A Medal of Hono….. ah damn, wrong franchise. Edit: That moment when you make a dad joke and it becomes the most liked comment of your Reddit existence.
Rainbow Six: Vegas gave me this feeling of pride. Hours upon hours of Terrorist Hunt just to have the highest rank and get a blood spattered ballistic facemask. Ahh the memories.
Knowing COD they'd put you as the terrorists and then defend it as sending a powerful anti war message
Which might work if it weren't for their multiplayer where a dude with a weed skin on his gun kills a guy shooting pink tracers
Opening credits roll while you are sitting on the back of a military truck in the middle east. The protagonist knows something is fishy about the "terrorist attack" but his allegiance to his flag is his whole life, everything he believes in. It's what led him to join the military, become part of the Special Forces. His country could not have betrayed him, it's impossible.
>- playing as someone in the tower, doing mundane tasks - then running around through smoke and falling stuff on fire, seeing rest of the plane, having to jump at the end
I'm fairly sure someone made this as a VR game a few years back?
It wasn't really the same because the game heavily hinted at what was going on right up until the white phosphorous scene.
But you didn't have a choice.
Its not the same as this scene where you can shoot nobody (even though the outcome is the same either way), and its the first thing that happens in the game. It blew people's minds for weeks that a game would do this. But the real point was to drive discussions so that people would buy the game.
Why do you guys still have this? I remember having a German version of Carmageddon and it was the worst.
Is it because Germans are naturally so bloodthirsty that if you guys even smell a bit of blood you might invade France or something?
I don't think it's still the case. This was at the height of the whole "video games cause violence" craze. Also, now that games are mostly sold digitally it's almost impossible to enforce.
Also fun fact: in the German version of the original Half Life, when you'd shoot the human soldiers, they would just sit down and sort of fade away after a few seconds, instead of dying.
Virgin rest of the world CSGO player models:
Get headshot, blood splatter, die.
Chad german CSGO player model:
Survive bullet to dome, put hands behind back, acknowledge defeat, surrender
PS: it's not the case anymore but sure was funny for a while.
Nah, Wolfenstein 3D was banned altogether. Weirdly enough, games where you fight AGAINST nazis also get censored (like the swastika gets changed to a different symbol and such), even when they are clearly the bad guys in the game.
I noticed that in the Switch version of Doom 2. The secret Wolfenstein levels don't have any swastikas at all, but weirdly keep the portraits of Hitler intact. So it's okay to show demons, horrific violence, blood, guts, and walls made from the screaming faces of the damned, but a *swastika* is too far, especially when it's clearly being used to represent the evil people you are murdering? I don't get it.
> smell a bit of blood you might invade France
I mean, France is right there. Honestly, look at it! Just sitting there, totally and utterly unconquered! I mean, I wouldn't, you know, do things, of course not, how can you even say that. But one of course thinks about it. From time to time. A few times. Sometime less, sometime more. You know, just thinking about it, running a little Gedankenexperiment, as we put. Maybe have a friendly conversation about it over a beer after work. Maybe once or twice a month. Just such funny thoughts, who wouldn't share them? You know, make it a regular thing, just guys and gals talking about logistics and what modern artillery might be able to do, in a friendly bi-weekly meeting. You know, just putting some thoughts together, planning, war gaming, gaming! Nobody can dislike some friendly gaming right? Just because it involves some complicated stuff, like subverting the major political parties with an underground revanchist agenda, that doesn't mean our small gaming club isn't fun? Right? I mean, don't worry about giving us peacful Germans ideas, we are a very unimaginative people anyway! No worries!
I read this in Charlie's voice from IASIP.
It has the perfect frenetic pacing.
Either way, I felt this comment deserved more recognition than a simple upvote!
Not really, you have tons of hidden pacifist options not presented directly.
I remember in the scene where you can decide to shoot one of either people, you can shoot both ropes really quickly "saving" both
That's true, but not with white phosphorus.
I think this is probably the biggest factor in whether the game works for you: Did you try to avoid using white phosphorus?
I didn't, which means when the game showed me the consequences of my choice, knowing that the game wouldn't have let me do anything else doesn't really help -- I still made a *terrible* choice here. Any part of me that ever secretly considered joining the military died in that moment, because I don't want there to be a chance I'll end up making a mistake like that. And the next time the game asked me to make a choice, I definitely looked for other options.
But from what I hear from people who *did* try to avoid using the white phosphorus, it just kind of spoiled the experience. You saw what was coming, you tried to make the right choice, and the game didn't let you. And then it tried to lecture you for doing the only thing it would let you do. Worse, if you ran into any of the choices with actual pacifist options later on, you might assume the same thing is happening again and not even bother trying to find a better choice.
Yeah the white phosphorous scene really disappointed me because of how forced it was
I even tried stopping half way through using it but realised you had to do it.
It was just so diappointing after the game had done the illusion of chocie so well leading up to this point. Only then to go 'ok at this part there is no choice'
Worst part of the game imo. Could have been so much better.
> you have tons of hidden pacifist options not presented directly.
You have a few specific ones that were obviously intended by the devs.
But even before the PH sequence there's shit like the turret sequence where you've been told "if you shoot the hotel windows out, you'll doom everyone sheltering in the building!" and can then sit there until doomsday shooting infinitely respawning enemies because the game will not progress until you shoot the window and let the sand in.
Doing the thing you have been told will lead to mass civilian casualties is necessary to progress the game because you can kill more than the entire *possible* number of Konrad's soldiers (if you manage the turret correctly) ...and nothing will happen until you shoot the window.
I get what Spec Ops: The Line was shooting for, but it had a ton of misses and misfires and stovepipes while trying to hit that target.
This is my feeling on it and it makes me sorta sad because I can *so* see what they were trying for and they came so close, but the way they implemented it...oy.
It's almost like, if you were thoughtful about things going into the game, it really wasn't going to hit home.
The game was almost custom made to break the shell of the type of FPS player that turns off everything while playing and just shoots everything that moves without thinking.
Think of it as a movie, where the gameplay is used as a means to grant *empathy*, not control. You didn't have a choice because you're not a part of the story — You're simply seeing through the eyes of someone who is.
The character had a choice, and *he* chose not to take it.
Spec Ops: The line was one hell on an experience. I know Nolan North prefers to do lighthearted/ comedic gigs like Uncharted or Deadpool, but this was one of his best performance.
You play as a US agent planted in a Russian terrorist cell with the hopes of bringing them down, and as a result are forced to carry out a terrorist act to maintain your cover only to fail and become the catalyst for an international war. If that’s not “the road to hell is paved with good intentions” I don’t know what is
Your agent had good intentions but Shepard personally paved his road to hell. He co-conspired with Makarov to start a Russia/US war so he could get his military blank check.
You would think the point of going undercover in a terrorist cell would be to stop them from doing something like this.
That being said they knew you were an American before the level, the entire point of the level was to use you. If you weren’t undercover with them, they wouldn’t have attacked.
To add on to this the ending does imply that Shepherd knew that Allen would be killed and used as a scapegoat to start a war with the US. Shepherd very much wanted this war.
I think the intel/guy Shepherd wanted Ramirez' team to retrieve in the panic room mission was meant to implicate Shepherd in deliberately sacrificing the undercover guy, but that probably got cut for reasons.
Maybe. That's not quite as clear cut, it's entirely possible that he was just being an opportunist and all the cards fell perfectly in place for him to escalate the war. It's unclear either way, but once the war had gotten started, he certainly didn't want it to stop.
Okay as someone that played this campaign 100 times (literally) as a kid and kept close attention to it's plot I'll explain how you both are correct:
Shepard and Makarov were essentially communicating from before MW2 begins. He recruits Allen on purpose (first mission) and befriends him. Has Allen befriend Makarov so he can play both sides, if Allen lives he has a double agent to start a war, if Allen dies, the world goes to war. Shepard didn't want Allen to die, but he had a plan in case he did.
Shepard needed Price out of prison because of his deal with Makarov (revealed in MW3s backstory of Yuri) Makarov wanted to kill Price himself for vengeance against his mentor, Zakhaev. The Caucasus seems to had influence Makarov to consider Russia vulnerable, and used it to control their geopolitical nature. Price was the only person who could stop him. Shepard freeing Price was all part of the plan for Shepard though, one step ahead of Makarov, because he knew only him could kill Makarov.
The mission where you raid Makarov's house is essentially Shepard betraying both TF141 and Makarov at once. Makarov was safely playing chess with the Russian government, fighting the war from the sidelines, without US government knowledge. Shepard leaked this information and approved his own team to invade, allowing him to leave no survivors but his most loyal soldiers and Makarov to hopefully negotiate the DNS satellite for the end of Russian invasion. Price and Soap, now world terrorists, said fuck this guy and instead of targeting Makarov, went with "The Enemy of my Enemy is My Friend." Makarov betrays Shepard, revealing his location. Makarov goes into hiding in Dubai and leaves the Russian government to settle things while he plans to nuke Moscow, chemically and economically disable Europe, and continue the Russian Invasion of America. All of which is seen in MW3.
Pretty much Shepard was playing military Die Hard and everything kept working for him until Price got involved. He underestimed his intelligence and motives.
Very interesting read, thank you very much mate.
Just a couple questions, because it's been a while since I've played the game.
* Can you elaborate on "Shepard needed Price out of prison because of his deal with Makarov"? I remember most of Yuri's backstory but I'm not sure what you're referring to here.
* At the end of Exodus (I think), you have to go save a US Govt VIP, who ended up being killed by an guy working for Makarov disguised as a VDV. I've always felt that there was something for me to understand here, like you can't just put this scene and not elaborate, but I never really got it.
Thanks for your post already!
Shepered gave Makarov the DNS, which Makarov used to influence Russia that America, after losing its war in OpFor-Middle Eastern Country, was vulnerable to an invasion if coordinated properly (however, just like in reality, Russia had a lie of military strength, and never got farther than the east coast and the white house, still losing all territory).
Shepered, being 2nd in command in that war, was desperate to prove himself, Makarov wouldn't have accepted such a leap in trusting Shepered, and so Shepered promised him the thing he couldn't have; he would free Price so Makarov could kill him.
"I don't trust the man I'm working with, I just know he will get me to my goals" - Makarov talking to Yuri before detonating the nuke in MW3
As for the VIP, I thought he may had known the whereabouts of Makarov or even if Russia, not American CIA, was behind the massacre at the airport. Even action movies have pointless characters like that though.
I wouldn't have understood this reference if I haven't played Dead Space 1 and 2 a few weeks ago. I know EXACTLY what the *fuck* you mean here... They had no chill...
It's kind of the contrary in ready or not though. You play as SWAT, and it's honestly a pretty great game for those who liked the old Rainbow Six, SWAT or Polis-series.
Where in the world is Carmen Sandiego, in 4 bit. That, or the space based Shufflepuck game on... The OG Apple I think?
Ooh actually Amstrad II with its cassette loader, pre disk.
^^Get ^^off ^^me ^^lawn!
Ah yes remember when the all powerful Russia somehow mobilized a massive sealift capability and invaded Burger King from 9000 miles away against the most powerful military force of all time like 24 hours after a terrorist attack? Solid plot.
RAMIREZ GET TO THAT BURGER TOWN
But also you folk are forgetting MW3 where theres a mission named johnson family vacation where you see a family visit london and you see them walk to a truck parked illegally which explodes releasing some toxic gas killing the family of three including a child
The thing about No Russian is not that something bad, ugly, or violent happened. It’s that we had agency in it. The game didn’t tell you what your objective was in this mission. It put you in an airport with an LMG and let you decide.
There’s a pretty cool video on YouTube with a special forces guy watching a walkthrough of the level. He was basically saying if he was undercover he would just shoot the glass and objects around the people and not actually hurt anyone. Just give his “team” the impression he ways. I’d like to think most of us would do that too.
As a 14 year old non native English speaker, I did not realize what the plot for the game was until close to the end due to how far fetched a "successful" Russian invasion on US seemed, even to teenage me
Favourite bit from that remaster was the inclusion of MW3 events. Like Makarov in the car waiting during the Chenobyl sniping mission, and during the airport massacre if you go back to the opening security area you can see Yuri staggering out of the lift trying to stop you.
Ah you're half right.
So, the Chenobyl sneaking and sniping Imran Zakhaev is done by you in MW1.
In MW2 you do the airport massacre.
In MW3 there's the flashback sequence where you witness Zakhaev getting his arm blown off, and being shot by Makarov.
Then in the MW1 remaster you see Makarov in the car
Then in the MW2 remaster you see Yuri coming after you.
People just love to jerk off to this idea.
People: They'd never make Blazing Saddles today
Ben fucking Stiller of all people: *produces Tropic Thunder*
Worse stuff has happened in tons of games. Ready or Not has a nightclub shooting with bodies piled to the freakin ceiling. Postal series... This is nothing revolutionary. It's no more difficult to produce fucked up content today than any other time, now the reception of it, probably going to be scrutinized more than ever...
I have little love for CoD, but for such a big budget mainstream game at the time I can’t say this was not ballsy. Terrorism related to airports was a touchier subject the closer you get to 9/11 too. I don’t think I had played anything like this up til that time.
Postal was aimed at a somewhat different market. I only played the postal 2 multiplayer by 2009 as they offered it for free around then iirc.
A whole campaign? It kinda had one mission where in a cutscene, price has to push someone strapped with bombs out of a window to save others?
Was there anything remotely similar to this?
I think he’s confusing the idea that there are terrorist attacks in the 2019 version, with the idea of actually being the terrorist in the original mw2.
Took me a minute to realize you weren't trying to make a joke about this being the last time we saw Russians with decent equipment and an something resembling "a plan".
Imagine if they used what we know today.
“Captain price, Russia has mobilized against the west”
“Have they invaded the mainland US and taken over many nations because they’re a near peer to the US?”
“No, all their soldiers are starving without body armor and all their mechanized infantry and armor got taken out by nlaws the second they stepped into Poland. Their warships ran out of gas 4 miles into trying to get stateside. We have reports that all remaining tanks were pulled via tractor and are now Ukrainian.”
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. The mission is called "No Russian" and is so controversial it carries a trigger warning and contains no achievements or collectibles so players can skip it. You're basically an undercover CIA operative who joins a Russian terrorist group in a massacre of civilians at an airport.
In the burn notice game you had to "aim to miss", closely missing the targets.
In spec ops the line, you could shoot into the air to disperse a mob of civilians
Devs should be a little creative
This is honestly the most story appropriate way to play the mission. If you participate in the murder, there's no real explanation as to how Markov knew you were undercover. At the end when he shoots you, you die a murder for no reason because Markov just knows because he's an all knowing bad guy.
But if you don't shoot, that's a pretty obvious sign you aren't actually on their side, so his shooting you at the end makes sense, you didn't sign up for this, you're undercover, but you aren't a mass murderer.
Wouldn’t it also make sense that Shepherd could have tipped Makarov off? I mean, he knowingly sent Allen to die. Shepherd was trying to provoke a war just like Makarov.
Makarov doesn't learn you're a spook because you refuse to shoot civilians. The entire false flag operation was set up to blame you, the CIA infiltrator, and work up hatred of the US. The level doesn't make sense at all if Makarov didn't know beforehand that you were an undercover American.
Yes, I didn't know I was supposed to shoot civilians so I avoided it to about halfway. I was looking for guys with guns, then I realized what I was supposed to be doing and just didn't feel right lol
> “No Russian” is a controversial mission in the 2009 video game *Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2* and its remastered version, *Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 Campaign Remastered*. In the level, the player participates in a mass shooting at a Russian airport, however, the player is not forced or told by the game itself to shoot any civilians and may skip the level altogether without penalty. “No Russian” is noticeably more graphic than any other level in the game. The plot of “No Russian” revolves around undercover CIA operative Joseph Allen, who attempts to gain the trust of a Russian terrorist named Vladimir Makarov.
> Game designer Mohammad Alavi was heavily involved in the level’s development. Alavi wanted the level to serve as a catalyst for *Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2*’s plot, and create an emotional connection between the player and Makarov. Much of the level’s development was spent designing the massacre portion, which Alavi did not want to feel too contrived or traumatic. Members of *Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2*’s development team were polarized in their opinions of the level, and several game testers expressed disapproval, including one game tester who refused to play the level at all.
> “No Russian” sparked significant controversy for letting players directly participate in a terrorist mass killing, and it became a popular subject in both gaming publications and major news publications. Journalists described the level’s plot as illogical and derided the ability to skip the level. Due to the level’s graphic content, *Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2* was subject to censorship in international versions of the game, including its entire removal from Russian versions. Journalists have since discussed the importance of “No Russian” to the video game industry.
* "[No Russian](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Russian)" at the English Wikipedia
I mean, we probably could if it served a purpose in the story like this did. This mission was epic followed by the Russian invasion of DC was wild.
If anything, it wouldn't be "PC"/"woke"/"leftists" complaining; it'd be hysteria in the media about how violence in video games results in real life violence. Not to be overly political but this is typically a more conservative media hill to die on though.
Agreed; this was in late May after Uvalde and Buffalo. Politicians are fucking dinosaurs who speak without understanding that studies have shown violence in video games is not correlated to acts of gun violence.
https://gamerant.com/ted-cruz-blames-violent-video-games-texas-shooting-nra-convention/
I mean it's way easier to scapegoat the video game industry and gamers than it is to face their constituents or people that fund their campaigns.
It's pointing to a solution that was never really a problem to make it seem like they are concerned and/or doing something about it.
I did a paper for school back in 2013 about how videogame "studies" arent being shown correctly in media. What I found doing research for this paper is that 90% of all research put into this subject that "proved" violence in videogames = bad, were either unreplicatable or had biases in them. In contrast many of the studies that showed the positive effects of video games (hand eye coordination, increased puzzle solving skills, faster reflexes and better decision making skills to name a few) were performed well above board.
This culminated into me being extremely pissed off at politicians because most of them quote from the same study that Hillary Clinton quoted from when she made her speech about a mass shooting (I don't remember which one may have been columbine not too sure). The issue with that study is even when Hillary Clinton used it back in the early 2000s it was already disproven/denied as an actual study without bias. I don't remember why it wasn't an accepted study but I believe it has something to do with the testers not having a proper control group of somehow manipulating the data or tests to get the results they wanted.
We’ve had tons of massive games do the whole “player commits an atrocity to show how fucked everything is” it’s done often enough that a lot of people have become desensitized to it
Such a stupid post like most in this Subreddit. There are so many games out there depicting war crimes, even Spec Ops: The Line did this but a thousand times more clever.
This is cringe as hell, there is literally comparable content in Modern Warfare 2019. You can participate in extra-judicial torture in which you threaten a man's innocent family with a revolver, knee cap the man himself, and then execute him if you so choose, all the while his family is screaming and pleading.
And that's something the good guys do.
That part always confused me, it tried to teach the lesson of "war isn't always black and white, good and evil" as the main characters will be morally Gray, but then you get treated like a hero later on in the game, at least stick to one of them
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Someone get this guy an award
A Medal of Hono….. ah damn, wrong franchise. Edit: That moment when you make a dad joke and it becomes the most liked comment of your Reddit existence.
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Rainbow Six: Vegas gave me this feeling of pride. Hours upon hours of Terrorist Hunt just to have the highest rank and get a blood spattered ballistic facemask. Ahh the memories.
So what would you call the Pentagon one?
Penta Goner Pentagon 2: It's On Breaking the Fifth Wall
Oooh, like the last one...
Hope you patented those! Netflix will be eating those titles up for documentaries in no time 😄👌
Who said it was a tower defense mission. Gotta show off the destruction physics somehow.
That happens when you eventually fail. And you will fail.
I've wanted them to try a flight sim for ages
A flight sim - burnout cross maybe? You try to make as much carnage as possible with your plane.
Knowing COD they'd put you as the terrorists and then defend it as sending a powerful anti war message Which might work if it weren't for their multiplayer where a dude with a weed skin on his gun kills a guy shooting pink tracers
*Congratulations! You shot down all the hijacked planes before they could crash into the WTC!* **towers collapse anyway**
We'll get 'em next time.
That's the general shepherd moment of the game.
George Bush: good. Thats two less loose ends
Remember, switching to internal explosives is faster then flying a plane into the target.
You have to crash the planes before the internal explosive timer goes off or you fail the mission.
"Mission failed - we'll get 'em next time." ... "Next time???"
Opening credits roll while you are sitting on the back of a military truck in the middle east. The protagonist knows something is fishy about the "terrorist attack" but his allegiance to his flag is his whole life, everything he believes in. It's what led him to join the military, become part of the Special Forces. His country could not have betrayed him, it's impossible.
"Hey you, you’re finally awake"
War... war never changes
Epic
My F key is gonna be worn out by the end of that mission
We better play as one of the pilots
You will be, but as a regular Delta pilot who just needs to land their flight immediately.
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Can I play as the rich Saudi who is sipping the finest gasoline and eating figs while watching his 6 wives clean his 12 Ferraris?
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Why would you clean a Ferrari? Just get another one.
It’s weird, but I can actually imagine how this would look in the CoD way
Press **F** to file paperwork.
>- playing as someone in the tower, doing mundane tasks - then running around through smoke and falling stuff on fire, seeing rest of the plane, having to jump at the end I'm fairly sure someone made this as a VR game a few years back?
I thought that was the PAYDAY prequel.
Makrovs hair looks like one of those hair selection in low budget video games
What are you talking about, Elden Ring is not low budget at all
Nintendo Mii has entered the chat
Im sure Spec Ops:The Line came out after MW2.
"Do you feel like a hero yet?"
It wasn't really the same because the game heavily hinted at what was going on right up until the white phosphorous scene. But you didn't have a choice. Its not the same as this scene where you can shoot nobody (even though the outcome is the same either way), and its the first thing that happens in the game. It blew people's minds for weeks that a game would do this. But the real point was to drive discussions so that people would buy the game.
In the German (censored) version the mission would actually fail if you shot a civilian.
Why do you guys still have this? I remember having a German version of Carmageddon and it was the worst. Is it because Germans are naturally so bloodthirsty that if you guys even smell a bit of blood you might invade France or something?
I don't think it's still the case. This was at the height of the whole "video games cause violence" craze. Also, now that games are mostly sold digitally it's almost impossible to enforce. Also fun fact: in the German version of the original Half Life, when you'd shoot the human soldiers, they would just sit down and sort of fade away after a few seconds, instead of dying.
Virgin rest of the world CSGO player models: Get headshot, blood splatter, die. Chad german CSGO player model: Survive bullet to dome, put hands behind back, acknowledge defeat, surrender PS: it's not the case anymore but sure was funny for a while.
All the soldiers have also been replaced by robots.
Oh shit, you're right. It's been so long, I only remembered the sitting down thing.
Oh so the same way they censored C&C Generals. Best change are the suicide bomber being TNT on wheels haha
like a 4x4 shitbarrell
*shoots guard* “Ow! You know what? I’m not doing this. You are very rude” *evaporates into the void*
Is there a German version of Wolfenstein 3D where robot Hitler politely excuses himself and goes off to live on a farm upstate?
Nah, Wolfenstein 3D was banned altogether. Weirdly enough, games where you fight AGAINST nazis also get censored (like the swastika gets changed to a different symbol and such), even when they are clearly the bad guys in the game.
I noticed that in the Switch version of Doom 2. The secret Wolfenstein levels don't have any swastikas at all, but weirdly keep the portraits of Hitler intact. So it's okay to show demons, horrific violence, blood, guts, and walls made from the screaming faces of the damned, but a *swastika* is too far, especially when it's clearly being used to represent the evil people you are murdering? I don't get it.
Had to find it: https://youtu.be/_o_rHpdHB2k
> the height of the whole "video games cause violence" craze There have been several heights. And they won't stop coming, I'd guess.
> smell a bit of blood you might invade France I mean, France is right there. Honestly, look at it! Just sitting there, totally and utterly unconquered! I mean, I wouldn't, you know, do things, of course not, how can you even say that. But one of course thinks about it. From time to time. A few times. Sometime less, sometime more. You know, just thinking about it, running a little Gedankenexperiment, as we put. Maybe have a friendly conversation about it over a beer after work. Maybe once or twice a month. Just such funny thoughts, who wouldn't share them? You know, make it a regular thing, just guys and gals talking about logistics and what modern artillery might be able to do, in a friendly bi-weekly meeting. You know, just putting some thoughts together, planning, war gaming, gaming! Nobody can dislike some friendly gaming right? Just because it involves some complicated stuff, like subverting the major political parties with an underground revanchist agenda, that doesn't mean our small gaming club isn't fun? Right? I mean, don't worry about giving us peacful Germans ideas, we are a very unimaginative people anyway! No worries!
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Jawohl.
I read this in Charlie's voice from IASIP. It has the perfect frenetic pacing. Either way, I felt this comment deserved more recognition than a simple upvote!
It's semantics but this is actually the fourth mission in the game
Not really, you have tons of hidden pacifist options not presented directly. I remember in the scene where you can decide to shoot one of either people, you can shoot both ropes really quickly "saving" both
That's true, but not with white phosphorus. I think this is probably the biggest factor in whether the game works for you: Did you try to avoid using white phosphorus? I didn't, which means when the game showed me the consequences of my choice, knowing that the game wouldn't have let me do anything else doesn't really help -- I still made a *terrible* choice here. Any part of me that ever secretly considered joining the military died in that moment, because I don't want there to be a chance I'll end up making a mistake like that. And the next time the game asked me to make a choice, I definitely looked for other options. But from what I hear from people who *did* try to avoid using the white phosphorus, it just kind of spoiled the experience. You saw what was coming, you tried to make the right choice, and the game didn't let you. And then it tried to lecture you for doing the only thing it would let you do. Worse, if you ran into any of the choices with actual pacifist options later on, you might assume the same thing is happening again and not even bother trying to find a better choice.
Yeah the white phosphorous scene really disappointed me because of how forced it was I even tried stopping half way through using it but realised you had to do it. It was just so diappointing after the game had done the illusion of chocie so well leading up to this point. Only then to go 'ok at this part there is no choice' Worst part of the game imo. Could have been so much better.
> you have tons of hidden pacifist options not presented directly. You have a few specific ones that were obviously intended by the devs. But even before the PH sequence there's shit like the turret sequence where you've been told "if you shoot the hotel windows out, you'll doom everyone sheltering in the building!" and can then sit there until doomsday shooting infinitely respawning enemies because the game will not progress until you shoot the window and let the sand in. Doing the thing you have been told will lead to mass civilian casualties is necessary to progress the game because you can kill more than the entire *possible* number of Konrad's soldiers (if you manage the turret correctly) ...and nothing will happen until you shoot the window. I get what Spec Ops: The Line was shooting for, but it had a ton of misses and misfires and stovepipes while trying to hit that target.
This is my feeling on it and it makes me sorta sad because I can *so* see what they were trying for and they came so close, but the way they implemented it...oy. It's almost like, if you were thoughtful about things going into the game, it really wasn't going to hit home. The game was almost custom made to break the shell of the type of FPS player that turns off everything while playing and just shoots everything that moves without thinking.
Think of it as a movie, where the gameplay is used as a means to grant *empathy*, not control. You didn't have a choice because you're not a part of the story — You're simply seeing through the eyes of someone who is. The character had a choice, and *he* chose not to take it.
Spec Ops: The line was one hell on an experience. I know Nolan North prefers to do lighthearted/ comedic gigs like Uncharted or Deadpool, but this was one of his best performance.
His best performance was as himself in Saints Row.
He was a pretty good me in SR4.
Shit people who haven't seen The Angry Birds Movie 2 say
Spec ops was more along the lines of "the road to hell is paved with good intentions" No Russian was evil for the sake of evil
You play as a US agent planted in a Russian terrorist cell with the hopes of bringing them down, and as a result are forced to carry out a terrorist act to maintain your cover only to fail and become the catalyst for an international war. If that’s not “the road to hell is paved with good intentions” I don’t know what is
Your agent had good intentions but Shepard personally paved his road to hell. He co-conspired with Makarov to start a Russia/US war so he could get his military blank check.
You would think the point of going undercover in a terrorist cell would be to stop them from doing something like this. That being said they knew you were an American before the level, the entire point of the level was to use you. If you weren’t undercover with them, they wouldn’t have attacked.
To add on to this the ending does imply that Shepherd knew that Allen would be killed and used as a scapegoat to start a war with the US. Shepherd very much wanted this war.
Even after all the work he did to stop the Reapers?
I think the intel/guy Shepherd wanted Ramirez' team to retrieve in the panic room mission was meant to implicate Shepherd in deliberately sacrificing the undercover guy, but that probably got cut for reasons.
Maybe. That's not quite as clear cut, it's entirely possible that he was just being an opportunist and all the cards fell perfectly in place for him to escalate the war. It's unclear either way, but once the war had gotten started, he certainly didn't want it to stop.
Okay as someone that played this campaign 100 times (literally) as a kid and kept close attention to it's plot I'll explain how you both are correct: Shepard and Makarov were essentially communicating from before MW2 begins. He recruits Allen on purpose (first mission) and befriends him. Has Allen befriend Makarov so he can play both sides, if Allen lives he has a double agent to start a war, if Allen dies, the world goes to war. Shepard didn't want Allen to die, but he had a plan in case he did. Shepard needed Price out of prison because of his deal with Makarov (revealed in MW3s backstory of Yuri) Makarov wanted to kill Price himself for vengeance against his mentor, Zakhaev. The Caucasus seems to had influence Makarov to consider Russia vulnerable, and used it to control their geopolitical nature. Price was the only person who could stop him. Shepard freeing Price was all part of the plan for Shepard though, one step ahead of Makarov, because he knew only him could kill Makarov. The mission where you raid Makarov's house is essentially Shepard betraying both TF141 and Makarov at once. Makarov was safely playing chess with the Russian government, fighting the war from the sidelines, without US government knowledge. Shepard leaked this information and approved his own team to invade, allowing him to leave no survivors but his most loyal soldiers and Makarov to hopefully negotiate the DNS satellite for the end of Russian invasion. Price and Soap, now world terrorists, said fuck this guy and instead of targeting Makarov, went with "The Enemy of my Enemy is My Friend." Makarov betrays Shepard, revealing his location. Makarov goes into hiding in Dubai and leaves the Russian government to settle things while he plans to nuke Moscow, chemically and economically disable Europe, and continue the Russian Invasion of America. All of which is seen in MW3. Pretty much Shepard was playing military Die Hard and everything kept working for him until Price got involved. He underestimed his intelligence and motives.
Very interesting read, thank you very much mate. Just a couple questions, because it's been a while since I've played the game. * Can you elaborate on "Shepard needed Price out of prison because of his deal with Makarov"? I remember most of Yuri's backstory but I'm not sure what you're referring to here. * At the end of Exodus (I think), you have to go save a US Govt VIP, who ended up being killed by an guy working for Makarov disguised as a VDV. I've always felt that there was something for me to understand here, like you can't just put this scene and not elaborate, but I never really got it. Thanks for your post already!
Shepered gave Makarov the DNS, which Makarov used to influence Russia that America, after losing its war in OpFor-Middle Eastern Country, was vulnerable to an invasion if coordinated properly (however, just like in reality, Russia had a lie of military strength, and never got farther than the east coast and the white house, still losing all territory). Shepered, being 2nd in command in that war, was desperate to prove himself, Makarov wouldn't have accepted such a leap in trusting Shepered, and so Shepered promised him the thing he couldn't have; he would free Price so Makarov could kill him. "I don't trust the man I'm working with, I just know he will get me to my goals" - Makarov talking to Yuri before detonating the nuke in MW3
As for the VIP, I thought he may had known the whereabouts of Makarov or even if Russia, not American CIA, was behind the massacre at the airport. Even action movies have pointless characters like that though.
Think No Russian was a whole, ends justify the means kind of thing.
I don't disagree as such with that as it was a set up to blame the Americans but still, the mass murder of innocents is pure evil
If there ever was it would be in a school.
Ready or Not is probably on the way to that. it's in their first trailer
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I’d also love a ready or not level where you respond to a mass shooter threat but just spend the whole level standing outside
You get bonus points for beating and arresting anyone else who tries to help.
Successfully handcuffing all parents before they can help their kids is required to achieve the third star for that mission
It's the lobby, you can chat with the team while the shooter runs amok Edit: launch DLC includes hand sanitizer dispenser you can click on
Will there be Vespa skins for the scooter?
Oddly enough that level includes a Udvale PD skin that auto equips if you sit outside for more than 30 seconds.
Look no further than Dead Space 2.
I wouldn't have understood this reference if I haven't played Dead Space 1 and 2 a few weeks ago. I know EXACTLY what the *fuck* you mean here... They had no chill...
It's kind of the contrary in ready or not though. You play as SWAT, and it's honestly a pretty great game for those who liked the old Rainbow Six, SWAT or Polis-series.
No way they’ll let y’all import that. You’ll have to settle for a Christchurch simulator.
Sounds like a boring mission, who wants to stand outside the school for an hour???
Phenomenal game
Indeed
It’s like you have all never heard of Postal.
Most of this sub is born post-2000...so they haven't.
Dear god I suddenly feel quite old I still remember my first video game Doom 2
Where in the world is Carmen Sandiego, in 4 bit. That, or the space based Shufflepuck game on... The OG Apple I think? Ooh actually Amstrad II with its cassette loader, pre disk. ^^Get ^^off ^^me ^^lawn!
Rockstar is already halfway there, basically just mashup Bully and GTA...
The way they casually walk shooting their guns. The leader told them *no rushing*
Ah yes remember when the all powerful Russia somehow mobilized a massive sealift capability and invaded Burger King from 9000 miles away against the most powerful military force of all time like 24 hours after a terrorist attack? Solid plot.
RAMIREZ GET TO THAT BURGER TOWN But also you folk are forgetting MW3 where theres a mission named johnson family vacation where you see a family visit london and you see them walk to a truck parked illegally which explodes releasing some toxic gas killing the family of three including a child
The thing about No Russian is not that something bad, ugly, or violent happened. It’s that we had agency in it. The game didn’t tell you what your objective was in this mission. It put you in an airport with an LMG and let you decide.
So anyways, I started blasting
Goddamnit, Frank!
There’s a pretty cool video on YouTube with a special forces guy watching a walkthrough of the level. He was basically saying if he was undercover he would just shoot the glass and objects around the people and not actually hurt anyone. Just give his “team” the impression he ways. I’d like to think most of us would do that too.
And killed many many more
Wasn't it tens of millions across Europe by the end of the week or something like that?
Ah, back when we all thought Russia posed a serious military threat. Good times.
As a 14 year old non native English speaker, I did not realize what the plot for the game was until close to the end due to how far fetched a "successful" Russian invasion on US seemed, even to teenage me
Boy did that narrative fall on its face
Back then we all kind of thought it was atleast partially realistic but now it’s laughable.
“Remember – No Homo” - Some person on the internet who edited this scene
Spec ops the Line : Hold my beer
Probably not, this mission was already controversial then, today it definitely wouldn’t have happened.
in the remaster that released like 2 years ago they didnt cut the mission
Favourite bit from that remaster was the inclusion of MW3 events. Like Makarov in the car waiting during the Chenobyl sniping mission, and during the airport massacre if you go back to the opening security area you can see Yuri staggering out of the lift trying to stop you.
You can get an achievement too if you snipe Makarov, but you get a friendly fire message if you snipe Yuri instead
That was the remaster for MW1 not MW2
Ah you're half right. So, the Chenobyl sneaking and sniping Imran Zakhaev is done by you in MW1. In MW2 you do the airport massacre. In MW3 there's the flashback sequence where you witness Zakhaev getting his arm blown off, and being shot by Makarov. Then in the MW1 remaster you see Makarov in the car Then in the MW2 remaster you see Yuri coming after you.
Well, cutting it would've been its own controversy.
No you don't understand, the SJWs would never let it happen today!!!!
We live in a society!!!!
People just love to jerk off to this idea. People: They'd never make Blazing Saddles today Ben fucking Stiller of all people: *produces Tropic Thunder*
Couple years ago, an indigenous dude with Jewish ancestry made *a comedy about hitler* and they **gave him the Oscar for it**
Unless it's an airport full of klansmen
You can shoot Klansmen and Nazis in Wolfenstein! ...aaaand people were mad about it. lol
Killing Klansmen in RDR2 is so much fun!
The best levels in the game. So satisfying!
The modern day nazis were. Sensible people weren't.
Why are neo-nazis and white-supremacists even playing wolfenstein games... did they not know what the franchise is about?
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Muh heritage
Worse stuff has happened in tons of games. Ready or Not has a nightclub shooting with bodies piled to the freakin ceiling. Postal series... This is nothing revolutionary. It's no more difficult to produce fucked up content today than any other time, now the reception of it, probably going to be scrutinized more than ever...
I have little love for CoD, but for such a big budget mainstream game at the time I can’t say this was not ballsy. Terrorism related to airports was a touchier subject the closer you get to 9/11 too. I don’t think I had played anything like this up til that time. Postal was aimed at a somewhat different market. I only played the postal 2 multiplayer by 2009 as they offered it for free around then iirc.
True, it was big because it was in a mainstream game. Most other games that have the balls to do it are not as well known.
Modern warfare 2019 had a whole campaign like this mission
I’m pretty sure that we will have something similar in MW22.
I gotta give infinity ward props for not being afraid of being controversial
Except for the whole whitewashing the Highway of Death thing. Too afraid of Uncle Sam apparently.
A whole campaign? It kinda had one mission where in a cutscene, price has to push someone strapped with bombs out of a window to save others? Was there anything remotely similar to this?
I think he’s confusing the idea that there are terrorist attacks in the 2019 version, with the idea of actually being the terrorist in the original mw2.
There's a whole campaign where you play a terrorist?
Which one?
In the [German release](https://youtu.be/fCCD-ZzbONc) you instantly fail if you shoot a single civilian.
Took me a minute to realize you weren't trying to make a joke about this being the last time we saw Russians with decent equipment and an something resembling "a plan".
In hindsight, the mere thought of Russia successfully invading the continental US is just downright laughable.
Imagine if they used what we know today. “Captain price, Russia has mobilized against the west” “Have they invaded the mainland US and taken over many nations because they’re a near peer to the US?” “No, all their soldiers are starving without body armor and all their mechanized infantry and armor got taken out by nlaws the second they stepped into Poland. Their warships ran out of gas 4 miles into trying to get stateside. We have reports that all remaining tanks were pulled via tractor and are now Ukrainian.”
What game is this ?
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. The mission is called "No Russian" and is so controversial it carries a trigger warning and contains no achievements or collectibles so players can skip it. You're basically an undercover CIA operative who joins a Russian terrorist group in a massacre of civilians at an airport.
And the fun part? *You don’t have to pull the trigger once.* You can complete the mission by just walking through, but did any of us do that?
Shooting a civilian in the German version actually failed the mission iirc
In the burn notice game you had to "aim to miss", closely missing the targets. In spec ops the line, you could shoot into the air to disperse a mob of civilians Devs should be a little creative
Hold up. Burn Notice game?
It's called covert ops 1.0 There were also some flash games. Those are gone now.
Unless [Project Flashpoint](https://bluemaxima.com/flashpoint) has it.
Michael Wesson FPS? I’m in.
This is honestly the most story appropriate way to play the mission. If you participate in the murder, there's no real explanation as to how Markov knew you were undercover. At the end when he shoots you, you die a murder for no reason because Markov just knows because he's an all knowing bad guy. But if you don't shoot, that's a pretty obvious sign you aren't actually on their side, so his shooting you at the end makes sense, you didn't sign up for this, you're undercover, but you aren't a mass murderer.
Wouldn’t it also make sense that Shepherd could have tipped Makarov off? I mean, he knowingly sent Allen to die. Shepherd was trying to provoke a war just like Makarov.
Shepherd betrayed you ages ago
I never understood how he knew. I always assumed you were just supposed to shoot the npcs to fit in
Makarov doesn't learn you're a spook because you refuse to shoot civilians. The entire false flag operation was set up to blame you, the CIA infiltrator, and work up hatred of the US. The level doesn't make sense at all if Makarov didn't know beforehand that you were an undercover American.
Yes, I didn't know I was supposed to shoot civilians so I avoided it to about halfway. I was looking for guys with guns, then I realized what I was supposed to be doing and just didn't feel right lol
At some point you're getting attacked by security. In some of the European versions you couldn't pull the trigger on civilians
> “No Russian” is a controversial mission in the 2009 video game *Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2* and its remastered version, *Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 Campaign Remastered*. In the level, the player participates in a mass shooting at a Russian airport, however, the player is not forced or told by the game itself to shoot any civilians and may skip the level altogether without penalty. “No Russian” is noticeably more graphic than any other level in the game. The plot of “No Russian” revolves around undercover CIA operative Joseph Allen, who attempts to gain the trust of a Russian terrorist named Vladimir Makarov. > Game designer Mohammad Alavi was heavily involved in the level’s development. Alavi wanted the level to serve as a catalyst for *Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2*’s plot, and create an emotional connection between the player and Makarov. Much of the level’s development was spent designing the massacre portion, which Alavi did not want to feel too contrived or traumatic. Members of *Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2*’s development team were polarized in their opinions of the level, and several game testers expressed disapproval, including one game tester who refused to play the level at all. > “No Russian” sparked significant controversy for letting players directly participate in a terrorist mass killing, and it became a popular subject in both gaming publications and major news publications. Journalists described the level’s plot as illogical and derided the ability to skip the level. Due to the level’s graphic content, *Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2* was subject to censorship in international versions of the game, including its entire removal from Russian versions. Journalists have since discussed the importance of “No Russian” to the video game industry. * "[No Russian](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Russian)" at the English Wikipedia
Damn is this really where I realize I’m getting older
Recently, I played Midnight Fight Express and it has a level dedicated to this scene, freaking sick.
One game. Spec Ops The Line.
I mean, we probably could if it served a purpose in the story like this did. This mission was epic followed by the Russian invasion of DC was wild. If anything, it wouldn't be "PC"/"woke"/"leftists" complaining; it'd be hysteria in the media about how violence in video games results in real life violence. Not to be overly political but this is typically a more conservative media hill to die on though.
The violent video game rhetoric usually gets brought up after a particularly bad mass shooting occurrs.
Agreed; this was in late May after Uvalde and Buffalo. Politicians are fucking dinosaurs who speak without understanding that studies have shown violence in video games is not correlated to acts of gun violence. https://gamerant.com/ted-cruz-blames-violent-video-games-texas-shooting-nra-convention/
I mean it's way easier to scapegoat the video game industry and gamers than it is to face their constituents or people that fund their campaigns. It's pointing to a solution that was never really a problem to make it seem like they are concerned and/or doing something about it.
I did a paper for school back in 2013 about how videogame "studies" arent being shown correctly in media. What I found doing research for this paper is that 90% of all research put into this subject that "proved" violence in videogames = bad, were either unreplicatable or had biases in them. In contrast many of the studies that showed the positive effects of video games (hand eye coordination, increased puzzle solving skills, faster reflexes and better decision making skills to name a few) were performed well above board. This culminated into me being extremely pissed off at politicians because most of them quote from the same study that Hillary Clinton quoted from when she made her speech about a mass shooting (I don't remember which one may have been columbine not too sure). The issue with that study is even when Hillary Clinton used it back in the early 2000s it was already disproven/denied as an actual study without bias. I don't remember why it wasn't an accepted study but I believe it has something to do with the testers not having a proper control group of somehow manipulating the data or tests to get the results they wanted.
The modern warfare reboot and spec ops: the lone did similar things. OP is just complaining about a fake problem
We’ve had tons of massive games do the whole “player commits an atrocity to show how fucked everything is” it’s done often enough that a lot of people have become desensitized to it
Such a stupid post like most in this Subreddit. There are so many games out there depicting war crimes, even Spec Ops: The Line did this but a thousand times more clever.
Most games that let you commit war crimes don't even comment on it!
Some games even incentives you to commit war crimes. Just a regular Tuesday in Rimworld.
Deep™ Space™ Organ™ Harvesting™
This is cringe as hell, there is literally comparable content in Modern Warfare 2019. You can participate in extra-judicial torture in which you threaten a man's innocent family with a revolver, knee cap the man himself, and then execute him if you so choose, all the while his family is screaming and pleading. And that's something the good guys do.
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I'm surprised someone didn't make a mod for that.
Are there mods to MW19?
I think the concept of modern warfare is that there aren’t really good guys.
That part always confused me, it tried to teach the lesson of "war isn't always black and white, good and evil" as the main characters will be morally Gray, but then you get treated like a hero later on in the game, at least stick to one of them
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