So, let's run down the list of some military shooters and observe some themes. Call of Duty--all iterations are basically varying degrees of "America, fuck yea

So, let's run down the list of some military shooters and observe some themes. Call of Duty--all iterations are basically varying degrees of "America, fuck yeah!". What's troubling (as the article posits) is that the series has basically focused on trying to portray America as an underdog despite the facts of today basically showing that in any knock-down-drag-out fight, we're basically on par with the Empire in Star Wars. We have all the toys and all the troops. Battlefield 1942/Vietnam/2--Not gory, fun gameplay, not serious, not America Fuck Yeah. All sides are represented more or less fairly, and it's more on the "game" side of "military games" than the "military" side. The games are about a level I'd feel comfortable letting a young teen play. Rainbow Six/Ghost Recon (original series)--Fairly brilliant and unforgiving tactical shooters under the Tom Clancy/Red Storm banner. Troops died and stayed dead, one-shot kills were the norm, and honestly anything other than like an hour of pre-mission planning would result in casualties on your team if not a complete failure. Hard. Operation Flashpoint/Armed Assault (Arma)--A brilliant series of military simulators, a slight rebranding of which (VBS2) is used to train actual soldiers. The games do a brilliant job of depicting realistic engagement distances, weapons fire, combined arms, the overwhelming superiority of American air power, and how much you will never ever ever want to be an infantryman. Seriously, my biggest impression playing the game was "Man, I hope to hell I never have to wield a rifle for my country, because that life is short." It's not particularly gory, but the impression of just how fragile people are in modern engagements is hard to shake. It's pretty solid. Spec Ops: The Line--A game which starts as a generic third-person America Fuck Yeah shooter, and then gets darker. And darker. And darker. It's interesting mostly for its story and gore in points; the actual combat is kind of meh. It kind of ridicules the entire AFY and military-shooter mindset, and explicitly mocks the player for participating. It's pretty intense, and I wouldn't suggest it for younger folks. Soldier of Fortune 2--This is what Call of Duty would've been if it was less patriotic, more mercenary, and much much gorier. Every shooter decides to optimize for something, and these folks decided "Hey, fuck it, what is the most accurate damage model we can use for people?". You can sever fingers, joints, render faces a pile of mush...it's quite unsettling, and is very much not a kid's game. ~ The biggest problem I have with the CoD series is that you basically are playing lazily-written and farcical missions, and that the combat is neutered set-pieces. Enemies respawn infinitely in most areas, and gameplay is very linear (levels do not lend themselves to meaningful exploration). The first modern warfare game was at least somewhat restrained in its AFY, but the later entries in the series are way too much "What's the next setpiece going to be? What's the next cool America Fuck Yeah moment?" If a game is going to portray war, it should decide whether it wants to be focus on the fun or on the tactics. Battlefield is a good example of the former, and Arma/Ghost Recon an example of the latter--Soldier of Fortune was fun and messy but not focused on showing war, Spec Ops was commentary over gameplay, and CoD is AFY and young male empowerment fantasies; that is to say, the last few are action movies and not war movies. ~ One of the interesting messages of CoD (and a message implicit and much better argued by example in Arma) is that you cannot challenge America and win. Nope. Can't be done--look at the overwhelming force. It's somewhat interesting to see this indoctrination going on at this point in our national history, especially when the .gov and .mil in the past decades have done so much to show their authortarian and anti-individual tendencies.