An interesting article. And topic for discussion.

The "violence of Vg's has always been under scrutiny. Is this too far though, to go from pretend violence to hitting something so close to home?

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British Defence Secretary Liam Fox on Sunday sought a ban on a 'tasteless' computer game which allows players to kill allied troops as a Taliban insurgent. The latest version of the Medal of Honor game, published by Electronic Arts, allows gamers to opt to play the role of insurgents in a
multi-player mode and receive points for killing allied soldiers.

Fox called for the game to be banned and said the idea of recreating Taliban attacks on allied soldiers was disgusting.

It has already enraged many in the US who believe it is insensitive to soldiers involved in the real conflict and those who have lost loved ones in Taliban attacks.

Fox told The Sunday Times: "It's shocking that someone would think it acceptable to recreate the acts of the Taliban.

The rest of the article

To be honest, this is no different than the ability to play as Nazis. However, I have not yet heard of any issue regarding that. Look, the war on terror is definitely a sketchy issue for some. I understand that some people may find the ability to play as the Taliban distasteful, but I commend EA for doing this. They are making the game a bit more "realistic", and are not afraid to do something that may be frowned upon by many. Those who are looking to ban this are infringing on freedoms that our soldiers are trying to protect. THAT is what I find distasteful.

How is this any different from OpFor in COD4 and MW2?

Or the Nazi's in W@W?

If it is a straight up deathmatch where I'm just shooting the guys in different uniforms, I'm fine with it.

If it's ambushes and roadside bombs, then I would probably steer clear of it.

And if that is the case, couldn't it be optional like the airport massacre in MW2?

If I remember correctly, in the Medal of Honor beta one of the mission levels involved the Taliban defending a set amount of points. You could indeed set up roadside bombs (similar to C4 and mines in other games) as well as coordinate ambushes. It didn't feel like a big issue though.

Not too sure how I feel about that, I guess the big taboo about it is the fact that the Middle Eastern conflict is ongoing.

I know if I had lost friends or comrades to IED's and ambushes, I certainly wouldn't wanna come home to my kids orchestrating and executing similar attacks in VR.

I guess I'm on the fence on this one, on the one hand, it is a war game, it is going to show the underhanded side of combat and it is not going to pull any punches, as you say yourself Ratchet, it is hypocritical to send a man out into the desert to risk his life giving freedom to nations he does not belong to, when those very freedoms are being denied and abused at home.

On the other hand, as I've previously said, I don't wanna be bombing or ambushing troops that fight to defend me in real life. If such content is in the game, again I say make it optional, along the lines of "One or more of the missions in this game may disturb or offend some players, would you like to bypass such missions?"

I see where you are coming from on this Insom. I have an uncle who flew Blackhawk Helicopters in Iraq a couple of years back, and he lost some of his good friends when their chopper was shot down. I do agree that due to the current Middle Eastern campaign the game will definitely get criticism. However, if EA can do this tastefully (unlike the MW2 mission, which was just in there to gather controversy) then Id say go for it. I'll have to see how the final game works out, though.

Don't see why you stopped.

A current ongoing conflict is always touchy but again how can they not say we've been doing the same on MW1 & 2. There has always been a feeling of the conflict thats been going on in the current games in the last few years. Only thing that has changed is the name of the enemy to an actual name.

I dunno anything about Liam Fox so I can't comment on his actions, however I myself am a bit iffy on this. I would like to see what veterans have to say on it.