Pushing The Limit

I found the article "Combat Game goes too far" for military to be very interesting, it goes into detail about Electronic Arts newest game Medal Of Honor and all the controversy that it has stirred up. Apparently the problem is that within the game you can portray and play as a member of the Taliban. This did not roll over well with soldiers of the U.S army because it hits to close to home, which is understandable. They cannot understand how this game can be seen as a form of entertainment when people die in real life situations in war due to the Taliban.

Personally i can understand where Sgt. Brian hampton is coming from with his remarks in regards to the game, but you cannot set the double standard within military games and say its ok to kill civilians and kill as many people as you want, but as soon as the game allows the person to kill from the bad guys side its a problem. I do not agree with this, as brought up earlier in the blog the airport scene from CODM2 can be seen as completely ridiculous and horrid if everyone was to look this far into military games. Also if you don't like a certain game than no one is forcing you to play it, it doesn't mean that someone else out there wouldn't enjoy the game.

I found the second article by Randy Nichols to be interesting a swell, the article talks about how the Army began using video games as a way to advertise, which all started on July 4 2002 with the game Americas Army. The game was able to give its audience a sense of what army life was like. I found this to be particularly interesting because i had never looked into the origins of Military gaming and how it started i never put that much thought into it, and being that i am very much into military games it was fun to read this article and learn more about how and why these types of games were created.

Question: Are military games pushing the limit to far?