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MW2 writer discusses airport level
Author: Joe MartinPublished: 20th November 2009
The airport scene in Modern Warfare 2 has been the subject of much debate since the game was released.
The level in question (warning, spoilers!) casts players as an undercover CIA agent who has infiltrated a group of Russian terrorists. The terrorists unleash a huge assault on a Russian airport and the player is given a chance to participate in the mass murder of unarmed civilians as the group rampage onwards.
"We've been catching a lot of criticism for that and a lot of praise as well," Stern told GamePro. "People have really strong reactions to the airport scene and it's been fascinating because we all wanted to make it something that would be upsetting, disturbing, but also something people relate to."
"There's something instantly identifiable about it when it happens, when you're in that situation and the level begins," he added before going on to discuss the real world parallels. Apparently there were points in Modern Warfare 2's development that the team questioned whether it was appropriate to make the content given that some elements of the game were being played out in reality, such as terrorist shootings.
"People want to know," Stern explained as a justification for the levels inclusion. "As terrifying as it is, you want to know. And there's a part of you that wants to know what it's like to be there because this is a human experience."
"These are human beings who perpetrate these acts, so you don't really want to turn a blind eye to it. You want to take it apart and figure out how that happened and what, if anything, can be done to prevent it. Ultimately, our intention was to put you as close as possible to atrocity."
During testing Stern comments that reactions to the level were as polarised as you'd expect, though he points out that every single tester who played the game opened fire on the crowd at some point, which he says is just human nature.
Let us know your thoughts in the forums and be sure to read our Modern Warfare 2 review for more information.
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And in the game.
Nope I didnt. I put a few injured stragglers out of their misery as a mercy kill but I just walked through the level trying my best not to put a bullet in the back of "my comrades" heads.
As an undercover agent you should of had the choice to save those people but yet they did not allow that!
They could of build a different path into the story where you shot the terrorists but yet the war still continued due to misinterpreted media info, and added a mission in to save the agent that saved all those people.
It is a good game but some shortcomings as I mentioned!
I even try to shot the bad guys and had to restart as well.
I was surprised to learn that none of my clan mates were disturbed by that level.
It's all I could do to restrain myself from shooting the bad dudes in the back, too! Tbh, I enjoyed taking the scenery out more, seeing what could be blown up.
Me too.
Anyway Joe, i thought you didn't want to mention anything to do with MW2 again? TBH I'm starting to get sick of it.
Of course you will always have the games where you are the superhero and everything goes fantastically, but really I think the more gritty approach really gives a unique appeal to call of duty modern warfare 2.
same here... i knew what was coming and knew i could opt out but i went ahead with the level anyway
when i replay the game i will just skip that level from now on
i don't find it distasteful though that this level was created and feel that it was done in a very clever way to make you feel uneasy with slow motions and only being able to walk slowly through the airport.
@Kenco uk - not sure if anyone would agree to code a game where you can shoot up a pram... that would be a lot further over the line than this already crept
Also like kenco_uk said why do games never let you kill children? Will it turn us all into pedophiles or something? Fallout3 really pissed me off with that, you could kill everyone you wanted but if you put a shotgun to that annoying kids face naff all happened, why?
Also to finish with, I agree with Da_Rude_Baboon, I found that to be more disturbing as well.
I was 'in character' as it were, so I sprayed like I imagined any self-respecting terrorist would.
ditto - that scene was bloody brutal, and, I must say, totally unexpected.
Acts of gratuitous violence against children is something that the certification authorities like the BBFC are very very opposed to. If a game included them it'd never get certified for release.
i know it was a game, but there was a little to close for me.
Fair point, tbh I'm surprised MW2 didn't get an 18 cert for said level with all the controversy. I don't particularly care, I'll shoot anything :-) half-life Scientists are still my favorite! "Please, What are you doing!" Brrrrap Brrap!
Imagine that you're that CIA guy. And that due to your undercover job you had to do that. In real life you wouldn't just need to be there. You would have to shoot that innocent people. You would have to involve your self in evil acts for the greater good. This mentality is also not that different from the terrorists themselves. They also consider they're doing evil acts for the greater good. It is really a divisive issue.
Likewise, I assumed that as I was a CIA agent, there would be frowned upon. I only started shooting when there was no choice it the matter - i.e. people shooting at me and my team mates not progressing any further of their own accord.
Ahem...anyhoo. Didn't see what all the fuss was about to be honest - it's just a game. The mission in question (imo) was added purely for publicity/hype. It's possibly the most talked about game in the media at the moment.
I didn't see them as helpless civilians though, all I saw were jaggy polygons covered in flat textures. Games don't yet look realistic enough to cause concern imo. I mean, the bad guys' feet actually passed through the bodies when they walked 'over' them. Like someone has already stated, it's no worse than killing innocent bystanders in GTAIV.
The bit where Roach & Ghost died stuck in my mind more. I mean come on, Roach was burnt alive - that's pretty horrific.
Unless of course it opens up a new type of gameplay/story. For example infamous.
But thinking about it from a realistic perspective rather than seizing the moral high ground: if you didn't open fire, the terrorists would know you were an undercover agent. The game isn't that realistic, so if you don't shoot anyone the other bad guys don't even bat an eyelid (yes, I tried it to see what would happen), but personally I would have preferred it if the level included something to that effect (like they turn around and shoot you or whatever). Of course it doesn't matter in the end anyway (since Makarov shoot you at the end of the level), but it would add to the immersion and the feeling that this is something you must do.
If you guys want to be all self-righteous when you're playing a video game then you probably should have skipped that level altogether.
What makes GTA rampages ok?
Stating that GTA was accepted, in spite of the evidence to the contrary is not a foundation for an argument.
That being said, i take my proverbial hat off to Infinity Ward for having the balls to go through with this. It's non trivial to have the courage to develop this idea, then to persuade the folks with the money to risk it all on a non politically correct scenario like this.
The over arching pressure from the money holders (who live in a cover-your-ar$e world) is to make everything as sterile as possible, and thus presumable a safer bet that the product will be consumed equally by as many groups as possible.
I hate the idea of making the world sterile.
Echoing you and Baz, that was very unexpected. As the next level was loading, I was still thinking, "s*iiit?!" It didn't make it any easier to digest with that last bit to get to the choppa being chuffing difficult! Took me a few goes!
Tbh, the amount of times you were 'killed', I thought the last scene would just fade to black.
'nuff sed.
That's not the case at all. Just look about how much everyone is talking about their game - bad publicity is still publicity and it makes people more aware of their products. Has this level actually stopped anyone buying this game? I very much doubt it, and if there is then they are in the very small minority. Gamers have seen all this before in games like GTA, so it makes no difference to them whatsoever. By and large the only people who find this morally reprehensible are those that don't play video games, and therefore don't understand them.
That just makes you sound like a Daily Mail columnist. Considering the relatively low saturation of video games (worldwide sales of MW2 are currently ~10% of the population of the UK), then how does this even come close to making the world "sterile" (assuming it makes 100% of people that play the game "sterile"). And even if it did, how would that benefit the makers of the game? That just leaves them with fewer avenues they can explore to appeal to their customers.
I didn't find the scene difficult to deal with, as I have no issue with separating game from reality, but I agree that there was no need to have that scene as a participant. perhaps more brutal and to the point would have you as one of the civilians trying to get out of the line of fire, or indeed one of the swat team trying to stop it, but ultimately I don't believe the nature of the scene was entirely relevant to the game. They might just as well have used Beslan as a model, I think as that is in more recent history and also, as some have suggested, involved children, it may have shocked even more.
I still also think it more distasteful that the game was released on remembrance day.
It was released worldwide on the 10th of November, the day before Remembrance Day (Veterans Day in the US).
But I cannot see how killing "innocent civilians" is any worse than killing an opposing force, we happily run around shooting "Nazis" in WW2 games. If you stop and think about it, do you think all of these people are evil tyrants? No far from it, most would have been normal people who got drafted in whether they believed it or not, at a later date they may have become a "Nazi" through exposure and propaganda, but that's human nature.
Terrorists on the other hand, have more often than not made a concious decision to join a group which promotes, encourages and performs acts of violences against civilians, they are therefore, fair game.
Its all a moot point anyway, its a game not real life. If someone decides to gun down a group of people in an airport the game will be blamed, but the individual(s) would more than likely have done something along those lines anyway. No one bats a eyelid when someone goes around running over the citizens of Liberty City, even when there is no reason or storyline behind it, why would something that is written into the game to emulate a real life situation get more attention than that.
Edit: Of course all the testers opened fire, it is their jobs to test the game.
Wouldn't killing in general be bad? Civilian or Combatant?
The folks that develop the story line != the folks with the money. You've misunderstood my post because of confusion on that detail.
Haha i liked this :-)
As above you've got me back to front. The people pushing for the game not to be published, would be the ones pushing to make the world sterile.
Liked the mail quip though :-)
"People want to know," Stern explained as a justification for the levels inclusion. "As terrifying as it is, you want to know. And there's a part of you that wants to know what it's like to be there because this is a human experience."
What an arsehole. Like he knows what it's like to be involved in a massacre of civilians... You don't know any more than some nimrod upthread giving it "huh I shot all the civliuns yeah!!!1" Vacuous, juvenile, publicity-seeking shite.
'Nuff said
It's as if some people want to come across as intellectual because there's some scene in a game that is causing a bit of controversy. Most of us have done stuff like this thousands of times before in various games but because the majority of us have a working brain and don't have the shittest parents alive, we do not think "Hmm well I shot a guy wearing a kappa tracksuit with his trousers tucked into his socks in MW2 and there were no repurcussions, so maybe on my trip to the canary islands next month I'll pack my sawn off...just in case...HAHAHAHHAHAM000000000000"
No.
Will give the Sp a go though tonight probably, I will see if it disturbs me or if i just see it as a game like every other game.
What does that even mean?
Everyone knows it's a game. It's the deliberately manufactured controversy that's the issue really, and the writer coming out with statements like:
"These are human beings who perpetrate these acts, so you don't really want to turn a blind eye to it. You want to take it apart and figure out how that happened and what, if anything, can be done to prevent it. Ultimately, our intention was to put you as close as possible to atrocity."
That's what this story is about. You may see understanding the content of the article as wanting to come across as intellectual, I suppose.
Anyway. Jesse Stern is a complete **** - discuss.
What a cop-out thing to say, if I was "testing" the game, of course I'd be replaying and trying different things.
It's realistic to have killed them, I went for legs as much as possible and left the ones on the ground, I killed a lot though. For single player you really have to take on a characters role, see if through there eyes and what would really happen. The game has an 18 rating, I really dont see what the issue is.
It's not appealing to kids, It's to adults. Adults who couldn't bare this scene had the option to not play it, end of story quite simply.
It's a game, and a choice; don't like it - don't play it.
I'm predicting it will be a bit like the Johnathon Ross and Russell Brand incident, when the people complaining were the ones who went looking for it, just so they could complain after it was all over!
You see what I mean? They pretty much killed a game 'cause it was situated in Guantanamo.
i thought time to die civilians
and fired at everything and everyone insite and even lobbed a few grenades for good measure. Its a fun mission
I am looking forward to a CPC 'readers night' on a listen server though
Once I will get my hands on this game I will have to play this mission 4 times in a row. It just helps to calm down if you have some kind of valve that you can open and release your anger.
Better than actually breaking my colleagues' noses, I guess. ;)
yeah that was the worst for me, i hated that scene, but the whole game for me makes you think that in war you can't really trust anyone
feel the same way.
its a game - get over it
if you want to see something worse - torture, being whipped, getting hung on a cross in full gore detail..
WATCH PASSION OF THE CHRIST
you know, this game isnt all that bad graphically period - so what some civies get shot, its a game - if you dont want your kids playing it DONT BUY IT - (chances are their friend has it and they'll play it anyways haha!)
Exactly what I was thinking. Isn't it the testers job to try out every last thing about a game to get any bugs sorted before shipping? Pretty sure that means shooting every civilian over and over and over again. Of course that brings up the question: Would you kill civilians for your paycheck? :P
I have not played this game, and more than likely never will, as the COD series has never tempted me. But I see very little difference between shooting civilians at an airport as compared to running them over in vice city while running from the cops.
They're called pixels.
Looks like you didn't get it all. Right over your head.
In Ego Draconis II, I let myself get killed by the dragon slayers to rid the world of dragons after reading a book about the true nature of Damian's soul forge.
Guess what: The game went: GAME OVER and you HAD to kill the people who were right...
So much for "freedom to choose" in games
I actually did this too first time round. That said, when I tried the level again I was less patient :o
In a real life situation I'd probably shoot the enemy cos I can't see how anything could be worth mowing down an entire airport.
But yes I'm with the pixels/atrocities of war/go with the story arguement.
+2
Ha! Yeah, I failed to deal with the intellectual depth of an FPS aimed at dipshits. You dumbass.
For those who were disturbed and are fighting about morales.. You DID buy a game about WAR. You knew that you were going to play a character, who had to shoot other characters. In fact, you knew that the entire game was JUST that.
That's like saying "I love stabbing people! But it disturbs me when people use knives for other than food." -.-
And honestly, it's insane for Russia to do that. It's so kiddish. "Killing people is alright, torturing people is alright.. Wait.. We're the bad guys? This is immoral!"