The controversy and outrage over Modern Warfare 2 stems from the level that's commonly referred to as the airport level. For the gamers that own the game it’s known as "No Russian." Working up to this level it's revealed that the CIA is sending you deep undercover to infiltrate a terrorist group that's continuing the work of the terrorist group from the first Modern Warfare. Since you're deep undercover, you must fight alongside this group which is the reason for the controversy. This means you’ll be killing innocent people. These are fake digital people, but still innocent people. Plus terrorist is a sensitive term and a hot button subject for cable news.

Like any other rubbernecking situation you're warned about what you're going to see in this game. At the very beginning of the game you're warned that the game contains images and acts that could be considered unpleasant; and if you're a sensitive person you might want to skip this level. The option your given won’t affect the end of the game and it won’t hurt your overall achievements and/or trophies. This is also after you’ve purchased an “M” rated game called Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. The title alone should tip you off that it's not filled with cute fluffy bunnies, but if after all of the obvious signs you still continue down this road you’re simply asking for problems. This is my problem with this complete fake outrage. Anyone playing this level that gets offended by the content is looking for a problem. This doesn't mean that the level shouldn’t affect you, it should and if it doesn't then you may have other issues. The mission is thought provoking but it's made to be thought provoking. It's not here to be enjoyable. It’s clearly around to be enraging and it obviously does it very well but to demonize the game for these moments is in and of itself outrageous.

 

 

To report this matter MSNBC invited Kotaku’s Stephen Totilo to speak about the game. Stephen articulately spoke about how the game is well made, and conveyed the point that the game is violent from start to finish. He did an amazing job talking to the two anchors about the scene in the game. Yet I would have liked to see him speak about MSNBC’s build up to the interview where they attempt to say that Activision’s charity work is only around to muster up good press because of the game. They also say the game was released on heels of the Fort Hood incident and critics are lashing out about the level in question.

To respond to those statements, people should know that Activision’s charity work was set into motion far before the release of this game. The game wasn’t sitting in storage and released just because of the Fort Hood incident. Now you might be thinking that the game’s release should have been pushed because of the incident, but this would have been devastating financially. Think about the retail stores that are hurting for customers. I’m not talking about GameStop and Walmart I’m talking about the Mom and Pop stores that opened at midnight to sell the game. Imagine telling all those stores you can’t sell one of the biggest games of the year until an incident that has nothing to do with this game blows over. For some of these stores the release day of Modern Warfare 2 was the biggest sales day of their year to this point. Without that game it would have killed their stores. As far as the critic argument, I have yet to see, read or hear a real game critic complain about the game’s content.

 

Over on Fox News things were a little different. They started their piece in the same fashion as MSNBC by making the blanket statement that you can play as a terrorist. To be “fair and balanced” they went with a debate style discussion on the matter. Fox News spoke with Jim Steyer of Common Sense Media and Jon Christensen of Slashgamer.com . Now the guests they chose to speak with are very important to this debate. Jim Steyer is a debater; it’s his job to argue with people. Jon Christensen is a blogger and his job is to write about games, not argue about them. So right off the bat the gamer in this debate is at a huge disadvantage. Now the odd part about this debate is that Jim Steyer takes the stand that the game is violent and shouldn’t be sold to kids. He doesn’t cry out about the one level, he just says that the game shouldn’t be sold to kids because of its overall violence. Later he tries to connect violent kids to violent games. But agree with it or not, it’s his job to tow the company line. Jon Christensen on the other hand fumbles his way through an explanation of the game and is then blindsided with a declaration that the game is going to make 8 year olds terrorist. Obviously he wasn’t prepared for this hard line of questioning and Jay Steyer was thrown a series of softball questions which only helps to stir up more fake outrage.

All in all terrorism is horrible and this game depicts it as a horrible act in a very raw manor. The game doesn’t hold back and if you’re willing to play though it you’re simply given what you asked to see. I would like to say it’s what you paid for, but I don’t want to make this about money. Yes, the company that made this game is making a lot of money from this game, and yes some of the material is tough to watch. Yet it’s no worse than anything you find in film, TV or on the news. The game is impressive in every way and this level is no better or worse than any other level in the game. In fact later in the game you work to help a man launch a nuclear missile at Washington D.C. This moment is brought up at the same point in the game as the US is being attacked for the incident at the airport, and the missile is launched in an attempt to stop the war.

The point the news is missing here is that every act of violence is wrong in some way to someone, but in this game the level itself is a deterrent to violence rather than the invitation the news wants it be. An even bigger point the news is conveniently forgetting to mention properly is that while this level is playing out you never have to interact with the Terrorist. You can just take a step back and watch what’s going on around you. You then become a man shocked by this fake event. Is this better or worse and does it even matter? If you try to stop the Terrorist they’ll turn around and kill you, the mission ends and you have to do it all over again because the point of the mission is that while the CIA tries to do good things they also have to do some bad things. So why be outraged about the content instead of the idea that this could go on around us.

 

I find the overall outrage presented by this level is completely fake. The News is only reporting it to get people to watch their channel. They don’t care about the real facts surrounding this game and as gamers we let this happen. If we really had a problem with it we wouldn’t pick and out choose our own outrage. We would have to come together to stop all of the News’s hypocrisy, not just the game news stories that we find offensive. Until that time we’re all truly at fault and the fake outrage against games will continue.