In the video game’s latest sequel, Black Ops Cold War, players are tasked with committing “highly illegal” atrocities.

I just started playing COD Black Ops Cold War because I got it through my PlayStation Plus subscription and wanted to try it out. I’ve previously played some others like Modern Warfare (1 and 2) and WWII. While it always felt a bit over the top and propaganda-ish, I really liked it for the blockbuster feeling and just turning your mind off and enjoying the set pieces. However, Cold War has a section in Vietnam and I suddenly started feeling really uncomfortable and just turned the game off.

In WWII you can easily feel like the “defender”, and even Modern Warfare felt like fighting a very specific organisation that wanted to kill millions. Here however it just becomes so hard to explain why I’m happily mowing down hundreds of clearly Vietnamese locals that I was unable to turn my mind off and just enjoy the spectacle.

I turned to the internet and started browsing and found this article and I really agree with what the author is saying.

I don’t know if I will be continuing the campaign or not, but I just feel that I don’t want to support these kinds of minimizations of military interventions.

I just wish there were more high budget / setpiece games that don’t glorify real life wars. Spec Ops The Line was amazing in that sense, but it’s also quite old already.

I would love to hear your opinions on this subject.

  • EvaUnit02@kbin.social
    1·
    1 year ago

    You argue that Hellblade needs to be interpreted in context. I argue that Hellblade felt like opening a book only to find it full of thumbtacks and being asked to appreciate the context as to why it contains nothing but thumbtacks. If my definition of a “good book” requires a narrative told through words, I’m clearly not going to consider Thumbtacks: A Story of Bleeding Fingers a good book (Note: I am being a bit disingenuous here as Hellblade is very clearly a game but I hope my point gets across none-the-less)

    Is the issue one of my expectations not being met? Sure. Is my definition of gaming too narrow? Perhaps so. But really, I think we likely agree about the definition of games in broad strokes and are in disagreement simply in the case of Hellblade. I suspect the biggest hurdle between us is not so much in our definitions of what a game is but rather in our definitions of what art is. If that’s the case, then I politely defer to you. I’m not much interested in debating what art is nor its value. You seem like a better spokesperson than I on that front.

    I define a “good game” as one with a set of rules where the players have to make interesting decisions. I feel Hellblade focused more on its message than in meeting that definition. You seem to have gotten more mileage out of the game. Fair enough.