KiKiweaky:
O.o hmmmm so we can fight over 'unspecified towns in eastern Europe' but not DC.... wash that cabbage water out of your brain.

Its a game people are looking forward to playing. Not a goal people are looking to complete.

They did kinda miss the fact that a fair chunk of the game does, in fact, take place in the very real, non-fictional city of Pripyat, Ukrane. The article is pretty bad.

That said, the fact that there is a fair amount of discomfort in some circles -implict and explicit- is probably interesting enough to warrant some discussion: Red Alert and Fallout 3 seem to generally get away with this sort of stuff in part because they inject a significant amount of irony into their games. Ignoring the chunks of the first MW that take place in Pripyat (which itself is only really of historical significance), the middle-eastern country that the Marines sections take place in is, in fact, rendered generic, and the rest of the game ranges from "somewhere in Russia" to "somewhere in Eastern Europe" to "Somewhere in the Urals". By contrast, plenty of people thought (and, I would honestly agree) that the way Army of Two dealt with relatively contemporary events was inappropriate and ham-fisted, if not outright offensive. Most games (and other fiction) set in the modern era skirt the issue entirely, using made-up countries, fictional dictators or terrorists, and invented threats.

Why is all that? Why do we feel the need to distance ourselves from depicting "modern" events that hit too close to home, through either irony or genericization or fictionalization, rather than addressing them head-on? Why is World War II basically the last world event that we're allowed to take major license with or invoke in substantial, but serious, ways? Will we ever see a video game about Vietnam? And is this unique to American audiences? Was it always like this, even as far back as things like Red Dawn, or is this something precipitated by the events of the past decade?

On the other hand, we could also just keep snarking about Christians that had nothing to do with this article. Whatever.

yrogerg:
*snip*

I'm going to assume you're vertically challenged and give you a footstool. I know that Christian 'Scientists' are not scientists in the common use of the word, that's why I drew the parallel to dry ice. It most certainly is dry, but only because it sublimates to a gas from a solid. And while it does have a cooling effect, it is not ice, as ice is H20 and dry ice is CO2. I have little interest in the paper itself, because when I find actual "news" associations like the AP and FOX news reporting garbage, I can hardly expect differently from something that claims in it's title to be an improbability.

The3rdEye,

Your condescension is misdirected.

-- Alex

The3rdEye:

I'm going to assume you're vertically challenged and give you a footstool. I know that Christian 'Scientists' are not scientists in the common use of the word, that's why I drew the parallel to dry ice. It most certainly is dry, but only because it sublimates to a gas from a solid. And while it does have a cooling effect, it is not ice, as ice is H20 and dry ice is CO2. I have little interest in the paper itself, because when I find actual "news" associations like the AP and FOX news reporting garbage, I can hardly expect differently from something that claims in it's title to be an improbability.

I AM NOT EVEN SURE WHAT THAT FOOTSTOOL COMMENT MEANS

As far as the rest, you're sort of missing my points, such as they were. I admit I was free associating a bit. Perhaps a recap:

1) The Church of Christ, Scientist is a very specific religious sect that is only very tenuously considered Christian by outsiders. This is a very different thing from, say, the creationism claptrap.

2) The CS Monitor was founded by the same guy as the aforementioned religious sect, but otherwise has essentially nothing to do with the aforementioned religious sect, and has generally demonstrated itself to be a paragon of journalistic integrity and objectivity in every way that the AP and Fox News are not.

3) While a lot of bullshitty American Christianity misses this point, there have, in fact, been a lot of important scientists who were also Christian. Science, and that particular relgion, are not actually a contradiction of terms.

THE END.

Nimbus:

Malygris:
...the gallant mansion reduced to rubble doesn't belong to some crazed separatist dictator hellbent on all kinds of nefarious acts...

I could make a joke in really poor taste here, but I won't.

This guy would probably bomb IW himself if the game was in Rome... (too close to Vatican "City".)

FLSH_BNG:

Nimbus:

Malygris:
...the gallant mansion reduced to rubble doesn't belong to some crazed separatist dictator hellbent on all kinds of nefarious acts...

I could make a joke in really poor taste here, but I won't.

This guy would probably bomb IG himself if the game was in Rome... (too close to Vatican "City".)

Uh, what? What is IG and what does the Vatican have to do with anything?

yrogerg:
Science, and that particular relgion, are not actually a contradiction of terms.

Oh? Then what was the reason for the Dark Age? We went from sewers systems and running water to living in mud and straw hovels again thank you very much!

FLSH_BNG:

yrogerg:
Science, and that particular relgion, are not actually a contradiction of terms.

Oh? Then what was the reason for the Dark Age? We went from sewers systems and running water to living in mud and straw hovels again thank you very much!

The Dark Ages sucked for Western Europe. But, while the Catholic Church was the dominant political force in Europe during that time period, there was very little about christanity qua Christianity that defined or created that situation. Overall it had a great deal more to do with the economic and political collapse of Rome and subsequent loss of access to a great deal of Greek and Roman thought.

On the other hand, though, there was the Byzantine empire- the Christian remnant of the the Roman Empire, which, along with the contemporary Islamic empires, are essentially solely responsible for any of that aforementioned knowledge being preserved at all. You have the first European universities, founded by papal bull. And, you do have science that still happened during this time period, unless you believe that Gregor Mendel -an Augustinian monk, you'll note- did nothing of note as far of the field of genetics is concerned, or that various others had no impact of significance Hell, you know that guy who Occam's Razor is named after? Yup, he was Franciscan monk who lived during the 1200's, and contributed significantly to logic, physics, and epistemology.

Honestly, we do tend to overstate exactly how dark the dark ages actually were. The fall of the Western Roman Empire was obviously a big deal, but there was a great deal of science that happened in Europe. Moreover, due to the fact that the Catholic church was the dominant political force during this time period, it's wholly unsurprising that much of the science that happened during this time period occurred under Church auspices.

That all said, we do owe non-Europeans: particularly the Islamic empires that coincided with the west's dark ages, an enormous debt of gratitude, in that they preserved and continued to advance knowledge in fields as diverse as chemistry, physics, medicine, astronomy, navigation, agriculture, psychology... and all while Europe was in a particularly nasty period of political and economic chaos, punctuated by the occasional plague. And this is also something that's largely unacknowledged, but hey, there it is now.

Is that enough of an answer?

Gosh, its like the film 'Independance Day' never happened...

yrogerg:

FLSH_BNG:

yrogerg:
Science, and that particular relgion, are not actually a contradiction of terms.

Oh? Then what was the reason for the Dark Age? We went from sewers systems and running water to living in mud and straw hovels again thank you very much!

The Dark Ages sucked for Western Europe. But, while the Catholic Church was the dominant political force in Europe during that time period, there was very little about christanity qua Christianity that defined or created that situation. Overall it had a great deal more to do with the economic and political collapse of Rome and subsequent loss of access to a great deal of Greek and Roman thought.

On the other hand, though, there was the Byzantine empire- the Christian remnant of the the Roman Empire, which, along with the contemporary Islamic empires, are essentially solely responsible for any of that aforementioned knowledge being preserved at all. You have the first European universities, founded by papal bull. And, you do have science that still happened during this time period, unless you believe that Gregor Mendel -an Augustinian monk, you'll note- did nothing of note as far of the field of genetics is concerned, or that various others had no impact of significance Hell, you know that guy who Occam's Razor is named after? Yup, he was Franciscan monk who lived during the 1200's, and contributed significantly to logic, physics, and epistemology.

Honestly, we do tend to overstate exactly how dark the dark ages actually were. The fall of the Western Roman Empire was obviously a big deal, but there was a great deal of science that happened in Europe. Moreover, due to the fact that the Catholic church was the dominant political force during this time period, it's wholly unsurprising that much of the science that happened during this time period occurred under Church auspices.

That all said, we do owe non-Europeans: particularly the Islamic empires that coincided with the west's dark ages, an enormous debt of gratitude, in that they preserved and continued to advance knowledge in fields as diverse as chemistry, physics, medicine, astronomy, navigation, agriculture, psychology... and all while Europe was in a particularly nasty period of political and economic chaos, punctuated by the occasional plague. And this is also something that's largely unacknowledged, but hey, there it is now.

Is that enough of an answer?

That was a fairly hefty dose of ownage.

yrogerg:
Honestly, we do tend to overstate exactly how dark the dark ages actually were.

What's worse is how, at least on the school-book level, we continue to paint the transition from the Roman era to the Early Middle Ages as a kind of light-switch moment where all of Europe went from mighty empire to a plagues-and-hovels crapsack-world in the span of a three days in August 410.

-- Alex

Alex_P:

yrogerg:
Honestly, we do tend to overstate exactly how dark the dark ages actually were.

What's worse is how, at least on the school-book level, we continue to paint the transition from the Roman era to the Early Middle Ages as a kind of light-switch moment where all of Europe went from mighty empire to a plagues-and-hovels crapsack-world in the span of a three days in August 410.

-- Alex

Honestly, I'm pretty sure that's mostly because we try really, really hard to trace the lineage of medieval Europe back to Rome, rather than to the Franks, Goths, Vandals, et al, who were hovelling it up for quite some time even before Rome's decline and fall. I'll concede that from the perspective of Rome, it was a fairly precipitous decline over only a generation or two, if one that was in the making for a few hundred years prior. Truthfully, though, Christianity and Latin as a lingua franka was one of the very few vestiges of the late Empire that Europeans held on to, so it almost doesn't make sense to treat the history of Rome as the history of pre-modern Europe.

Relatedly, though, yeah. We also kinda forget that the "Roman Empire", which is to say, the Eastern Roman Empire (later, the Byzantine Empire) lasted in some form until the 1400's. If we were actually serious about tracing the lineage of modernity, it would actually devolve from Rome and Greece to Byzantium (later, Turkey) and the Islamic empires, and only diffuse back to Europe after the Crusades.

I can't wait for Modern Warfare. AWESOME!
(i am American, so yeah.)

Hello, I'm a douchebag that believes that when I'M offended it must mean that everyone is offended. As such I demand that Modern Warfare 2 remove it's content and replace it with Bible passages and images of Jesus kissing bunnies (friendly, not sexually). We don't need our children being exposed to realistic violence that effects America, which is why I suggest we all pray for the end times to begin so sweet merciful Jesus can destroy the world and lead us up to Heaven in a magic-car made of gumdrops and marshmallow fluff.

-Bill Donohue

I just hope it's not a private military organization that turns around and fucks over American....

I wonder if he has EVER PLAYED A GODDAMN GAME.

These kinds of things happen in games and he never noticed them.

I wonder if he was just cruising around on youtube and found the trailer.
In fact,that makes much more sense.

saw this on youtube about GTA4...

How can anyone play this "game" without knowing the sort of psychological damage it's doing to them? This is a murder simulator, and it's teaching our kids to kill each other. You all need to take a hard look at yourselves and what this game is really doing for you. There's only one source for pure entertainment, and that's Jesus.

yrogerg:
Relatedly, though, yeah. We also kinda forget that the "Roman Empire", which is to say, the Eastern Roman Empire (later, the Byzantine Empire) lasted in some form until the 1400's.

Until 1453, to be precise. Then the Ottoman Turks built the worlds first BFG (over) 9000 and blew the fuck out of the Byzantines. Ok, not really. The Siege of Constantinople lasted about a month (still, pretty short for such a large city), but the BFG part is true.

300lb. Samoan:
The imagery is definitely striking, but the CSM author is over-reacting. I don't see why it would be more acceptable to depict "some fictional town in eastern Europe" as a bombed out wasteland, perhaps because that imagery isn't pulling on your American heartstrings?

I was thinking along the same lines. I mean, Germany gets their Reichstag taken over by Russians in World At War and that's perfectly okay, but the moment DC gets touched it's something to be condemned? In fact I'd say the constant representation of Eastern Europeans and Arabs as evil warmongers is far worse than this. What does it matter if we see DC blown up anyway? Is some American going to die of shock? Can someone explain it to me?