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Canada Dismayed Over Quebec Terrorist Game Plot
Thanks to Canoe.ca for their article discussing the Canadian reaction to the in-game plot of Sony's forthcoming PS2 title Syphon Filter: The Omega Strain, which has a level in which "...the [terrorist] Quebec Liberations Front has taken control of one of Toronto's underground subway tunnels." This is "an apparent reference to the Front de liberation du Quebec (FLQ), whose kidnapping and murder of Quebec cabinet minister Pierre Laporte in 1970 led to the imposition of the War Measures Act." A spokesperson for the Toronto transit commission has suggested: "The fact is someone is putting the Toronto subway as a terrorist site, that is a very dangerous thing to do", while a group of Quebec sovereigntists have commented: "It's difficult not to be made to feel like a target when you have a game inviting players to shoot at separatists." Update: 10/23 23:25 GMT by S : According to CTV.ca, Sony have now agreed to change the game, "rather than face a real-life storm of angry Quebecers."
It's not very difficult to reach for my credit card when you have a game inviting players to shoot at separatists.
Funny part is, I was just watching a Canadian reporter talking to an actual retired Quebec terrorist, and he kind of liked the idea, he thought it might make young people a little more militant.
A potential terrorist target is a potential terrorist target whether or not somebody says it's one. In fact, you're worsening the danger by *not* pointing out something like that, since likely not enough will be done about the problem otherwise. "...dangerous thing to do"? Bah. It's not like there's some Separatist at an underground cafe right now slapping his forehead and saying "Sacre merde, the subway! Why didn't we think of this?"
I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate.
Yeah, I can really see a bunch of terrorists hanging out, playing video games, talking about where to hit next.
"Hey, where is that subway in the playstation game?"
What does the American Ambassor has to say about this?
;D hey someone has to be a villain demographic, and frankly they were tired of arabs and nazis. Its just a game guys! they can shoot "terrorist from Jersey" for what I care!
Am. Ambassor stands up, fixes his tie.
-Fuck Canada!
Canadian ambassor: "Hey! Fuck you buddy!"
"South Park: bigger, longer and uncut"
-p.s.
Just kidding!
Newfoundlan man fails attempting a terrorist attack on Toronto, Ontario.
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You're just mad because the voices in your head talk to me.
"Counter-Strike"? sounds like much ado about nothing...
If you cave into Canada, who WON'T you cave into?
Cloud City Digital: DVD Production at its cheapest/finest
... you insensitive clod!
http://www.club977.com/ - The 80's Channel!
Your source for commercial free 80's music!
and using the ttc as my main means of transportation, i think it would be cool if they made the subway system a terrorist site, not like it hasnt happened already. Well they just dont tell you that part, ive seen my fair share of shit happen on the subway's here, and lets just say a video game aint gonna change nothing!
I'm quebecois, and i don't give a ****. Hell, i'd probably have a lot of fun with the game if i had a PS2 :) However, I think it's a bit sad that the FLQ is only remembered for their one(and last) mistake. They did many things before the kidnapping-and-murder mistake, and it was very clean; it involved blowing statues representing the british domination, etc. While it was costly, but it made their point and didn't physically hurt anyone.
BTW, re the inflammatory comments: not all of us are like the hardline PQ, just like not every anglo's like Alliance-Quebec(or whatever their name is) people. Thank you.
Try Corewar @ www.koth.org - rec.games.corewar
A game based on Sherman's march to Atlanta?
War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it; and those who brought war into our country deserve all the curses and maledictions a people can pour out. ~Gen. Sherman
"I only speak the truth"
Karma: null(Mostly affected by an unassigned variable)
Actually, some game a few years back (I -think- it was Hitman 2, but I know it was fairly recent) was forced to change the enemy skins because they resembled Arabs.
About the time their ancestors were over there, I seem to recall that the only reason that America won the Revolutionary War was because of support from the French.
Enjoy your freedom fries, moron.
Don't be so quick to blame Canada for this one. Queubec shouldn't even be considered part of the provinces. It's sort of like Texas, but without the cowboy hats or guns. ... Make that just without hats.
How rediculous. There IS a Quebec seperatist movement. Some of them HAVE used terrorism in the past. This is comparable to using IRA terrorists in a game, and then backing off because Sinn Fein complained.
Someone at Sony needs to grow a sack, and tell these PC assholes to shove it.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
..John Travolta is some terrorist scum who rides a train with a nuclear bomb to Denver (I live in Colorado). This shocked and horrified me. I mean, this movie starred John Travolta! Heading towards Denver! Why do we have to put up with him?
Seriously though, thought it was cool to get a mention, it makes a change from 99% of movies that seem to assume there's a vacuum between east and west coasts (however true that may be).
You can do that in New Orleans. Leave our French alone when you have your own problems.
And that has been used as a dubious excuse for them to be a nation of cheese snorting pantywaists ever since.
Britian lost the war because of one reason. Supply lines were long, and the lack of steam engines and electricity made logistics hard.
But it's a great rational. Wow, it is the least bit plausible happen, better not think about it, talk about it, or use it for entertainment purposes. God forbid we with cease with or let anything interfer with our security plan (Phase One: Wishful Thinking Phase Two: Problems Solve Themselves), because at some point, somewhere, someone who's overly sensitive might get sad.
Well that's hardly new. The goofy ass protests surrounding The Siege, and oh The Sum of All Fear.
Yes, whiteness and evil are congenital and linked. All other ethnicities are worderful and giving, all evidence to the contrary is not to be considered as it interferes with our regimen of indoctrination.
I wholeheartedly concur with your assessment, my fellow Northern European American.
or,
Fo'Sho' Ma Honkaz!
"rather than face a real-life storm of angry Quebecers."
Sheesh, they are probably angry for being called Quebecers.
Acording to Google...
Searched the web for Quebecois. Results 1 - 100 of about 792,000. Search took 0.32 seconds.
Searched the web for Quebecers. Results 1 - 100 of about 29,500. Search took 0.15 seconds.
No offense to any of you hosers out there, but i think that Canada just wants to feel like a real country. I mean come on, all they have are mooses, hocky, and french fries with gravy. I say let them have this one if it makes them feel like a real nation.
There's a book called Infinite Jest in which Quebecois separatist terrorists play a pretty central role in the plot.
It takes place in the future, and the Quebecois want to secede more than ever partly because the US has taken to lofting all of their radioactive waste into an area right on the Quebec border... and Canada proper didn't object. Apparently the wasteland is prowled by feral giant fetuses and such.
I don't imagine the PS games has much else in common with the book... but David Foster Wallace certainly gave no apologies for his plot, so why should they? Who complains about terrorist plots anywhere else, for however outlandish reasons?
There are only 10 types of people: those who understand decimal, those who don't, and, uh, 8 other types I forget.
Man, it's getting so you cant kill anyone anymore...
The / in
I can't believe posts on this about there still being an FLQ terrorist organization. Hell the separatist movement in Quebec is pretty much dead. They have a liberal party government provincially now and the Bloc is probably going to get whooped in this coming election. They got what they wanted which frankly was the only way to go. You can whine about Quebec all you want but we were way better off passifying them then antagonizing them. I think the IRA is a perfect example here folks. Thatcher and her predecessors played hardball with them and they just fought harder. As soon as honest negotiation was started the situation got a hell of a lot better and it looks like the whole thing in Northern Ireland is pretty much over too.
Really, who gives a damn if a bunch of Quebec folks complained? I sure as hell wouldn't since the rest of the other provinces in Canada hate Quebec anyway.
:D
And as I recall this wasn't the only game to have Quebec in it. Wasn't there a flight sim game a few years ago that had you do runs against Quebec?
You must master your joystick like a fisherman masters bait! - Gimpy
I find it very sad to see how easily Americans can make the headlines in newspapers worldwide because mr. president got the flu but that Canada, for some reason cannot get some credit when an important part of its history is attacked.
Canada & Quebec always had cautious relationships ever since the separation thing came up (and remains)
FLQ has been a key group in Quebec's history. and personnaly I'd hate to see its name get dirty because of game that gives a false image of them.
I couldn't care less about FLQ's goals but I do respect what they did or at least what they tried to achieve because, back then, it mattered very much.
I choose to post this because I saw a lot of discriminatory and flames in this thread about Quebec and I find it very sad that you (americans) ask for respect everywhere you walk but can't give the same respect to your neighbors.
If you look like your passport photo, you're too ill to travel. - Will Kommen
The hypocrisy of North Americans never ceases to amaze me. It's quite allright to label every Arab in the planet a hardcore terrorist, but if someone lets out a game where there are North American white terrorists, an outrcy is instant. I thought Jamaican limbo dancers had gone as low as man can go. Sadly, I was very wrong...
I seem to recall that the only reason that America won the Revolutionary War was because of support from the French.
Yes, it's the only reason, because I read it on Slashdot.
Regardless of how much help the US got from France in the Revolution, the French sure got plenty of help from the US since then, like a couple of World Wars. I seem to recall that France was occupied by Germans for a while there.
-PainKilleR-[CE]
As a Canadian, I feel quebec was over reacting as usual and they shouldn't stick their head in the videogame business. They've already screwed box art up for the rest of Canada (they have to be bilingual) and now they're trying to screw the games themselves
les separatistes se jouent de TOI!
Um, what? What the hell are you talking about? My point is that every jingoistic asswipe rallying behind the American flag right now is beating on the French as if they're somehow a morally inferior species. I find a lot of frenchmen annoying, but let's remember that they do have a history before 1870, and that history did involve A LOT of cooperation with us. I seem to remember something about a statue or something....
..Canadians aren't dismayed. Militant Quebecois who love to take offence are dismayed.
Slightly OT, but have you ever noticed that in almost every SF story or RPG that mentions Quebec, they always seem to break away and turn Communist?
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
I find it strange that shooting at Quebec terrorists is labeled offensive, yet it perfectly acceptable to make games where you can shoot at Middle Eastern terrorists or Latin American guerillas.
Does anyone else find this strange?
Suicide is only harmless to society if the victim is truly friendless, unloved and nothing but a burden to others.
The problem is, most suicides *aren't* worthless friendless unlovable human beings. They're just ill.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
So sad that Quebec takes more tax dollars per capita than any other Province now they have to take what sounds like super-fun battle in TO subway game levels from us. Damn you Quebec. Damn you straight to the very small trough the rest of us have to feed from.
Their bombing of the Montreal Stock exchange injured 27 people. They planted several mailbox bombs which injured several people, some critically. Their bombs killed three people, and their guns killed a couple more, and that's not counting M. Laporte's death by strangulation.
They were terrorists, and they hurt people. Yes they targeted itms that were symbolic (to them) of what they considered to be an opressive regime, but the collateral damage destroyed peoples lives. They scared people because of those injuries and deaths to further their cause. That's what terrorism is, and terrorists is what the FLQ, or at least the more extreme elements of the FLQ, were. Do a little reading on the FLQ's
Idiot, n. A member of a large and powerful tribe whose influence in human affairs has always been dominant
So that's why Men Without Hats came from Montreal. It all makes sense now.
Idiot, n. A member of a large and powerful tribe whose influence in human affairs has always been dominant
Part 1: Offtopic, more or less flamebait:
The french had little to do with America prevailing against Britian in the American Revolutionary War. Geography played a vastly larger role. It's akin to saying the Hessians are why the british lost.
Then there are the French motivations: The classical passive-agressive Frenchness that is "What is bad for England* is good for France." *Where England can be replaced with any other country. Ben Franklin also liked to fuck anything he could catch. (So I guess we've always had that one in common). Etc.
They've been unrepentent pussies for more than a century. Their weasly obsequious nature, with a little help from serbian bitches, made two world wars not possible, but likely. Americans died for their freedom, in a way, and on a scale the French never did for anything greater than dreams of Empire. They didn't want america in Nato, so they left, enjoyed its protections, and still wished to have a say. Americans might well be arrogant, but the French are prideful beyond all reason. Look at what they think of the language. They know for a fact they can't compete with english, so they claim second. While I'm not completely certain English even takes first! They detonate nukes underwater, even after the US offered them a look at our nuclear crown jewels if they wouldn't! (THAT is just being a silly bitch.) Then the French foriegn policy of today is roughly equivalent to what people are willing to crusify Rumsfeld, Cheney, and Bush Sr. for in the 80's. Nevermind, that what happened before a person is ten is generally percieved as ancient history, whatever credibility they gained from their small assistance in our nation's founding has been used up.
Oh and the statue? Yeah, we still take in a whole hell of a lot of the refugees, and immigrants. But any goodwill they purchased with that, has been long since spent.
--------
Part 2: A mangled attempt to connect it back to the discussion:
[I sometimes revise my sentences as I type, and if I just skim to clean up, I sometimes miss things. Especially if I type fast.]
But it's a great rational. Wow, this fictional terroist setting is the least bit plausible, better not think about it, talk about it, or use it for entertainment purposes. God forbid we with cease, or let anything interfer, with our security plan (Phase One: Wishful Thinking Phase Two: Problems Solve Themselves), because at some point, somewhere, someone who's overly sensitive might get sad.
Definately something you don't want to do. Remember when Maurice Richard got suspended for hitting a referee? The city rioted.
We would start shooting anglophones here before of moving to Toronto's subway...
;) Personnally I dispise all terrorist groups, whatever the cause.
Just fscking with you guys.
FLQ Story 1, happened this weekPolice said they caught the men as they were trying to cut down a federalist symbol at the townhall with a chainsaw. Investigators said they later found several homemade pipe bombs in a suspect's car.
The graffiti included the words Canadians Go Home, Quebec Libre (A Free Quebec) and Fusion Montreal.
The letters FLQ, which stands for Front de liberation du Quebec, were also spray-painted onto the building. The separatist terrorist organization was responsible for the murder of provincial cabinet minister Pierre Laporte back in October 1970.
FLQ Story 2 same POV, different source.MONTREAL - Seven francophone men between the ages of 19 and 49 will appear in court Wednesday to answer to a host of charges related to the defacing the former Baie D'Urfe town hall with separatist slogans.
Some of the messages included "Une ile, une ville francaise", "Free Quebec" and "Go home Canadians." The vandals signed their worked "FLQ."
Om, nomnomnom...