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Maroon and Gamer: Shock and Awe Minus the Awe


Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 has made record sales numbers in, not only the video game industry, but also in the entertainment industry as a whole. But just as Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 made headlines with its controversial “No Russian” mission in which you gun down an airport full of civilians, Modern Warfare 3 prepares the player to experience a terrorist attack, from the victim’s perspective. But does the scene serve a purpose given its context? Or is it merely in there to shock the player and nothing else?

The scene in question puts the player in the shoes of a father on a family vacation in London with his wife and daughter. Everything is going well and the parents exchange witty banter while the child skips down the street. A van pulls up at the intersection and the mother turns her back to the child to face you. And then without warning, the van explodes and releases a lethal gas that ends the family’s trip quite unexpectedly.

Journalists across the Internet have their say about the child-killing scenario. IGN.com UK’s Daniel Krupa gives his two-cents about the effects of the child-killing scene. “Though they (the developers) might like to present themselves as edgy or daring, these games are so costly, with so much riding upon them, they cannot afford to seriously flirt with controversy for fear of being banned. And consequently such games rarely threaten the fabric of society in an intellectually daring way. More frequently, they are shameless attempts to cash in on the oversensitivity of the mainstream media.”

A discussion from GamePro.com has let the staff vent about this particular subject. “As some of our commenters have pointed out, there is no one else about on that street save the family who get blown up, meaning the entire scene's sole purpose is to kill them and show that Terrorists Are Evil Because They Even Kill Little Girls. It's unnecessary, and purely in there for shock value.”

I have seen the scenario in question and I think it is severely misplaced. Before the sequence, the British Special Forces are wondering where said van was and then the family sequence starts. It seems like it’s only in there to give you just one more reason to hate terrorists. Then in a bizarre twist, the lethal gas across Europe is dropped almost as quickly as it was brought up and the American soldiers are rerouted from New York City to Hamburg, Germany to re-secure a political figure. I have to agree with Mr. Krupa that it seems like the scene was injected into the game at the last second to stir up controversy, raise awareness for the game and sell more copies.

Leave a comment below with your opinions on the child-killing scene.


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