Shrug. I’ve done rampages in GTAs, I get what you mean. Go play this game, this mission, and let us know what that was like, not GTA.
Australia does not ban games, they simply refuse to have an 18+ certificate for video games. It’s effectively the same end deal, but it is an important difference. The game is available as a 15+ version, which I believed is watered down. That’s what usually happens for the Australian market.
You don’t have to kill anybody in the airport scene and you don’t even need to see it. There is an option at the beginning of the game where it allows you to skip potentially objectionable sections, so there is no requirement to kill innocent people to proceed. Such a notion is imaginary. But even if it was true, it wouldn’t matter to me so much.
I felt it was exactly like killing innocent people in the later GTA games (not the ones where it’s overhead view and people are just a vague collection of pixels). The only thing that is different is that it is rather more cinematic and they gave the scene quite a lot of emotional impact, but the actual elements are very similar to going into a crowded area in GTA4 and shooting people in the knee caps. They struggle, they cry for help, you feel like they’re really scared of you in exactly the same way.
However as a plot device it was completely terrible. The whole game could have ended right there and then if you’d just stood back a little bit and taken a headshot at the lead guy. Sure you might have been killed by his cronies, but isn’t that better than letting hundreds of people die? It is your job as a soldier after all.
And yeah, you’re forced to kill more innocent people in GTA than in Call of Duty. It’s just that GTA generally took a more humorous tone until GTA 4, so the gravity of your actions isn’t really explored as it is in COD.
From a gameplay (not storyline) point of view, what’s the point of the first half of this level? Where’s the challenge or fun in shooting hundreds of unarmed civilians?
There was none I could see. It was a combination of walking slowly through an airport terminal (whee!) and pointless mayhem. Once the SWAT and army started after you, it looks like there was some actual tactics to enjoy, but I couldn’t go on.
Damn, I must have missed that prompt. It looks like I need to start a new game to set that, and I really don’t want to play the first two levels again, both spec ops hide 'n seeks, yech (although the snowmobile chase at the end of mission 2 was very fun).
Well, I’m using the PS3 version, so it might be different if you’re on a different platform. But it pops up sometime after or during the training section.
360 person here. It came up before anything else (with regards to game selection) came up.
Gameplay, none. It’s there for the storyline aspect and to show what a horrible, sociopathic person markov is. And, I supose, as a subversion to the idea that Pvt. Allen was supposed to be the hero, not only failing to stop the airport attack, but becoming the scapegoat.
I am annoyed though that no reason is given why allen can’t just pop markov in the back of the head. If he had been specific orders that markov cannot be killed yet because he had to be captured alive/lead them to his secret base/etc, it would be different, but as it stands, you’re more or less forced to go along with it.
Having thought about it some more, I realized that while the airport scene is disturbing, I’m frankly really suprised fox and the right wing haven’t jumped all over the last few missions, considering what happens and what you end up doing. And while it’s not exactly original, the game is still realistic enough and the tone is such that it just feels wrong, on both sides.(not wrong in a storytelling perspective, but more of “this whole situation is very, very wrong”).
Fox has jumped all over it, IIRC. There was a story on Digg just yesterday about it. Lemme see if I can find the link.
ETA: Found it! (Note: I haven’t watched it myself)
http://www.gossipgamers.com/fox-news-fair-balance-debate-on-modern-warfare-2/
I’ve seen that clip. It only talks about the airport mission. Obviously nobody at Fox News has played to the end yet.
But then again, most of the time, they don’t even bother to play the games they condemn. Same thing happened with Mass Effect, when they compared it to porn. Because you get to see about 15 seconds of digital bare ass once in a 10 hour game, if you pursue that.
I played the airport mission, and it is disturbing. I’ve never got a feeling of unease from going on rampages in GTA, but this seemed more real. The violence is over the top and cartoony in GTA. In the airport scene, you see people desperately clutching wounds while laying on the ground bleeding on the floor of the russian version of starbucks… and then you kill them. There’s a degree of realism and evil there that’s unsettling.
Well, once we learn that Shepherd was behind the plan to start the global war, you start to understand why you’re not allowed to kill Makarov. You’re supposed to be a sacrificial lamb, that’s all part of Shepherd’s plan (even though you/Allen don’t know it yet). Makarov is needed alive later in the game so Shepherd can get the “blank check” of the military to power in and become a hero. If you kill Makarov during that scene, the whole thing falls apart so it’s implied that your character is giving specific instructions to participate and not try to stop it.
Is this the scene that you can decline to play at the beginning of the game? It asked me twice if I wanted to play that part. I wonder what happens when you don’t play it. Seems to be an important part of the narrative, but perhaps it’s just the part where we are shown that “this dude is really a bad guy and you should feel good about killin’ his dudes and trying to get to him.”
Yeah, that’s the scene. Supposedly, if you decline to play it, you see it in short form as a cut-scene.
What I don’t get…
[spoiler]Why did Shepherd kill Roach and Ghost? What had they seen that nobody else had seen? Until him shooting them, Shepherd was their hero as well. There was nothing in Makarov’s playbook that implicated Shepherd.
This game enjoys killing you in cutscenes way too much. ^^[/spoiler]
I think it’s because Roach and Ghost had the computer files that Roach downloaded from the house. By taking them down, he had sole access to that information and could use it to go after Makarov single-handedly.
Not sure if that’s right or night and seems a little flimsy to justify what happened, but I was reasonably shocked and angered at the time so it made me want revenge.
My theory was that
Shephard was colluding with Makarov on some level and the information on the hard drive would implicate him. Obviously Shephard didn’t shoot until he had the hard drive in his possession, and just how did Makarov know where Shephards base was anyway?
I can’t find any evidence that the Australian version is edited, can you?
Squeegee, the airport scene can be skipped at any time, you don’t have to skip it right at the start, you can make the decision later on.