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North Korea Angered Over Ghost Recon 2
Fennario writes "According to Stars and Stripes Pacific's translation of a North Korean government newspaper article, UbiSoft's forthcoming Ghost Recon 2 videogame, which envisions a near-future North Korea/China conflict with US involvement, has already attracted the reclusive country's attention. In a curt review, a North Korean government-run newspaper called the game proof of U.S. warmongering. 'Through propaganda, entertainment and movies,' read a recent online commentary in the Tongil Newspaper. Americans 'have shown everyone their hatred for us. This may be just a game to them now, but a war will not be a game for them later. In war, they will only face miserable defeat and gruesome deaths.' Given the steep learning curve of previous incarnations of Ghost Recon, it's conceivable many may face miserable defeat and gruesome deaths anyhow."
I guess game makers ran out of past wars on which to base games. Can you name one major war (or even a good-sized minor one) in the 20th century without a game based on it?
I know I've definately heard stories of China become upset over its portrayal in video games; I wonder why it is they haven't sounded off yet.
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Yadda yadda yadda yadda SHUTUP N. KOREA.
Video games don't dictate foreign policy, Kim Jong-il needs to put a sock in it.
"I am a kernel in the linux army"
Most of the wars in this list of 20th century wars don't have any videogames. Maybe I should send the link to some game-makers.
there just aren't enough people in the world that hate Americans.
I don't think so. I think this is more like North ;)
Korea saving face. Yes, we Americans
are shaking in our little booties.
besides, who esle is going to put up a good fight?
Panama?
Get Virtual.
From what I've heard in the past, it wouldn't surprise me one bit if Kim Jung-Il is an avid gamer.Yeah, he's kinda nutz too, but he actually does seem to pay attention to pop culture and such. Heck, he may be playing copy of Ghost Recon 2 right now. I'll bet he beats his homies all the time, or else!
To the making of books there is no end, so let's get started
So I guess by the same rationale that because of Full Throttle all bikers are bad.
Day of the Tentacle: Weird green and purple blobs are evil and want to take over the world
Leisure Suit Larry: men only care about sex (ok, maybe they're right...)
Grand Theft Auto: It's totally ok to kill a hooker as long as no cop sees you do it.
Worms: Worms are bad creature and I should use wind direction and missle bomb loft to kill them in the most efficent manner.
UT: Other people are only good for cannon fodder
I could keep going...
hey NORTH KOREA, IT'S A FUCKING GAME. I highly doubt that every game that's ever been produced over seas portrays Americans in a good light, but do you see us complaining? Hell no, because we are too busy trying to get "kill all haitians" removed from our games (because haitians are a good and kind people who deserve no ill-respect).
I don't think there's a lot of truth in the ramblings of the North Koreans. Those guys have thousands of artillery peices trained down on the South Koreans, and most of their citizens are starving because all of the food given to them as international aid is diverted to the military. Yet somehow we're the warmongers because of a hypothetical situation created in a video game? Couple that with their prediction of 'miserable defeat for us' and you should realize that you aren't dealing with complaints from a rational group of people, but paranoid ranting and chest thumping from a corrupt and weak regime.
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Gee, I must have missed that development. What case was that, Nukem v. Croft?
Gee, I must have missed that development.
That, sir, is why you're an Anonomous Coward. Read your damn news.
I thought Tom Clancy's games were supposed to be realistic. Everyone knows in a war against North Koreans we will not put ground troops in the jungle, thats just plain suicide we learned that the hardway in Vietnam. Such a war will be fought with bombs. Hope the North Koreans understand that they will get their butts kicked.
For all of the dinosaurs running their backwards regime to roll over and die.
"U.S. warmongering"?
Is this North Korean gov't-run paper aware that UbiSoft is not an arm of the American gov't? I could see if America's Army had a similar storyline due to its US Army ties, but this is a Tom Clancy game.
Even if the paper is referring to US citizens instead of the US govt, this game isn't something that a large percentage of our general population will play. This game will be played by video game players who like war games. How much of our population is that? I imagine it's somewhere around 5% - 10% at most. Also, these games seem to me to have no bearing on players' opinions of real war situations. I imagine there will be some people who would be very upset about a US invasion of North Korea who would still enjoy this game, because they have the ability to separate reality from fantasy.
The really interesting thing about this is the insinuation that China would be NK's enemy, and that the US would be on the Chinese side in this conflict. It presumes a lot about China (eg: China really wants to thaw, to become a part of the capitalist world, despite what they say), and a lot about North Korea (the idea that an individual or faction in the military could actually take power from the all-powerful Kim Family Regime).
As a furriner living in South Korea, I'd be interested to see what part South Korea has in this game - that will be the true test of its importance as speculative analogy.
And apart from anything else, this game would pretty much be reason enough for me to buy a gaming rig and install windows on it... though I'd still need to use debian for everything else, natch.
L
And where in that article does it say "the Supreme Court made them do it."?
That, sir, is why you're wrong and the AC is right.
_sig_ is away
Sorry, I missed the reference to SCOTUS in that link. Where was it again?
Yeah, does anyone seriosly care what Kim Jong Il has to say?
This is a guy who kidnapped a S. Korean director to make a socialist version of Godzilla.
If he's not trying to use his probably bogus nuke capabilities to blackmail the world into helping him prop up his regime, he's threatening Japan or S. Korea. I say screw N. Korea. The only reason we don't just bomb that whole freaking disaster back to the Stone Age is because the S. Koreans still believe they can save what's left of the people of N Korea, oh and the 30,000 pieces of N Korean artillery in range of Seoul. Quite frankly though, reunification there is going to be an order of magnitude more messy than say, the reunification of Germany.
Until then, screw Kim Jong Il and the mess he's leaving this planet with.
Arrogance is Confidence which lacks integrity. -- me
Touche. Although it's near the only link I could find. Try searching yourself, I'm pretty sure.
I understand it's a Tom Clancy game. Even so, it was a French/French-Canadian publishing house that made it all work, so NK might as well call Quebec and France Warmongerers, too. Since they're obviously supporting the idea by having one company produce a game with anti-NK sentiments.
It's like sex, except I'm having it!
I guess they missed that UbiSoft is a French company. Oops... darn those things called facts.
Ubisoft, parent company of Red Storm, is a French company.
That's not the start of a slippery slope, that's the end of it.
"U.S. warmongering"?
Is this North Korean go>v't-run paper aware that UbiSoft is not an arm of the American gov't?
If you ever have the chance to actually watch the NK news or read it's papers, EVERYTHING is further proof of the US's warmongering. If it rains next Tuesday, it's proof of the US's warmongering. If a French guy eats a taco while on vacation in Mexico, it's proof of the US's warmongering. If something sitting on some guy's desk is a particular shade of red... well, you get the idea.
It's actually quite entertaining to read.
The only reason we don't just bomb that whole freaking disaster back to the Stone Age is that bombs can't bring a civilization UP to that level.
Are you trying to say that we didn't do bombing runs during the Vietnam war? We did tons of them. What everyone *in the military* knows is that you can't win a war by bombing the hell out of it (WWII in Japan notwithstanding).
Does anyone hear that? The world's smallest violin? ... No?
Huh. Maybe it's because they don't allow that kind of music in North Korea, since it would speak against the glory of the supreme leader.
Maybe we should play the world's smallest violin for the world's smallest violin.
"In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, 'Make us your slaves, but feed us.'" -Dostoevsky
I'm a Canadian. I'm just curious what your reaction would be if someone in Canada made a game that depicted a revolution against a tyranical US President (just for argument's sake let's say George W), and put you in the role of a terrorist/revolutionary?
Or how about a game that let you play as Osama Bin Laden. How do you suppose Americans would like the game? Would there be a public outcry? Would the government try to censor it?
Perhaps he would prefer videogames that are cell-shaded?
Lasers Controlled Games!
I guess we'd better all get a copy of it before they are forced to recall the game and publish a new version.
From Pandemic's Site:
Mercenaries is a revolutionary 3rd person action-shooter game set in the near future and inspired by real world events. On the eve of a historic reunification of North and South Korea, a ruthless general stages a military coup to take control of North Korea and threatens the world with nuclear war. As one of the top operatives for a private mercenaries company called Executive Operations, you have been called in to help collect bounties on the general's top military and scientific advisors.
http://www.lucasarts.com/games/mercenaries/
"You should never have your best trousers on when you turn out to fight for freedom and truth."
-Henrik Ib
that Ubisoft has announced Chessmaster® 10th Edition and we all know how evil Chess is.
Calm down, it was a flippant remark. Besides, have you ever considered what kind of effort will need to be made to bring the people of N Korea out of the psychotic society they are currently in? Have you looked at what Kim Jong Il has done to those people? When that fuel train exploded, there was one grainy ass cameraphone picture and estimates varied between no damage and 3000 dead. Anyone that has actually escaped from N Korea has needed severe psychological help just to adjust to S Korean society.
After looking at what a freaking mess N Korea is in, any sane, rational mind trying to look for a solution would be prone to some very cynical thinking. Given that bombing N Korea back to the Stone Age would slightly upset both the Chinese and S Koreans, and the current prickly issue of credibility behind US military action, not to mention a general malaise for support of genocide in the US, I would think the absurdity of the statement would be obvious.
Arrogance is Confidence which lacks integrity. -- me
...it's best work coming from a French company like Ubisoft!
Like all good dictators, they don't want the people to get it. People who live under oppression with spoon fed government media long enough tend to be disbeleive that it's any better anywhere else. The NK government knows full well that Ghost Recon isn't a government project (at least SOMEbody in there has to have enough brains to know that and delude the people who matter), but the people aren't likely to be intimately aware of the inner working of capitalist systems.
The US posuturing over Iraq and Afghanistan may convince 90% of the world that they're warmongers, but remember that North Korea has been promising the world bitter defeat and sea of flames and all that shit for better than fifty years, now, so they have to really raise the bar on warmongering by grasping onto every violent video game, every explosion in every action movie, every killer robot on TV, and every dead cat in a car commercial as proof of the sheer scale of foreign warmongering, lest they themselves become warmongers.
Look at the stuff that THEIR GOVERNMENT creates!
http://www.epicentregallery.com/DPRK_posters.html
------ hi mom
Would we claim it was Canadian propaganda?
I'm not the original poster, but I am an American.
I'm a Canadian. I'm just curious what your reaction would be if someone in Canada made a game that depicted a revolution against a tyranical US President (just for argument's sake let's say George W), and put you in the role of a terrorist/revolutionary?
Sounds like a cool premise actually. I do recall a recent game that involved some bad stuff happening in the US, and you taking control of a band of freedom fighters. Think it was a PS2 game.
Or how about a game that let you play as Osama Bin Laden. How do you suppose Americans would like the game? Would there be a public outcry? Would the government try to censor it?
There would be outcry, but they could no more censor it than they could Ferenheit 911. I doubt it would sell well. Not just for the outcry, but for the fact that hanging around in a cave and releasing taped statements every few months isn't exciting gameplay.
... feel the anger of the US as we unleash our weapons against their puny forces. Every day. When I play the game.
...)
Ummm. Right. (Anyone up for a little dose of paranoia?
Hey depending on what happens in the november election, you may just have your wish granted!
But then again any censorship will be blamed on the media doing instead of the administration.
I still can't comprehend the reasoning that would let a belligerent dictator in North Korea say straight-forwardly and without repercussion that he is in fact developing nuclear weapons and will use them against the USA; whereas, in Iraq, a dictator who we originally propped up, who claimed to not be developing nuclear weapons, had his country invaded. I would have been fully for a war against North Korea. (Not now, not with Bush in office.)
No. Absolutely not. (I know you've read in the Star about how any American who disagrees with anything is arrested under the PATRIOT Act and sent to Guantanamo Bay, but the answer is still: no, absolutely not.)
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
So, what you're saying is that if you're going to be a warmonger, you'd just better follow through on it?
To them their statements may seem like a show of bravado, but it's really just trolling.
I wonder if Kim Jong Il is a regular troll here on Slashdot.
Actually, I think such a game would be very interesting. I would totally take it as "what if" post-apocaplyptic fiction. Hell people, we've seen the same stuff in different settings. "Escape from New York", "Judge Dread", are just some movies that come to mind that shows bad stuff happening in America in the fictional future. Movies are made showing the US being the bad guy all the time, and we take them as fiction.
In other news, Satan has filed an official complaint against ID Ssoftware for the unfair and unlicensed portrayal of his dark minions in the DOOM series. ID Software released a brief statement, saying "IDDQD, motherfucker!"
I think you make a pretty compelling point. But the thing about Escape From New York and Judge Dredd is that they have a very American hero. So it's when the system falls down, and you have to revive "The American Dream". What I am trying to get at here is a game in which Americans are portrayed as greedy capitalist bastards, and not in a Command and Conquer style...
;-)
Think of it this way. You play as an Iraqi soldier. This is an adventure style game, with RPG elements. (so very story based). You start out welcoming the American invaders, but as time goes on, more and more places are bombed, people close to you are killed, beaten, whatever. you begin to actually resist after a while, eventually joining a terrorist cell after the war has been lost. Game ends when you fly a 747 into the World Trade Center.
Of course that's highly fictionalized... but I think it serves to more accurately show what I originally envisioned. I somehow think that if an Arabic country was the country responsible for producing the game, Americans would regard it as propaganda, and there would be some rather harsh words with that country.
Personally, I think it would make for an interesting game, but wouldn't be anything that I would ever want my name attached to.
Hmm, you make a good point about the "American Hero" reviving the "American Dream." Yep, I see what you mean. I suppose we can relate in a way to what is happening in the Middle East right now. When I flip on CNN to hear anti-american rebels cheer on the latest anti-american propaganda, I can't help but scoff and be angered at them. Even though the game isn't meant to be anti-N. Korea... it's just meant to be fiction based on current real-world tensions between the two countries. I suppose this game could be compared to the older James Bond films during the Cold War w/ the USSR. It's interesting to see how some of that Cold War legacy still plays into recent movies and other media, even though the USSR is no more.
'miserable defeat for us'
A war with N. Korea. A ground war in mountanous terrain against a entrenched, well trained and native troop. Sounds like that as close to unwinnable short of WWII type public support.
Modern war is as much getting your own populace to support it as it is bombing the fuck out of your opponent.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
I read the headline and though "oh wow, they are upset it's going to be 3rd person too". My bad...
My personal reaction would be surprise that such a game would be made, but only because I think it would be unpopular. I do not think the government would try to censor the game at all.
I would expect to see stores like Wal-Mart not carry the game, but not out of a gov't mandate. More out of a Wal-Mart staying away from almost anything controversial. Also, even though I would be surprised if Wal-Mart carried such a game, I would not be upset about it. They can sell or not sell whatever they want as far as I am concerned.
Would I buy the game? If it were a good game and the anti-US sentiment were kept to a minimum, I'd at least check it out.
bitch!
Re:You know... (Score:0, Troll)
by GOD_ALMIGHTY (17678)
Only on Slashdot can God be moderated a Troll.
You don't need to put yourself in the role and acheive victory. Any involment with Video Games and American economic policy would be censored. Simple.
American's don't understand that their system of covernment has at it's base the government controlling what private corperations are supposed to do. So when McD cuts down a rainforest YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE.
And when you release a video game depicting violence against a nation based on their communism well you're votes did that too.
(It probably would have been completely ignored by Americans if it hadn't been for the fact that Prince Andrew served during the war.
For some reason, many Americans seem to have as much of a fascination with the British Royal Family as the British do.)
As far as 20th century wars not made into games, I was thinking that many civil wars, such as the ones in China or Cambodia, or the many African civil wars, have probably not been made into games.
Some wars in which the USA was involved that may not have been made into games include the illegal US invasion of Panama, the illegal US invasion of Grenada, the failed US invasion of Iran to rescue the hostages, the illegal arming of the Contras in Nicaragua, the illegal bombing of Libya, the illegal blockade of Cuba during the Cuban missile "crisis", the illegal and failed invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs, the illegal repression of Phillipines during the US occupation there after the Spanish-American War, etc.
Some conflicts that were not wars, per se, that may not have been made into games include various clashes between local governments and civil rights workers during the civil rights movements of the 1960s, the incident at Wounded Knee, the Waco Massacre, the terrorist attack now known as "9/11", the various slaughters of innocent Americans, Columbians, etc., that is a result of the stupid War on Drugs, Ali vs Frasier, the retaking of Attica, the Kent State "Massacre", the police riot at the 1968 Democratic Convention, the LA riots, the riots that occurred after Martin Luther King, Jr.'s assassination, clashes between unions and police in the early part of the century, the destruction of the American Veterans' encampment by Douglas McArthur, the ugliness resulting from Prohibition, the Oklahoma City bombing, and, of course, Hillary vs Monica.
Those who sacrifice security to condemn liberty deserve to repeat history or something. - Benjamin Santayana
"Illegal" bombing of Libya? "Illegal" blockade of Cuba? Dude... WTF are you smoking? Next thing, you are going to say the illegal occupation of Germany in the late 1940s.
Also, Wounded Knee was the 19th century, not the 20th.
I guess you never played Fortress America. Dumbass Canuck. Go Bertuzzi yourself.
What the NKs seem to miss is that the US is going more and more toward electronic warfare only. We're also raising an entire generation on halo and half-life and UT and ghost recon. Meanwhile, in NK, they are raising them on crap. Who's gonna own who in 2010?
Not to try to get into a political discussion/argument about Vietnam, but the reason we [as a country and a military] got our butts handed to us, is because we didn't use the full force of our military, for fear that China or Russia would ally with North Vietnam and bring nukes into the equation.
Despite the fact that the US military was hampered the US military was not handed it's butt. The Vietnam War was lost politically not militarily. Look at the Tet Offensive for example. North Vietnam committed the Viet Cong to conventional warfare in an attempt to spark a popular uprising. The Viet Cong was annihilated. The civilian population rejected the call for uprising. Hue failed. Khe San failed. In the Paris Peace Accord (1973) North Vietnam agreed to South Vietnam's right to existed and agreed not to send troops into the South's territory. The US went home. When the North violated the treaty and invaded the South (1975) the US failed to intervene and assist South Vietnam's military due to political reasons. President Ford was in a weak position due to his pardon of Nixon and elections were coming. There was little sympathy in Congress. We abandoned our ally. Ironically the North's 1975 invasion was quite conventional in nature and highly vulnerable to US aerial attacks. We could have provided enough air support to the South so that the South's military could have repulsed this particular attack. What would happen in later years is anyone's guess.
Ultimately the War failed but that was due to politics. North Vietnam's victories against the US were on the TV set, not the field of battle.
... Ubisoft is a French company.
I do recall a recent game that involved some bad stuff happening in the US, and you taking control of a band of freedom fighters.
And you'll never guess what it's called... (BTW, it was on GC, Xbox, and PC too).
what the rest of the world seems to forget is that we have freedom for media, and government policy doesn't dictate what tv shows/books/movies/games can be about. if north korea is mistaking a freaking video game for an actual threat, then they should be afraid of game developers, not our government or armed forces.
But that's nothing new. One of the reasons that sf&f literature is so dynamic is that you're able to restated real-world problems in a way that don't make people immediately reject them.
He decided to just watch the government, and kind of scale it down to size, and run his life that way. --Laurie Anderson
Attacking North Korea would have some pretty catastrophic results. They've got one of the largest standing armies on the face of the planet, and a good deal of long range missles. Last I heard, they were believed to posses the capability to lob a warhead into California. (!!!) And that's not to mention the fact that N. Korean would probably burn its effort attacking our allies in Asia, rather than the continental US.
The resulting shitstorm would basically obliterate South Korea and Japan. Regardless of of your opinion on Iraq, war with North Korea would be a Very Bad Thing. Not to be taken unless we have absolutely no other choice.
Yay for burning karma.
--LordPixie
I thought UBI was a canadian company...
This malignant slander and hate speech against green tentacles has gone way, way WAY too far! It's time that we, as a community, draw a line in the sand and say; "This far, but not further! Don't slander the green tentacles!"
What's next, hate rallies against Monkeys?!
Hell, we've been killing Nazis for ages (Wolfenstein, etc) LONG before we were killing over races in video games, and you don't hear the Germans complain.
Jesus Saves! And takes half damage (shouldn't the Son of God have improved evasion?)
In Fallout 2 the ultimate enemy was the US Government, who institued an airborne virus to kill anyone with any kind of mutation off of the platform.
"Do you suppose that's why God lives in the Heavens? Because he lives in fear of His creations?" - Steve Buscemi
If your point is "these games are bad, have some sympathy for the North Koreans" then I think your point has backfired.
Some would suggest it was yet another indication of how estranged Canadians have become lately, to be sure. But not a single person would suggest that it doomed Canadians to horrible deaths in an upcoming war. As an interesting side note, I would mention that while the USA has strong laws preventing censorship of unpopular ideas, I do believe that there is a law about killing a sitting US president: something like you can't advocate it. So I can write this as an intellectual discussion with no worries, and I can criticise the government and the President with no worries. But if I suggest that killing the President is a good idea, I believe the Feds will come knocking. Which means that your game might have to avoid depicting a real President and offering him as a real target in a game. But to be honest, I'm not sure. The last time I heard about that law was 15 years ago.
I'm not sure about an "outcry" but the game would probably be panned. Personally, a game that allowed me to try out terrorist tactics sounds interesting. I imagine that the US government would not censor it, but if it were done well enough, might strike a contract with the developer to use the game for training/simulations with soldiers. They've done it before.
My Greasemonkey scripts for Digg &
Ubisoft is a french company, right?
Fighting ignorance with ignorance.
you forgot starving, corrupt, and unpaid
Command and Conquer: Generals
This topic is interesting. But to take it further.
How would the American government and media react if a game like Full Spectrum Warrior was created by a Middle East developer in a Middle Eastern country (doesn't matter which one.) Full Spectrum Warrior is a squad based game (by the looks, I have't played it, only seen the TV ads) where the player controls a force against a Middle Eastern enemy. Let's say the game reversed the roles so that the player took on the role of a military/militia team or a terrorist cell and the missions involved removing 'The American Threat' from Iraq?
What if those missions involved suicide bombings? Or capturing and executing US civilian workers. Do you think we'd see senators and reporters getting all up in arms?
I reckon we'd see a hell of a fuss.
Hollywood: The place good stories go to die.
If your point is "these games are bad, have some sympathy for the North Koreans" then I think your point has backfired. No, actually my point was that we shouldn't bash North Korea for doing something that I have a sneaking suspicion that the US would do just as easily.
Congratulations, North Korea. You've finally worked out that America is a warmongering nation with an extensive corporate propaganda system operating through movies, news media and even video games.
This is not news. Many of us noticed this years ago. And picking a French-made video game as an example just makes the whole thing seem ludicrous to the US citizens who could stop the whole process if they really wanted to.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
And guess what, Anonymous Coward has been around Slashdot a lot longer than you have 775856. For fuck's sake, did you just get an account yesterday? Tell you what - never come to Slashdot ever again and stop fucking dudes. Then, we'll call it even and I will forget this stupid comment that you've posted.
i just blew all my points, but this is the best slashdot comment of the day
"If you think you have things under control, you're not going fast enough." --Mario Andretti
you forgot starving, corrupt, and unpaid
In defence of your own country, pay has little to do with it. A effective fighting force is unrelated to how much it's paid or how much it eats. It has more about how well their trained and how motivated they are. The Viet Kong were completely unpaid, starving, and eventually corrupt but they defeated the Americans, forced a retreat and shamed them. Terrain has more to do with it then anythign else. Cities/Jungles/moutains are all very very difficult to assault. They provide cover and allow small groups to cripple larger ones and air supuriority doesn't affect the ground war significantly.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
I don't think much would happen, but don't expect it to sell well or anything. It'd probably be too obscure to get any groups protesting it. I mean, how could you guys react to some game where you had to fight against (or play as) some Quebecois terrorist group?
You asked a loaded question anyway. The United States, no matter what you read in your local papers, is not close to becoming some kind of tyranny. Our various freedoms are still on par with, or better than, the rest of the Western world.
And look at our current policital climate. Heated, loud, and raucus, right? Keeps the populace awake. If I were you, I'd be more worried about dozing my way into tyranny.
[PowerPoint] is a tool for capitalist presentation
Does that count as a suicide bombing?
You're exactly right. I'm stunned that someone would make environmental comparisons between Vietnam and Korea. Good God, you'd think that someone interested in making the kind of statement grandparent did would at least GLANCE at a damn map...Even a winter episode of M*A*S*H would get the point across.
So when exactly did the Vietnamese 'defeat the Americans,' forcing them to retreat and shame them? In the Vietnam I know of, the Americans failed not because of superior enemy forces, but because the war was being fought by politicians instead of generals, and the troops had minimal support at home. Consider what happened at the Tet Offensive : the United States forces utterly destroyed the NVA, with about 35 NVA deaths for every one American killed. That's hardly a shameful defeat - but the media kept saying how bad things were going and it was the lack of public support that caused the Americans to eventually withdraw - not the NVA. No army can win a war if that war is fought according to the dictates of politicsal expediency instead of military necessity.
My blog
characteristic of an absolute ruler or absolute rule; having absolute sovereignty; "an authoritarian regime"; "autocratic government"; "despotic rulers"; "a dictatorial rule that lasted for the duration of the war"; "a tyrannical government" www.cogsci.princeton.edu/cgi-bin/webwn just thought you should know what a word means before you make cheap political jabs with it
On a side note, most gamers will be angered by it too.
In a classic case of dumbing down for consoles, they're replacing the incredibly innovative gameplay features of the original with a more SOCOM style feel for the sequel.
The original was brilliant in its use of the whole unit. You could toggle between troops, setting up truly complex strategies. No longer did you have to deal with AI companions who'd never display human level intelligence - you could simply swap to them, position them, use them for their unique abilities, then swap back to someone else.
My epiphany moment in the game came a few missions in when I carefully set a sniper up on one side of a small depression, overlooking an enemy emplacement, two other guys were on the opposite side supplying crossing fire, the others had a machine gun and an anti tank weapon ready. A quick swap to the anti tank weapon had him stand, fire, quickly swap out and lie back down. Getting the enemies' attention, they all opened up on me, only to be cut down by the well placed covering fire that was waiting to be fired upon before returning fire. Now tell me how to do that in any AI based game where it's not just a forced part of the script.
It's that genius that they're removing from Ghost Recon II to make it more console friendly. Once again, a great game dies in order to get more console sales.
I'm a Canadian. I'm just curious what your reaction would be if someone in Canada made a game that depicted a revolution against a tyranical US President (just for argument's sake let's say George W), and put you in the role of a terrorist/revolutionary?
I'd laugh, if it was good i'd play it.
Or how about a game that let you play as Osama Bin Laden. How do you suppose Americans would like the game? Would there be a public outcry? Would the government try to censor it?
Well i wouldn't play that. Maybe i would 30 years down the line after al-queda and osma are ashes of corpses. But I doubt the government would censor it, i bet what would happen is that retailers would refuse to sell it because of fear of backlash. Some government officials, however, might decry it. IMO that is exactly how it should happen.
Anyone else find it ironic that a communist nation with state controlled media is accusing another country of using propaganda to control their people?
"Have some sympathy" and "shouldn't bash" == same concept, different words IMHO.
In any case, let's go with your correction. I'm suggesting that the 8 or 9 replies to your comment all refuted the idea that the US would do the same thing. The US has more laws requiring free speech, and cannot as "easily" shut something down. That's not to say it couldn't happen, but it is to say that terrorism laws would have to be twisted and used in a overreaching manner to censor such a thing. And even though that is possible, I don't think it's plausible. We've had many US-critical media items that went unchallenged or were even celebrated/used by the military or the public. In the US, outlawing something makes it stronger. We learned at least a little from prohibition.
But I'm not even sure we need to talk about how the US would stop such a game, because your original question merely asked how the US would react to its existence, not how it would react if it was sold in the USA. And so I stick by my original comment that some people would view such a game made by Canadians as yet another indiciation of their estrangement from us, but others wouldn't care or would ignore it. In fact, if there is one criticism of the US that is real and applies here, it's that we collectively ignore everyone else. There are people who care. We are a huge melting pot of ideas & cultures. But as a whole, we're only paying attention to what's here. So if Canada makes a game, it's all of a 5-second sound byte on the evening news that 1% of the country will watch, and then it's gone. The President certainly wouldn't frame it in the context of a real-world war.
To expand on that, I mean to say that it would be very, VERY HARD for the leader of the USA to threaten that such a game will become real and result in horrific deaths for the North Koreans. A US President cannot make outrageous threats like that without having the entire planet brace for war. But NK's leaders can, because no one on the planet believes them. I do believe they could get dirty bombs into the US and hurt us, but I also believe they would end up bombed worse than Japan in retaliation. The idea that NK would emerge victorious is remote. They wouldn't "emerge" at all. And so no, our leaders cannot "easily" react the same way their leaders have.
(As a slight concession to you, I would submit that if we were to elect someone even worse than Bush, someone who was even more of a poorly-spoken war-mongerer, then yeah, maybe the US could react the same. This would be disastrous, and millions of people would die due to an abuse of power beyond anything we've ever seen. But that's fiction, and even in the real world, Bush barely won. In fact some will say the only way he got the presidency was to bypass the voters and sue for it. I intend to vote against him again. So hopefully our democracy is more self-correcting than North Korea, too.)
My Greasemonkey scripts for Digg &
Three Kings is a celebrated movie about Iraq that initially focuses on some US soldiers, but switches into a story about "removing the American threat from Iraq." It wasn't as extreme as your "what if" scenario, and didn't glorify the massacre of US soldiers, but it did portray the people killing US soldiers as sympathetic underdogs. It won a number of awards and made a lot of money in the US. That's a real example of something critical of the US not only surviving, but flourishing here. Of course, I suspect the more hard-core-anti-US things get, the less well they will do in the US. And I suspect that any game that involves executing US civilians will get criticised by Senators & Representatives. Hell, they already criticize games like GTA, which "merely" involve US citizens killing other US citizens. But I don't think any US President would react to any game by saying that the Iraq citizens would suffer terrible real-world retribution that leaves them all dead.
And Ghost Recon doesn't involve US agents kidnapping and executing innocent citizens. It's only military combatants versus military combatants. So your "what if" is a little too extreme to apply here. At least, I personally can't apply it to the current situation without thinking "apple and oranges" in my head.
(Hmm. And since I made a concession in my other post, let me make a concession here too. I personally do not ever play these games. I find any real-world scenario to be in poor taste, whether it favors the US or not. I do like shooters, but I play Unreal & Tribes. My closest encounter with a "real world" scenario is RTCW, which is fairly removed from reality. Still, playing a terrorist sounds like an interesting game. But probably not a profitable one.)
My Greasemonkey scripts for Digg &
Regan deliberately placed US warships off the coast of Libya (imagine how the US government would have reacted if the Libyan navy had placed warships off the coast of the USA), and when the Libyan air force flew some planes too close to the ships, he used that as an excuse to bomb Libya.
It was revenge for the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Scotland, which the Libyan government supposedly aided and/or abetted.Yes.
The US government took it upon itself to prevent ships from moving between two sovereign nations.
Imagine how the US government would have reacted if the Soviet Union had blockaded Germany or the UK (or Turkey!) to prevent the US from installing its nuclear missiles there.Germany declared war on the US.
It lost.
I don't remember the exact terms of surrender, but it probably included the right of the Allies to occupy the country for a time.I was referring to the incident that occurred in the late 1960s or early 1970s.
That is why I called it an "incident", and not a "massacre", which is what happened in 1890.
Also, I don't understand why my post was moderated as "flamebait".
The GP wanted to know about 20th century wars that were not made into games.
I listed some wars, plus some other conflicts.
What's so flamebaity about that?
Those who sacrifice security to condemn liberty deserve to repeat history or something. - Benjamin Santayana
Most of these invasions were not declared acts of war. We went to those countries for a purpose and left. If we wanted to declare war we could have just took over those countries and set up our own global drug trade. And just so I'm clear on this... these invasions were illegal how???
What's so flamebaity about that?
Did you dare to suggest anything that might call America into question as a Shining Beacon of Light for The Free World?
Perhaps you suggested something that America did was in any way done for underhanded less-than-ideal purposes that differed from the propaganda put forth by the ruling American government?
You've got to learn -any criticism of America will most likely earn you flamebait points. Especially if the story comes and goes before the right-wing lobby's bedtime.
But I empathise with you - just remember to stay out of discussions like these in the future - you won't convince anyone of anything, it's pointless, and it costs karma...
Okay.
Why would McDonald's cut down a rainforest?
Even if they did, why am I responsible?
What does my vote have to do with the actions of any private party? In the best-case scenario, as little as possible.
I don't know what you're on about really. You seem to think that we have a direct democracy where we vote on what other people are allowed to do. I can't imagine a more horrible way to run a country.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
Thanks for the spoiler.
Asspipe. : )
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
Why not? I'd bash on that kind of idiocy coming out of anywhere.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
I mean, how could you guys react to some game where you had to fight against (or play as) some Quebecois terrorist group?
Its already happened.
"I don't want to overdramatize this, but it's hard not to feel targeted when there's a game where you shoot at Quebeckers," said Jean Dorion, head of the Société Saint-Jean-Baptiste de Montréal.
Personally, I could care less, but if someone made about killing people that could be identified with me, I'd be disturbed to. However, we cant let anything stand in the way of free speech, even things that may upset or disturb some people. Throw away the leaflet, dont buy the game, close the book, whatever, its your choice.
Make jokes about death people, 11-S and 11-M, its a very bad idea. Please refrain to do so.
-Woof woof woof!
Unless sanctioned by the U.N., invading another country without declaring war on it first (or without an invitation from said country, or unless said country attacks us first) is illegal, i.e., contrary to international law.
Those who sacrifice security to condemn liberty deserve to repeat history or something. - Benjamin Santayana
Not like Ubisoft is some huge American company last I heard home base was in Europe somewhere. Boy North Korean Intelligence is good.
Sigh... I wish I still had the time and the bandwidth for 1st person shooters. :-( Anyway, what does IDDQD mean? A google search just brought up nonsense.
It is impossible to enjoy idling thoroughly unless one has plenty of work to do.
- Jerome Klapka Jerome
Yes, that would be me, but I mean come on, anyone who hasn't beaten it by now has no intentions of it, so its totally win-win! And if you haven't beaten it yet, then I am truly sorry, but you fail it. :) KTHNXPLZDRVTHRU!
"Do you suppose that's why God lives in the Heavens? Because he lives in fear of His creations?" - Steve Buscemi
Im down like a clown charlie brown.
Yes but the 2 examples listed in the post above mine were not illegal. The Libya ordeal was a result of a bombing and according to reports the ships were in international waters and they were threatned by planes. The Cuban missile crisis was definitely a hostile act by the Soviet Union. We have spy plane photos of the missile they were pointing at the United States. I'm sure the Soviet Union wouldn't have minded if we had parked the whole navy fleet right off their coast.
They eventually agreed to pay relatives of the victims so that the problem would go away, but they never admitted to having anything to do with the bombing itself.
The "evidence" pointing to Libyan government involvement was as flimsy as the recent "evidence" pointing to WMDs in Iraq.Then the most that they should have done was shot the planes down (after attempts to warn the planes off first), then lodged a protest at the UN.
Note that Libya and the US disagreed what constituted "international waters".
While the US claimed that they were in international waters, Libya claimed that the US fleet was in Libyan waters.
The US Coast Guard routinely boards vessels that are as far off the US coast as the US fleet was off the Libyan coast.
The only reason that the US fleet was there was to deliberately provoke Libya; there was no other tactical or strategic reason for the fleet to be where it was.The actions by the Soviet Union were a response to the placing of nuclear missles in Turkey by the US.
The crisis was resolved when Kennedy agreed to remove the missles from Turkey if the USSR would remove its missles from Cuba, and that is what, in fact, happened.
(I am not being an apologist for the USSR, here.
I think that authoritarian communism sucks, and I am glad that the Soviet Union is no more.
However, the Cold War was not all black-and-white.
There was good and bad on both sides.)
Those who sacrifice security to condemn liberty deserve to repeat history or something. - Benjamin Santayana