This is something I've wanted to touch on for a while now, but never got around to. It's hard not to be aware of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, as the multi-million copies it's sold has made it difficult to ignore. One of the bigger stories was the controversy surrounding the No Russian level, where the player takes the role of a CIA agent posing as a terrorist, and is able to take part in the massacre of innocent civillians in a crowded Russian airport.
Predictably, parent groups and the general media were in an uproar over the game's content, and although Infinity Ward included an option to skip the level, the damage was done: terrorism was being forced into American homes. But is it really a bad thing?
Admittedly, the contorversy around the level is a bit bigger than the level itself, but when you consider the impact it made, I can't help but think Infinity Ward pulled off something extraordinary here. The level is not meant to make the US look good, it's military appear just or it's cause to be legitimate. And it isn't trying to create sympathy for the terrorists, or even their victims. It was presenting a (fictional) event from a different perspective, un-biased, un-confrontational. The balls it took to include something like that without using it as an excuse to include some American flag-waving is nothing to scoff at.
Is the rest of the game super-patriotic military shooter drivel? You bet. But the fact that a pinnacle of the story was told from the perspective of characters that the general public would be uncomfortable confronting is something very different indeed. Did they really accomplish much? Not really. But I think this is a step in the right direction for showing where narratives in video games (which are often shallow and uninteresting) can really go. Is it art? It's impossible to deny that anything is. Is it relevant? That's up to you.
Currently Listening: Behind Enemy Lines- "What Did We Expect?"
