Hey everyone! I really wanna know what you guys thought of the COD4 MW2 terrorist mission. I played it and I think although it asks you whether or not you want to play a controversial mission most people will click "I wanna play" cuz they want to see it because of the temptation :P lol I truly believe games are the most powerful form of entertainment. but I really did question if games are heading in the right way :( Games are suppose to be fun and empowering but my stomach actually got a little sick (weird feeling) playing through that mission lol no joke! Maybe im over thinking this but was the mission really necessary? I actually thought it took it too far by trying to be original. The objective of that mission was in my point of view was to show in games you can do anything and games could be darker than movies. I have seen worse in movies and we can all agree....We all have but if we really want games to be something superior about the rest. I think that section of the game tried hard to say games can be as emotional as movies. The good news is that games are about choices and variety. Every game will not end up like the terrorist mission in COD4. I think as much as games could be good for you they could be bad for you as well pshycologically. IF you came up with the idea instead of Infinity Ward would you have implemented in the game? Would you have thought about it twice? I dont want to start war lol but what are your thoughts I wanna hear it :) Sorry for bad grammar im just typin whats in my head. Oh and I didnt know where to post this so I said go with Game design! lol

I felt no emotional response whatsoever. To me it's just a bunch of polygons and pixels; they mean nothing to me.

I did enjoy the level from a gameplay perspective. It was a level where, for the most part, I got to just shoot at stuff without it shooting back. :)

From a story perspective it's an important level, though I really couldn't care less about the story.

[Spoilers?]

I've played multiple GTA games and could easily run over citizens or mass murder them, but for some odd reason I couldn't shoot a single person in the airport in this mission. Maybe it's because I was a different character in GTA, and I didn't really need to kill any innocent person. But in this game, I was apart of the terrorist group. It was my job to kill them, but I couldn't. I actually found myself firing off my gun at walls and such, just to give the illusion to the terrorists that I was participating in this massacre. The airport was also well modeled and lit, making it feel like an actual airport I'd go to.

But I'm glad they included this in the game. They made me feel like I could never in a million years imagine doing such unspeakable acts of terror. Yes, it was horrible to watch, play, and be apart of, but it evoked some kind of an emotion, something most games fail to do. I find games a bit more personal than movies, and if executed properly, I think they can have a greater impact on a person than any film could do.

Okay, big disclaimer: Won't ever be playing this game any time soon (wimpy PC, no next gen console). So I can only give you impressions from watching videos, talking to friends and reading reviews.

Games have allowed us to do senseless violence for ages. One of the earliest I can remember was an old Atari game where you played mass murderer Michael Meyers from the Halloween franchise. A lot of these open city games (Saint's Row, a mode in Driver 3, the GTA games) let you shoot or even run over innocent bystanders. And of course there's the old game Postal, which let you mow down a marching band among other atrocities.

I think you've got two paths when you design the ability to commit evil in a game-- you've got the campy, over-the-top path which makes the act ridiculous or the morally charged path which attempts to be thought provoking. If you fail at either of these you end up making porn, the same sort of stuff that's probably entertaining to someone who would be fine watching videos of animal fights or bloody car crashes-- that is, violence that provokes without really being throught provoking.

It sounds like CoD was shooting for the morally charged path but missed. So you're trying to prove your cover by either tolerating or participating in the slaughter of some pretty realistically rendered innocent civilians. The fact that the game doesn't give you a choice-- say to shoot the bad guys in the back of the head the numerous times their backs are turned to you-- is problematic. It makes the experience contrived, and I can't help but wonder if folks will pick up on that dissonance between what you should be able to do and what the game allows you to do, causing them to lose connection to whatever moral imperative the game wanted to impose.

Another course of action might have been to allow the player to fully be evil. This, I think, might have been vastly more compelling AND thought provoking provided that the world meted out appropriate consequences. In the Halloween Atari game I mentioned, I think you always died in the end for your deeds. Although it's flimsy, the open city games often at least have the law respond.

But if none of this happens, then it would seem that all you get is to walk through normal mapped, realistically lit places doing things that have no greater point regardless of what the game's story tells you.

Like Wavinator, I too have not played COD4, nor will I ever soon due to my lack of hardware. However, Link brings up an important point that I think bears mentioning: a game, that intentionally or not, for once makes the player reconsider and regret killing, comes out a much more powerful experience in the end.

While overzealous journalists and Jack Thompson think otherwise, I think games can be murder simulators without turning players into bloodthirsty killers. Quite the opposite. I remember when I played Iji, an indie 2d shooter. At first I was going on a rampage, killing every alien I saw, but suddenly, something happened: the player character sobbed, after her kill, crying "I'm sorry", or "No!" At that point I simply could not continue killing. I restarted the entire level, determined to play the game as a pacifist. My reaction to the game was so powerful, the imposed moral judgement so complete, that the game became a murder simulator that included a component to the simulation that other games lacked: simulated remorse.

The discouragement of killing need not be moral, nor intentional. When I picked up Deus Ex 2, I expected to be a "total badass," wreaking havoc with the augmentations my character would level up, killing guards and robots alike. But, as I started killing those poor security guards, I got messages from the faction leading them. Apparently, I was losing options by killing off potential allies. I restarted the game, and again, decided to play as pacifist as possible. Later on, when I did have a chance to kill guards without repercussions, I simply could not. There was no reason to. It would be a waste of ammo. I started using flashbangs and invisibility and gas just to avoid killing. Soon, what started as a practical concern also became a moral one. I couldn't kill off these characters without feeling like I was doing something wrong. This made the fights I did want to engage in feel more enjoyable and powerful. I recall one instance where I had to destroy a robot which was holding civilians hostage. I let loose with my weaponry, knowing every bullet not spent on a poor punchclock security guard was another I could pump into every robot, turret, and armored zealot who dared threaten the civilians. At one point, I encountered two scientists who, if my foggy memory serves right, were planning on some "genetic purification" of mankind. I didn't want to kill, them, but I didn't want them to be able to carry out their mission-- in both real life and in game, I would be a target of such eugenics schemes. So I tranquilized them and tossed them in the sick bay, so they wouldn't be in time for their appointment.

Link's reaction to the terrorist mission underscores something important about games as murder simulators: a game is much more powerful and memorable if it simulates every aspect of murder, including remorse. Majourab's sick feeling is a good sign to me, a proof that humanity cannot enjoy purposeless killing of other humans. This aversion to purposeless human killing goes both ways, however: Prototype, which must have civilians inevitably slaughtered, had to justify it by including some larger story and opponents who would kill the civilians either way. Meanwhile, Iji had a simpler story and representation, and so could not have such an easy justification for killing aliens (I'd include possible exceptions, but the game is so marvelous I can't spoil it).

In conclusion, I think more games ought to make you feel sick when you kill people. Such a tension and reserve in the player can have practical advantages, such as making boss fights more cathartic (since you saved all your ammo), or long term, less tangible advantages, such as improving the image of games and the people who play them.

I thought it was badass. I can see how some people would have problems with it though. The animations really brought a level of realism to the scenes. It caught me off guard since I wasn't really paying attention to the campaign up to that point - I was expecting a desert and I ended up shooting civies, it pulled me into the game.

Isn't this sort of a spoiler thread lol, glad I already played through the game :-p

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Original post by majourab ...my stomach actually got a little sick (weird feeling) playing through that mission lol no joke!

That was the point of that mission; it enhanced the immersion. I remember doing that mission and firing mostly into the air, just so Makarov wouldn't get suspicious.

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Original post by Funkymunky Quote: Original post by majourab ...my stomach actually got a little sick (weird feeling) playing through that mission lol no joke! That was the point of that mission; it enhanced the immersion. I remember doing that mission and firing mostly into the air, just so Makarov wouldn't get suspicious.

You can actually just walk around and not fire at all. I tried to beat the level without firing my gun just for giggles. It almost works until you get to the last "battle" with the SWAT right before the end of the level. The AI just can't take down those SWAT, forcing you to take care of them. But Makarov and the others don't say anything if you don't fire the entire time.

Not sure why you couldn't just kill Makarov and end it right there.

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Original post by Funkymunky Quote: Original post by majourab ...my stomach actually got a little sick (weird feeling) playing through that mission lol no joke! That was the point of that mission; it enhanced the immersion. I remember doing that mission and firing mostly into the air, just so Makarov wouldn't get suspicious.

It would be excellent if Makarov did get suspicious unless you fire, so if you did not want to shoot at civvies, you would have to come up with shooting over their heads like Funkymunky did.

Also it would be good if some portion of civilians could escape or survive by being unnoticed for long enough, so you could save them (while appearing to be killing them) by shooting appropriately near them to herd them towards exits, herd them out of open areas, and make them stay in cover with their heads down. This would simultaneously give the scene more kick by making it more realistic, and give the player a skill-based goal of saving civilians. I do not think it should be referred to or explained in game, so it'd be another thing you either figure out or not. "Help X civilians survive the shootout", with X tuned to a number that's easy to achieve provided you actually try to save them, would be a perfect use of an achievement/trophy.

Finally, I think IW failed by having no children or elderly in the crowd. The scene would be more powerful if a realistic mix of people were used. I don't buy there being any moral difference between shooting and killing a helpless granny, toddler or businessman; besides, the easily offended already have a choice to skip the whole thing.

I do have to say this is progress, and I see it paving the way for adding complexity in the actual game, like sections where you have to take out enemies in a civilian-rich area while playing the "good guys", so the issue of properly identifying your targets and what's behind them comes into play. I have heard arguments that this "would not be fun", but that's bullshit. It is fun in Counter-Strike, it was even more fun back when terrorists could move the hostages, and no-shoot targets are also fun in live shooting (IPSC, IDPA, ...) practice. I bet players of SWAT and other tactical series can attest proper target identification is fun in those games.

Naturally not all areas need to be like this. The contrast to these "grey zones" with no-shoot targets would make the run-of-the-mill "free fire zone" areas in the game even more liberating.