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This is just the nature of the portrayal of war in media. Your complaint is just as accurate when leveled against film, music, or literature. John Wayne movies,

This is just the nature of the portrayal of war in media. Your complaint is just as accurate when leveled against film, music, or literature. John Wayne movies, The Three Musketeers, Shakespeare's Henry V, The Aeneid, Homer's Illiad, all these things glamorize warfare to some degree.

Mithaldu 13y ago
The problem with CoD and friends are that they glorify war consistently and with no regrets, not even shying away from portraying torture or humiliation of victims as something good.
- potatolicious 13y ago
  Worse yet, CoD wasn't always this way. The original WW2 based games went to great lengths for authenticity, and consulted many veterans in their development. The difference is that WW2 veterans nearly universally view the war with horror, not the hop-rah of many modern veterans. This tone was reflected in the early CoD games. Case in point: the anti-war quotations that flash on screen each time you die. This has been kept in recent installments also, except now it looks disturbingly out of place. One second the game is gleefully cheering your slaughter of nameless foreigners, the next minute they're quoting Oppenheimer. The CoD games have always had a heavy dose of American machismo, but the latest games are comical caricatures. MW1 had at least a solid Tom Clancy-esque tale of international intrigue, the latter games not even that.
  - mercurial 13y ago
    The WWII-era CoD definitely didn't feel jingoistic in the same way. Heavily scripted, sure, but it was much more a "war is hell" and "you're just a cog in a bigger machine" message than "let's save the free world from the terrorists". Also, it didn't involve your character torturing anybody. Then Modern Warfare had an OK story, and some strong moments (eg, the last mission with the US Marine), but it had already started to shift into dubious territory. And then I stopped playing CoD.
venomsnake 13y ago
That is ... not quite true. The Three Musketeers is mostly about friendship (there is little violence in the book except in one chapter and the bodycount for the whole book is low) and the Illiad is about the tragedy and inevitability of being a hero - and he does not glorify - he shows the war.

Mithaldu 13y ago

The problem with CoD and friends are that they glorify war consistently and with no regrets, not even shying away from portraying torture or humiliation of victims as something good.

potatolicious 13y ago
Worse yet, CoD wasn't always this way. The original WW2 based games went to great lengths for authenticity, and consulted many veterans in their development. The difference is that WW2 veterans nearly universally view the war with horror, not the hop-rah of many modern veterans. This tone was reflected in the early CoD games. Case in point: the anti-war quotations that flash on screen each time you die. This has been kept in recent installments also, except now it looks disturbingly out of place. One second the game is gleefully cheering your slaughter of nameless foreigners, the next minute they're quoting Oppenheimer. The CoD games have always had a heavy dose of American machismo, but the latest games are comical caricatures. MW1 had at least a solid Tom Clancy-esque tale of international intrigue, the latter games not even that.
- mercurial 13y ago
  The WWII-era CoD definitely didn't feel jingoistic in the same way. Heavily scripted, sure, but it was much more a "war is hell" and "you're just a cog in a bigger machine" message than "let's save the free world from the terrorists". Also, it didn't involve your character torturing anybody. Then Modern Warfare had an OK story, and some strong moments (eg, the last mission with the US Marine), but it had already started to shift into dubious territory. And then I stopped playing CoD.

venomsnake 13y ago

That is ... not quite true. The Three Musketeers is mostly about friendship (there is little violence in the book except in one chapter and the bodycount for the whole book is low) and the Illiad is about the tragedy and inevitability of being a hero - and he does not glorify - he shows the war.