I think it speaks to how reminiscent today's game developers are to past futurist art movement during the modernist era, who themselves were attracted to the aesthetics of war and fascism.

[@allenharper2928]

Then you had stupid friends. Seriously. Like "how does this person walk and breathe at the same time" stupid. Or you just made this up. I'm going with the second choice.

[@raulfernandez57]

Damn, good point, I didn't think of it that way... It's kinda creepy, more so if you're aware of how military spending and militarism in general are rising up...

[@wodidos]

I just did an analysis of the futurist manifesto by Filippo Marinetti for my bachelor studies in history and holy hell is it proto-fascist.

[@sadpee7710]

i try and say this whenever i get a chance. popular media about the military, everything from movies to video games, often have close ties to the US government military. they offer resources and access in exchange for control over the end product. nothing makes it into your media about war unless the US military greenlites it, meaning the only things in your game/movie are things that align with government military interests. almost no studio says no to this deal. in fact making a lot of this art would be impossible without the backing of the US military. you can look it up. it's real.

[@doingitwelldotbiz]

@@sadpee7710 it's also rather insidious to note where the US asks permission to enter and where it inserts itself forcefully. The global south is a sand box for war games, while European and/or wealthy nations get a seat at the table with at least some say in what goes on. The US has amassed so much power that they are the police both within and without its borders. And, in either case, the structure of the hierarchy is preserved. Filtered top to bottom, who you are grants you proximity to power. Almost without fail.

[@MBloke]

When your own ideology mirrors the dominant ideology of your culture, it doesn't feel like ideology. I think that's part of why so many people (especially """Gamers""") bristle at the question of whether X piece of media is political and what stance it might be reflecting: "They literally said that they're taking an apolitical stance, so it's obviously apolitical! Stop trying to make everything political!" It's always The Others the ones who have Ideologies and Politics, never us. Which is why having a character be gay or whatever is pandering and "shoving politics down our throat" but a game portraying USA and their allies in the role of morally grey but ultimately good guys who might do unsavory stuff for the greater good doesn't reflect a political stance whatsoever.

[@ano_nym]

Yup, the whole lgbt stuff certainly isn't the dominant ideology being paraded by everyone these days...

[@FeeshUnofficial]

As I always say: "gamers (derogatory)"

[@line4169]

honestly this !

[@BlazingOwnager]

It's the way it's handled. Not the politics. Look at old sci-fi as the best example; it attacked concepts, ideologies, ideas. Now compared it to new sci-fi: It attacks specific hot button issues on social media, specific administrations, etc. Everything has to be a parallel or a wink-nudge, preaching a message in a not so subtle way. Gamers bristle at having the game stop to broadcast political opinions down your throat related to very specific real world events, rather than a thoughtful examination of concepts. This ham-fisted writing is going to have people look back at most media from this era in a very, very poor light when media discussing the same issues 10+ years ago is going to be timeless.

[@BlazingOwnager]

@@FeeshUnofficial lol do you work at Kotaku?

[@Bendelsohn]

I'll admit that the original modern warfare trilogy is absolutely bonkers, and I played it pretty young so most of the story kind of went over my head, but one thing about mw2 always stuck with me. America is the villain. Nationalism is the enemy. It was not the spooky mysterious other in Russia or Markov that started WW3, but an American nationalist who thought that a great conflict would bring his nation together. Price said one thing that haunts me to this day: "All you need to change the world is one good lie and a river of blood." Modern Warfare 2019, on the other hand, drapes itself with "shocking" imagery and violent scenes that recall real-life tragedies, but it has nothing to say about them. If anything, it seems to enjoy them. It finds them exciting. MW2 used a fantastical approach to touch on reality, where MW 2019 tries to live in reality but grows ever further removed from it.

[@mato32dx223]

MW2 is pretty good honestly. It shows that America is not really good, and Russia and the Opfor Middle Eastern alliance aren't good either. It's the most neutral it can get, and MW3 is just about Price and the others stopping the war before it turns nuclear, pretty much

[@2emoseley]

great comment

[@thatguykalem]

This is a fairly good point, actually. Even as a teenager, some of the stuff happening in that game struck me as absolutely grotesque.

[@BeondTheKDGaming]

The Non-political plot The american military is in a middle eastern country for unknown reasons. The Russian military is also in this country for unknown reasons. The people who live there who don't want either america or russia in their country. The russians and people who live there are the "bad guys." There is a reason the writers don't show why america invaded the country. It's because most of the american and russian interventions in the middle east have been profit or resource driven, without any regard for anyone living there. That's how it has been for a very long time. But no, definitely not political because it didn't mention donald trump.

[@Dead_prince27]

You left out the part where unlike the Americans in both Afghan and Syria the ruling government invited Russia in to help them.

[@peral9728]

Didn't the Americans enter because there was a terrorist organization literally blowing up London? That seemed abundantly clear in the video.

[@Dead_prince27]

@@peral9728 my comment was in relation to real life events the game twisted.

[@Dead_prince27]

@@peral9728 as for the in game story you are partly correct as the Americans were involved before the London bombing and it was the CIA agent who asked for Prices help.

[@yungsquirrel]

there is an explanation for the russian invasion in the game, when barkov basically tells you that he invaded because he doesn’t like terrorists and tells farah that “Your country breeds terrorists” however that is the most lazily written and vague motive for anything i have ever heard

[@Rad-Dude63andathird]

"This game is about politics." "Is this game political?" "No."

[@oliverpotts8664]

If Call of Duty wanted to a game that shows the true nature of warfare, they would show civilians being killed in US airstrikes, in a conflict without any goals, with the characters not really knowing why they are fighting.

[@bombocrusty4251]

So essentially spec ops: the line, an objectively superior game to all of these

[@zerprob6311]

like in the video that julian assange released

They sometimes show us American soldiers doing bad things, but they always fraim them as "necessary things". Like is said in the video: Yeah, we see our protagonist treatening a man's wife and kid with a gun, but is ok because it was necessary.

[@John-X]

If Call of Duty wanted a realist game, they wouldn't have immediately tried to distance its Middle Eastern villains from Islam with the very first line in the script: "Our war is not for our faith" That alone is implying that "Islam has nothing to do with terrorism" which anybody who has even a minor understanding of "the religion of peace" would know that is false, and any soldier will tell you that regular western people have no idea just how much the religion of Islam plays a role into all of the conflict in The Middle East. The second line: *"We fight to remove all foreign powers from our soil."* only reinforces the leftist belief that the real bad guys are the western powers who are fighting to protect our freedom from Radical Islamic Terrorism.

[@mastercharlesdiltardino8058]

@@John-X thank you, very well said.

[@resolutionblaze363]

I just realized that you described the whole cast as Mary Sues: - Can do no wrong. - When they do wrong, its usually for the right reasons, or justified by the characters or the story itself. - The characters are rarely, if ever, put into question about their actions. - Any characters who go against them are seen as outcasts, usually by all the characters in the story. They are literally Mary Sues.

[@lorddiethorn]

No they are not because price gets question all the time

[@biggiecheese726]

I wouldn’t say that the main cast do no wrong. There are some morally questionable moments across the game. For example, when Price brings in the Butcher’s family, a few characters clearly show disdain, with one saying it’s very immoral. You also get to choose on wether or not you participate in the interrogation. Again, another moral question. And lastly, you get to either spare or kill The Butcher. You can question yourself on wether or not its ok to kill someone in cold blood even though they have done atrocious things in the past. In the cutscene directly afterwards, Garrick even seems a tad disturbed when he finally gets to “take the gloves off”. Price tried justifying it, because he believes in getting dirty to keep the world clean. Everyone has their own justification for doing something. The game presents you with these situations to think about them. Granted, some are clearly one sided, but you can have a reasonable discussion about choices characters make.

[@lorddiethorn]

@Tactical Bacon they are not even Gary Stu they are simply soldiers and special forces these means they have Trained hard and are best of the best. Ray from Star Wars is a Mary Sue because she has to many skills which she should not be good at she good at staff weapons but should suck with lightsabers, she should not be able to use the force with the Jedi mind trick because that is master level stuff. She the best pilot despite Poe doing most of the best shit

[@biggiecheese726]

Tactical Bacon No. Training does not make you perfect at something. Better written characters like Luke Skywalker trained and he still had flaws when it came to his character. Even if Rey was still perfect, having something more than a few minutes of training across the 3 movies would’ve actually given us a reason why

[@biggiecheese726]

Tactical Bacon It really isn’t. Even after training, people are bound to make mistakes or fuck up somehow. I wouldn’t even say Price is OP. He can die by simply being shot like anyone else. He’s simply a specially trained solider that’s amazing in combat because of all the experience he has. Being a captain in the SAS isn’t exactly easy to do. So yea, just because you trained doesn’t necessarily mean you’re overpowered

[@zaidlacksalastname4905]

"Farah is cooperative with the US and British military" Thaaaats why she's one of the good guys, got it

[@ΒασίληςΒλάχος-τ3κ]

For God's shake, people will look at this game in a century like we do with cold war propaganda movies

[@_extrathicc]

@@ΒασίληςΒλάχος-τ3κ People ARE looking at this game nowadays like we do with cold war propaganda movies.

[@simoneidson21]

I don’t get this criticism, I know this is a year old comment but still. “Person working with western good guys despite being a non-westerner: RACISM”

[@KamenracerX]

​@@simoneidson21 The implication is that anyone not affiliated/cooperative with those are considered "the bad guys", an "us vs. them" mentality.

[@thermonuclear8335]

This did not age well after the fall of Afghanistan and what’s happened to women there lmao

[@void-creature]

"We present the different perspectives" I really enjoyed that scene in the game where the *evil* Russian explained what his reasons for being *evil* were, his arguments made a lot of sense

[@El-de6nj]

the part where the unnamed evil russians calmly explained their reasons was also my favorite part. The complexity of it all really resonated with me

[@JangoBunBun]

Looking at the credits: the US military advised on this game. The US military wouldn't allow themselves to be the badguy. That's how you get a story of "russer bad, terrerists bad, murcia good" It's how you get "Russia uses chemical weapons and completely destroys a convoy of civilians fleeing a war but AMERICA is going to stop them"

[@fng8682]

Makes me wonder how the hell they'll write Shepherd for the sequel

[@vault7181]

@@fng8682 My guess? They shoehorn in some "Russian spy" plot thread that deflects blame off the US.

[@MrAnimason]

When you're the lesser of the two evils, you become the good guys. The United States sucked then, but it's a million times better than Russia.

[@lewishardaker886]

Funny seeing you guys (who've obviously never played MW2) try to rationalise this while being blatantly oblivious to the facts. Shepherd is the bad guy. You literally side with Makarov (Enemy of My Enemy) to stop Shepherd.

[@JangoBunBun]

@@lewishardaker886 Makarov is also the bad guy.

[@quaternaryyy]

I've never _heard_ of a game taking a stance _so_ strongly that it blanks out the screen except for an "Are you serious?" message in the middle of the screen and restarts the level. Maybe this is something I'd expect from a little arthouse indie game trying to prove a point. Putting it in your Apoliticism Simulator 2019 is hilarious. I looked it up on KZbin to see if it was a recurring theme in CoD games. The first video's title framed it as a "baby terrorist".

[@senseiseth7556]

wait im confused are you mad that they blanked the screen out or are you mad that that was the only time the game made you restart and blanked the screen

[@rotisseriepossum]

SenseiSeth I think it’s the latter, and the hypocrisy of it. Idk I feel like that baby-shooting bit is the closest the game dares to deliberately taking any sort of political stance. Which feels kind of... hollow? since there’s so much else you do in the game that’s just as bad But I’m not very aware/savvy when it comes to warfare and politics, nor have I ever played cod, so take what I say with a grain of salt; nowadays I actively avoid anything to do w the news or politics if/when I can or else my depression/anxiety/existential dread goes into maximum overdrive for a week

[@nameq]

@@senseiseth7556 and again, you can't shoot at your teammates at all, but they decided to make it possible to shoot the babies just to poke at you with a scripted screen "Are you serious?" Makes it look like a joke

[@youtubeuniversity3638]

​@@senseiseth7556Who said they're mad?

[@kayleighbrown459]

I'll be honest. I'm one of those people who subscribe to the idea that damn near every piece of art is political in some way or another. I don't mean that all of them have a political agenda exactly, but art is made by people and people are influenced by their political beliefs and the political environment they're raised in. Even if that view is total political apathy, which is what I kinda believe these fall into, that influence is still there. And it's especially telling in these war games where you're creating a politically driven story and need to decide who are the bad guys and who are the good guys. Who are allies and who are the other. I mean... I'm not saying this is a conscious political statement, but ya can't take a war crime your country did and say it was the ones your fighting simply to make the bad guys appear more bad, and say there's not politics in it. It's just. It's not possible.

[@michaelkulakov9716]

Totally correct. In Anno you get people to pay taxes and fight people who attack you. That's political. In Doom you slay tons of living creatures instead of doing diplomacy. That's political. In Minecraft you have the choice of killing animals for food and of taking resources from the villagers by force. That's political. Everything is. The thing is, you either enjoy the gameplay and reflect on it later, or get propagandized, taking the implications of the plot for granted. Like, in Doom, the game doesn't let you do anything beyond the scope of a simple idea "killing enemy = good." That can't be a good idea to take to the real world, but some people inevitably will embrace it as they play. Sure, making a game that explicitly tells you to doubt your actions as in makes you participate in the Christmas ceasefire of WWI only to make you kill the fellas you played football with later on. But thankfully, we have the ability to judge our actions outside of the frame "if the game lets me do this it's the right thing to do."

[@lorddiethorn]

Sorry if you think all art is political you are not very smart art stand for Artificial sports games are not really political when you play them you are not treated to political statements for the most part. There was art historian who looked at political art both were Napoleon crossthe Alps one a non political art he riding on a Donkey the other he riding a horse that is the political art. A painting of dragon in its self is not a political art

[@kayleighbrown459]

​@@lorddiethorn I'm not saying that every piece of art has a political message or agenda, simply that we as people are influenced by our cultural norms, personal ideologies and the political environment they come from and that it's literally impossible for those NOT to bleed into the things we make. Art does stands for "artificial". That is not where the word came from. If you are going to insult someone's inelegance over the internet, you way want to shy away from blatantly untrue statements like this.

[@kayleighbrown459]

@@michaelkulakov9716 Exactly true.

[@lorddiethorn]

@@kayleighbrown459 but you did said that so in the future don’t

[@DolphinsAreWeird]

MW2: Price detonates a nuke over the Eastern US causing an EMP that, although being instrumental to the war effort by stopping the Russian advance, could've also shut down evacuation vehicles and aircraft, the deaths of those undergoing medical treatment in hospitals, and any civilian electronics (cars, phones, radios, and any other electronic device that could help civilians escape war torn areas) that aren't protected from EMPs are shut down as well. MW3: Price, in order to obtain information to find the person that produced the gas used in Europe, uses that same gas for interrogation and executes the person he interrogated afterwards. MW Reboot: Price uses a man's wife and son to get information, with the threat of killing them, in order to stop a chemical attack in Russia. Hadir uses stolen gas against Russian soldiers overrunning their position knowing full well what will happen to him, his sister, and the Urzik Militia if they are killed or captured by the Russians again. All of them except one are all under the excuse of, "A tough choice made by the right people."

[@levi2725]

Strangely, Hadir sounds like the most non-escalation-y one. It's a desperate attempt, and, according to the tools and options Hadir had at the time, appears the most measured response.

[@KasumiRINA]

Meanwhile, real life russia: fails to take Marinka, population less than 10k before 2022, for OVER NINE YEARS. If there's one thing unbelievable in these games is russians advancing to the rest of Donetsk oblast, let alone into the center of Ukraine... no way they can get to USA.

[@hexlart8481]

@@levi2725 There's a sort of strange thing with militarism and the glorification of war. Our side is always good, and must always be one step ahead of the enemy. We must escalate before they do. But if they escalate, its their fault. Its hypocrisy of the highest order.

[@kman1893]

Yeah this is the first time i heard price detonated a fuckin nuke that is actually hilarious. Wasnt the first game all about trying to stop russian nukes as well? The irony

[@Jakeznk]

What’s your point?

[@kuri7154]

I didn't notice that in my first playthrough how Hadir and Price were both "making hard decisions and doing the right thing" in pretty much the same way but they were portrayed completely differently because one was already pre-determined to be the good guy while the other did not have the licence-to-do-wrong. I like the term you used 'superficial controversy' because that's basically what I've been feeling but I didn't know how to put it. It gives unsophisticated plots a fake sense of sophistication. It's a 'moral grey zone' which looks grey at a glance, but if you zoom in it's just pixels of clear black and white. It's still digestible for as many customers as possible, yet it looks grey, so the consumers can proudly convince themselves that "I'm beyond black-n-white now" except black-n-white is still precisely what it is.

[@nitrocharge2404]

Funny how Metal Gear tackles all the themes that CoD pretends to tackle head-on, embraces the politics of it all, and does it in an impactful way that leaves everyone who's played it better off. Basically, play Metal Gear, not CoD

[@lad7436]

CoD pretends to tackle jack shit, it's COD, how have people become so retarded that they have started to take fucking RIOT SHIELD game seriously? It's the most arcady, actiony, cheesy game in the world, and that's it's fucking purpose dumbass. It's not political, it's just supposed to be "kewl" and "badass", so it tries hard, because it's call of fucking duty not SPEC OPS The Line.

[@hhelminn]

Which one should I start with? I have always been tempted to try it out

[@russian_pwn_u]

@@hhelminn mgs 3: snake eater is arguably the best in the series :^)

[@lemonjelly1171]

​@@hhelminn obviously, release order was the original intended experience, as the series heavily controls what info it drip-feeds you. if you wanna go the more confusing chronological route, MGS3 > MGS: Peace Walker > MGSV: Ground Zeroes > MGSV: The Phantom Pain > Metal Gear > Metal Gear 2 > Metal Gear Solid > MGS2 > MGS4 > Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance Metal Gear 1, 2 and Rising are arguably less important, and most of the spin offs are either noncanon, insignificant or both. Metal Gear Solid: Twin Snakes is a remake of MGS but is not necessarily the best way to experience MGS. ultimately, it's down to personal preference. I'd do release order myself, but it's up to you!

[@Griggs58]

@@hhelminn Release order you filthy casual lol

[@_fudgepop01]

People still see this and reach out to me, surprised to see my username appearing at the end in big letters in support of someone. I don't regret a single cent I've given - all your content is incredible and thought-provoking and I simply love it

[@FBI-sr2eg]

The thing of CoD is it frames and writes any horrific thing it needs to create set pieces. The Russian general (I think his name was something like barkov) was shown to torture someone to frame him as the big bad that you needed to kill. Price was shown to use torture to cement him as a gritty desensitized badass. The Butcher killed civilians to frame him as deserving of whatever he got. Gaz kills civilians to show that war is tough on soldiers and their life is always assumed to be at risk. The Russian troops and Al-Qatal use car bombs and chemical warfare to show that they don’t care about who dies or how as long as they complete their goals. Alex uses chemical warfare and Alex and Farrah both use car bombs to show that sometime you have to do dangerous things to accomplish the right goal. The idea is that you’re not supposed to question what you need to do, only what enemies need to do. Which ironically starts to make the game sound a whoooole lot like Military propaganda. But it’s not political right?

[@AzelfandQuilava]

Black Ops 2 is the closest time I think that any CoD game has actually near being morally-grey. The main villain is a victim of rampant and ruthless Imperialist/Capitalist tactics in Southern America; his sister and him and nearly killed in a fire that was started for insurance money, his father and him started a drug trade to support themselves and as a result they were targeted by the CIA. When both his father and sister are killed by CIA operatives (one of them being a close family member of the player character in the sister's case) he attempts to start a global revolution to fuck over all the Imperial powers of the world. In the process he slowly builds up a shit tonne of personal wealth and a private army for several decades before unleashing them on various lone dictatorships (they are name-dropped as Iraq and North Korea BTW), then he turns his eyes to the US and China. Despite him and his forces committing a load of unarguably inhumane acts throughout the story he's never truly portrayed as a complete monster. The player character calls him out but the player themselves is constantly reminded of his background and how the US has put its blood-stained fingers into every part of the globe, even with the attempt to hand-wave by having the previously mentioned CIA guy say his actions were a mistake its still pretty clear that both sides are wrong on some level. Basically what I'm trying to say is Black Ops 2's story is really good and fuck Treyarch for making 3 and 4 have fucking nothing to do with it aside from sharing the same universe.

[@joshuapurdy7065]

Black ops: the numbers mason what do they mean? Black ops 2: moral ambiguity with mini rc tanks Black ops 3: “train go boom”

[@chrishamr947]

Black Ops 2 is the closest any COD game has come to not telling you there’s a right way. The game had several choices with branching paths, which resulted in situations where instead of redoing the scene to get it right the game wanted you to live with it and regret it. That, ultimately, is what I think Modern Warfare 2019 is missing. Modern Warfare doesn’t let you be in the wrong, even when it tries to, because you are the Good Guy™️ and are therefore always right.

[@MrHendrix17]

Black Ops 2 is an interesting story but still falls into a lot of the same traps as other COD games. I do think Menendez was a really compelling villain and the branching story was surprisingly well done for what is usually a set linear corridor shooter however its very much a personal story and most of the consequences are focussed on Menedez and Woods as individual characters. American military involvement helped to create the villain but ultimately it is through American Marines oorah-ing there way across the world that the issue is ultimately resolved. The "bad" ending results in billions rising up against the US government as a result of Menendez becoming a martyr but it again really the whole movement is boiled down to one villainous character, the movement is portrayed as being wrong as the leader is the mask of a drug/weapons smuggler who helped prop up anti American groups. Real life characters and events feature but their effects are only really shown as to what impact it had on the Woods/Menendez story, Operation Just Cause is featured but the game doesn't tackle the real life implications of the invasion of Panama or the reasons behind it, it is more focussed on making Manuel Noriega a mustache twirling villain who sells out Woods and Mason to Menendez. Mason fights alongside Jonas Savimbi who cheers you on as his army chases down and slaughters fleeeing MPLA however the point of the mission is rescuing Woods and finding Menendez is operating in Angola. Oliver North shows up but its just as a cameo as he was the advisor, with no mention whatsoever of the Iran/Contra affair in the game. There are other examples like this throughout the series where real world events are watered down to background details and not exploring in any meaningful way the actual events, often whitewashing things where real opponents of the US are boiled down to cartoon villains and non-Americans become tools to achieve greater goals while there own reasons for fighting are given no time. Ultimately I think if the Black Ops series were stripped of its military connections there would be a lot more space for a great story and the bones for it were there, even the original hinted at Woods, Mason and Hudson going rogue entirely but the series fell into the same oorah American Military propaganda that it usually does.

[@AzelfandQuilava]

@@MrHendrix17 This is a good take. BO2 is just the least shit when it comes to actually subverting the gun-ho bollocks that the post CoD3 games all thrive on.

[@DavidS-cb1wx]

Wow, very articulate and well put together video. This puts into perspective how the gaming community will shit their pants at “SJW” politics, but is totally submissive to basically imperialist propaganda

[@DavidS-cb1wx]

Alexandre P gamers are the REAL oppressed group lol

[@daytonmargramarnsom1641]

Alexandre P have you ever been on a gaming forum? I’ve been playing video games for 17 years, I grew up around gamers, and let me tell you: gamers are seriously some of the most hateful, racist, sexist, and homophobic people in the modern world. They’ll breed as much cognitive dissonance as possible to justify why their games should only include straight white men as heroes. I know that that sounds cliche and I’m as anti-SJW as anyone else, but seriously, gamers hate making room for anybody who is different in appearance, culture, or opinion

[@Josep_Hernandez_Lujan]

Call of Duty = Crypto-fascism, American imperialism, jingoism and distasteful Anti-Russian sentiment

[@TahtahmesDiary]

@@straatee6566 Nah, I used to play LoL and got screamed out of a forum for asking for a Black character since they already had 100 blondes and even animals and people went AT LENGTH to MAKE UP LORE about why there was no way to have brown people and that there was no Africa equivalent in the map so I needed to get over it. Then a mod deleted my post. It took 6 more years before they released a Black character.

[@TahtahmesDiary]

@@lobiankk77 I have gone into games from Gears to Halo to Fortnite and heard someone screaming "nigger" at the top of their lungs into my headset randomly. Naming a few random characters who exist ignores the clear rarity of their existence. Theres a serious issue with yall being terrified of "SJW" inclusion yet EAGERLY taking military propaganda up the ass and it needs to be discussed whether you can admit it or not.

[@jonnysac77]

I'm not sure what pisses me off more, the audacity to say there game about terrorism and loosely justified imperial war crimes is not political or that some people are stupid enough to actually believe that

[@theolich4384]

It's OK. We have some best minds working on these super lucrative projects. And they work really hard and became really good at it. It's nature for the average person to fall into their efforts since well, the best minds have done a great job. That's capitalism.

[@lorddiethorn]

Which war crime because the highway of death was not a war crime lol

[@jonnysac77]

@@lorddiethorn the US intentionally bombed retreating troops and civilians, who gives a shit what you call it, doesn't make it any less awful also there are tons of other war crimes in this game?

[@michac.8283]

@@lorddiethorn for example white phosphorus. But there were many more

[@sluttyMapleSyrup]

@@lorddiethorn Buddy, killing surrendering or retreating opponents and civilians are literally warcrimes -- in fact, the latter may be considered a crime against humanity.

[@ok-tchau]

This reminds me a meme that went like: "Games have two genders: male and political. Two races: White and political. Two sexual orientations: Straight and political."

[@qna2004]

That's some good insight for a meme

[@MsAirnation]

Think I saw that on Reddit on a post

[@henotic.essence]

That's pretty eye opening. "things I agree with and political"

[@BlazingOwnager]

This game is taking a broad stroke view of political issues and using it to tell a story. Most people want politics injected to have "The Message (TM)" broadcast constantly by the game. That's how you end up with crap like Saint's Row Reboot.

[@tennicksalvarez9079]

Huh i heard something similar from innuendo studio.

[@naturesquad9174]

The lead designer of "Clean House" also created one of my favorite HL2 mods, "Outpost 16". It was such a professional, valve quality mission and I always wondered what happened to the creator. Welp, now I know lol

[@HarmonicVector]

I mean from a gameplay perspective, Clean House is actually really really good and I'd love to play a procedurally generated practice mode based on it. But storywise... Enh...

[@ckorp666]

sad to see artistry get twisted by state propaganda

[@Dutcheh]

i mean the mission doesn’t seem to confusing to me. They raid a home in Camden where there should be no guns. If someone has a gun in the UK i think it’s pretty clear they’re a bad guy. I didn’t really get the propaganda vibe from that one about no knock raids.

[@BobbinRobbin777]

@@Dutcheh as a fellow non-American (Swedish), i suspect the main cause of concern is them being allowed to just barge in at any moment by just the slightest suspicion of crime, which is what makes people question the morality. Atleast, i think that’s the case?

[@Dutcheh]

@@BobbinRobbin777 True

[@elpunk4463]

love how "gamers" think women and lgbt ppl automatically make a game "political" but war and terrorism don't

[@iam9991000]

To gamers, "political" is anything they disagree with.

[@harrykatz4747]

@@corvaes I agree. Everything is innately political, and great attention must be paid to those thing that claim to be above or outside of political.

[@aoibhealfae]

I think people have become so numbed by depiction of what happened with war and terrorism that they see it as entertainment whereas games representing women and LGBT as people are political because we desire to be recognized and humanized and that was apparently more terrifying.

[@andrewlaporte5477]

In that sense, I wouldn't be political if I was a victim of a car bombing, but I would be if people mentioned who I was beyond a number.

[@commondognut]

Two of those things are necessary for a FPS about modern conflict and the other two just aren’t. People are sick to death of unnecessary/unrelated politicization.

[@omnaysayer]

i find it very sad that 18 years after 9/11 this sort of unambiguious righteous "gloves off" is still a trope. jesus. spec ops the line came and shook everything, and then comes COD and forgets everything.

[@simonee21]

Because the gameplay of Spec Ops was terrible, only the story was good, the developers forgot that they were doing a game, not a movie.

[@GALL0WSHUM0R]

@@simonee21 I believe that was because the devs of Spec Ops had the foresight to understand that a game about Americans playing hero and indiscriminately killing people shouldn't be fun to play.

[@simonee21]

@@GALL0WSHUM0R No, the game to play is just awful, the cover mechanics are just broken, the gunplay is unbalanced and feels wrong, there are more than twenty weapons and you will only need two for the whole game, the multiplayer is a joke.

[@simonee21]

@@GALL0WSHUM0R If the game had a classic storyline nobody would have played it, the only part of the game that is good its the story.

[@NotSoMelancholy]

I don’t know, people give spec ops a little too much credit. It’s too obvious with what it’s trying to do, and once you catch on you’re just put in situations where you’re forced to do the bad thing and then the game goes “wow, that was a bad thing you just did, if only you knew before hand Xd” If it was more open ended with it’s situations it would’ve improved the story tenfold without changing the flow of the story or taking away from the ending’s impact

[@MichealFelk]

Not a day goes by that I’m not mad that Metal Gear and Spec Ops the Line, didn’t sell as much as CoD