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Medal of Honor: Why we need to play as the Taliban
By Laurie-Anne Vazquez On 29 Aug, 2010 At 03:23 AM | Categorized As Features, FPS, Slider | With 2 Comments

moh Medal of Honor: Why we need to play as the Taliban

When I read that UK Defense Secretary Liam Fox was disgusted by Medal of Honor – particularly the appearance of the Taliban in it – I sighed. It’s exactly the kind of opinion that prevents video games from getting due respect. In this case, it’s also completely unfounded.

In a genre designed to let gamers experience some of history’s most important events firsthand – D-Day, the Battle of Stalingrad, the US Invasion of Iraq – it’s no wonder the new MoH turns to the Afghan War for inspiration. The Taliban happen to be a key element of that war, and – because MoH is a series whose multiplayer mode includes both sides of a conflict – a very playable one.

The game does not seek to glorify the Taliban, or encourage sympathy for them: it offers them as an option, not part of the overall story. Granted, that option requires performing real Taliban activities like murdering American troops and civilians, but that’s what the Taliban does. Watering them down in a game based on a conflict they are participating in diminishes their impact upon our current history.

Gamers need to to play the Taliban missions in a way that properly reflects the organization, and also gain a comprehensive understanding of the group. If done well, that Taliban option can give gamers a whole new sense of respect for the men and women fighting them in real life. That would be an enormous accomplishment for anything. In any media.

As with most gaming naysayers, Secretary Fox is disgusted more by the idea of what the game represents than by the game itself. On the British site TalkTalk, he stated:

“At the hands of the Taliban, children have lost fathers and wives have lost husbands. I am disgusted and angry. It’s hard to believe any citizen of our country would wish to buy such a thoroughly un-British game.”

I’m not quite sure what Britishness has to do with the Taliban, but his disgust here is aimed squarely at the terrorists. He may not know that they’re only in multiplayer mode. It might not matter to him; all that he sees is a video game that invites people to play as terrorists. As if that would inspire real-life terrorism.

Naturally, EA has bollixed the whole situation by refusing to own up to it.

“The format of the new Medal of Honor game merely reflects the fact that every conflict has two sides… in Medal of Honor multiplayer, someone’s got to be the Taliban.”

That’s a corporate non-answer if ever I’ve heard one, and incredibly irresponsible given the subject involved.

As our Features Editor, Thomas Rivas penned two weeks ago in Why Video Games Deserve More Respect, video games “change the way we, and future generations, experience life.” Part of that experience is interacting with our world in a way that makes it mean something to us, even if that interaction causes us to temporarily become terrorists. That’s how we learn. That’s why we need video games.

I applaud Medal of Honor for bringing relevance – and real cultural currency – to its genre. I just wish EA would support it.

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About - News and Culture Editor Laurie Vazquez really misses when all games were flat. Sure, she’s worked in television and veered off into film and television writing, but when she’s not whacking out scripts for contests (or, more likely, when she should be whacking them out) she fires up her beloved flat games. Take away her Nintendo, and she is a sad, sad girl. Just don’t take away her Futurama or her viola: that makes her mad.

  • http://www.otakubutgangsta.com Ernie

    Well said, and so true. Some people’s blind and unfounded hatred of video games is just silly.. Why does it seem like it’s always people in political office with beefs? Hopefully it all changes in the next decade or so when people of a younger generation get into offices.

  • http://www.2d-x.com Jeffrey L. Wilson

    Politician need a reason for their existence so they stir the plot.

  • http://blackxino.blogspot.com xino

    i seriously can’t wait to play as the Taliban man:)

  • Faisal

    I never understands why are Americans so pissed at this ,,, First its just a Game and Second ,do u guys really think that Taliban would enjoy a game like this ,, well anyway IDC who i play with or who i kill because I am neither of those ,, so you gotta understand that not only u guys want to play this game and your country and soldier aren’t the only ones in the world

  • Justin Toress

    Um…. why don’t they get mad when movies feature bad guys but they get mad when a game does it???? This guys a fucking retard and plus what about all other war games????

  • yami

    Why don’t politicians complain ever on every other war game, where its America basically beating, and mostly all the time entirely slaughtering and defeating the enemy army? And this game as far as I know, really doesn’t have Britian involved on the online portion of the game, why do they care? People should be able to lean about war, and companies should be able to follow the constitution, and freely speak and express the real life nature of war, and EA i right, every war has 2 sides, but they could have had a better or a least extended defense. I see no offense, and nothing wrong with type of material in a game where it most likely just shows truth, and not every game can have America only, as such a hero, or super power. Also, this is only multiplayer most likely, I don’t know for sure really, and that wouldn’t mean anything. So what if those people lost husbands and fathers, how many of them lost 10x more husbands and fathers in WWII when fighting? In the end, there is no avoiding the truth, and the past is the past, sure you wouldn’t want to offend anyone, i don’t want to, EA doesn’t want to, but its a game, which shows how i is to be in war, and if you don’t like it, you don’t have to buy it, and stating your opinion is fine, but why go and try to convince people not to buy something, by twisting the truth and adding so much more info which basically has nothing to do with the game? And why doesn’t the news get like some gamers or game journalists to state their reasoning in wanting a game with such content, and trying to defend the game? Why not get Kotaku, or even 2d-x to go defend the game, even have a whole debate, to give the ignorant sounding politicians, with such a narrow minded view and opinion on these types of topics a new perspective on life and video games, how they are made, and purpose of these type of in game events.

  • Brylon

    I won’t be buying the game not because of the Tailban but because the game is garbage, the beta was a Call of Duty wannabe.

  • Umkulu

    Laurie-Ann,
    You apparantly do not know what you are talking about. Before writing down such nonsense try to read a bit about the subject. Respect for the Taliban?????
    You mean the Taliban who recently killed a group of western oculists in Afghanistan (they were suspected of being christian missionaries, because they had a bible in their suitcase..). You mean the Taliban that hanged seven year old boys for “spionage” and stoned young couples to death who dated without the permission of their parents. And what about those girls whose only crime was they attended school to learn to read and write. Their punishment: (hydroclhloric) acid in their faces. You must be insane to think respect for the Taliban should be promoted.
    How about a little bit less gaming and a bit more research before writing a article ..

  • http://www.2d-x.com Jeffrey L. Wilson

    @umkulu: “If done well, that Taliban option can give gamers a whole new sense of respect for the men and women -fighting- them in real life.

  • Laurie

    @umluku: Your point is completely valid, and you and I are actually saying the same thing. My point with the article was not to articulate respect for the Taliban as an organization, but respect for the option to play as them in order to better understand that organization. Hope that comes across better now!