Modern Warfare 2 Airport Map: Get Ready For The Media Blitz

[wootini]

In case you're like many around here and are essentially boycotting MWF2 due to the extremely lame PC support (if you can even call it that), you might not know about the Airport level of the game. In this map, you play as some sort of undercover agent who's infiltrating the enemy ranks by going on a terrorist mission. Essentially your cell enters an airport and proceeds to kill innocent civilians by the truckload. Have a look at this video, then read on (the action starts at about 1:30 for the lazy):

YouTube - CoD - Modern Warfare 2 No Russian (Airport Mission)

So as you can see here, there's people begging for their lives that get snuffed out by the Russian terrorists, of which you are one if you so chose to play that way, by point blank pistol and rifle shots to the head. Sounds fun, eh? Well, in reality this is bound to draw the ire of more than a few lawmakers and anti-video game pundits who would just love to use this as evidence for their various agendas aimed at more censorship of video games.

Fox News has already began to push their rhetoric this way as you can see in this post from gamepro:

"A popular new videogame actually allows you to be a terrorist and kill people,? says host Steve Doocy as he points at the camera. "Is this fantasy game just a little too real and is it appropriate?" The ensuing debate between Common Sense Media's CEO Jim Steyer and John Christensen from SlashGamer.com did little to shed much light on the subject save for acknowledge that Modern Warfare 2, and other games like it, are violent. You can watch the full video of the segment below.

"Is it ever appropriate to simulate killing people?" Doocy asked, to which Steyer replied "there's no question that there's a correlation between videogame violence and screen violence and aggression," before citing an American Academy of Pediatrics study that he said made a statement to that effect. He was actually referring to a conclusion made in the November issue of Pediatrics that said "the evidence is now clear and convincing: media violence is one of the casual factors of real-life violence and aggression." If you want to read the full report, you can find it here.

Given the huge success of this game in the last three days, it is clearly going to be talking points fodder on just about every radio and television news outlet, along with any website worth their weight in salt. It is my bet that this is not going to end well for pro-gamer advocates due to the extreme violence portrayed in this section of the game. Even though you can bypass this scene all together, it is sure to become a mainstay for those that would seek to use this game as proof we need more censorship in video games today. And, most sadly, the recent high-profile violent shootings in the news aren't going to make this go away any quicker even though there is no proof of any video game relationship in those cases.

Here's more on the Fox News angle:

YouTube - Modern Warfare 2 On Fox & Friends

[CoffeeShark]

until they go all Fahrenheit 451 on our TV and movies, they shouldn't bother with a single video game.

There must be 18000 murders on TV every night, and Arnie or Rambo can go through a few hundred guys in a single movie. Shows like CSI regularly recreate current events, and I wouldn't be surprised if there were more than a few terrorist recreations.

Now, I played the airport scene on the 360, and it is kind of disturbing, but then again, it is a WAR GAME.

There are a lot of books that are disturbing too. Should we censor those?

[Tulkas]

Kill everyone... yaaaayyyy

[henry]

i enjoyed shooting all those people even the ones begging for their lives

[jdeegz]

dudes got bad aim.

[FuzzyLogik]

like this is the first game that allows you to kill innocents either purposefully or accidentally? Were these people born yesterday?

Just the new game that everybody's raving about, might as well nip-pick "killing people" in a war game.

[FuzzyLogik]

now that i actually watched the video. it's all moot anyways. it gives a warning and you can skip if it you want. *shrugs*

[CoffeeShark]

they did this shit when Leisure Suit Larry was still pixellated. they'll move on to something else soon enough.

[henry]

in my honest opinion i tink the game went to far, since some idiots are gonna take the game too seriously and be idiots, i know its a GAME and wont give a dam what i kill, heck ive killed far worse stuff in video games,

[Teck]

YouTube - Modern Warfare 2 On Fox & Friends

I never realized people were so stupid....