COD 6: Modern Warfare 2 Gets Banned In Russia!

Call of Duty 6: Modern Warfare 2 – arguably the biggest game to be released this year was finally unveiled to the public and ignoring the complaints regarding the multiplayer set-up it has received almost universal critical acclaim, except for one level: “No Russian”.

The level (which I will run through in a minute for those who haven’t played it/heard about it) has already raised significant amounts of controversy – to the point where it has come up in parliament – but nowhere as much as Russia who have decided to ban the game and are currently recalling all the copies with the mission on from stores across the country.

So what’s the reason behind this? Well for a change you can see exactly why a government is pretty hacked off, and why they ultimately decided to indulge in a bit of censorship. The Modern Warfare 2 mission in question sees you take the role of a CIA agent undercover in a group of Russian nationalist terrorists who undertake a massacre in a Moscow airport killing literally hundreds of ‘innocent civilians’.

In fact looking back it has to be said that the Russians, Koreans and Germans generally get a pretty rough deal when it comes to game enemies, but never to the point of mowing down innocent civilians and you can see why the Russians are more than a little annoyed at the portrayal of all Russians as moral deprived terrorists.

I’ll come back to the Russians in a second but it’s also worth having a look at what the controversy has been like over here. Unsurprisingly it hasn’t been as severe, but lifelong anti-violent-gaming campaigner MP Keith Vaz and the Daily Mail have been teaming together to whip up the fire of discontent by claiming the game allows the player to “plot terror attacks”, and have taken it up in parliament where fortunately they have been met with some equally fierce opposition supporting the game.

That is not to say that they support the act of shooting innocent people in airports rather that they see outside the box and argue that this is a catalyst for the plot, and although it is highlighted it is in fact a generally positive message, as said by Adam Biessener of Game Informer :

“[The level] makes the player a part of truly heinous acts … [which] draws the morality of war and espionage into sharp focus in a way that simply shooting the bad guys cannot”

OK so you could still argue that there are better ways to do this than shooting people, but even that is not necessary. What people who criticise the game continue to ignore is that not only is the playing of the game optional, not only is there an 18 certificate and not only is the player specifically warned about the content but you are also given the option to completely skip the level and save any traumatisation for later in your life.

So back to the Russians in Modern Warfare 2 – and although you can both sympathise with and criticise their actions they have at least been vaguely pro-active with it and have arranged with Activision to have a version of the game with the “No Russian” mission completely removed (not just covered over with the patch that is currently floating around), and this should be released later this month.

It’s nice to see a kind of happy ending for this and so shortly after the COD 6: Modern Warfare 2 release date, but what will this mean for future big releases? Are we slowly slipping into the trap of accepting this horrible games and actions as the norm, or are we just being too protective and underestimate people’s common sense and their ability to differentiate between a game and real life? And will the big companies finally start to think about what they put in the games, or just release different versions for different countries? We’ll see! But what do you think this will mean for the future of gaming, especially the big AAA titles?

Via – Gamerzines

Related Pages:

1. Call of Duty 6: Modern Warfare 2 Review (PS3)
2. Call of Duty 6: Modern Warfare 2 Trailer
3. ‘Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2′ Trailer #2
4. Call of Duty 6 Teaser Trailer
5. Call of Duty 7 Rumours?

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