I mentioned a couple posts ago about how the airport level of the new Call of Duty game kinda shook me up a little. Having known that there was a “controversial airport based level” a few weeks ago, I instantly went into “No spoilers” mode so as not to find out why exactly people were moaning at it. Needless to say, it was pretty fucked up.
A controversial, violent scene in a video game? The kind likely to unleash moral outrage? It was inevitable, really….
…but the only critic named was Keith Vaz, the Labour MP for Leicester East, who said this: "I am absolutely shocked by the level of violence in this game and am particularly concerned about how realistic the game itself looks."
How many times must this be gone over? Every time, every scandal, the same tired (wrong) arguments, the same sense of moral duty. It’s not even worth outlining exactly why calls to ban the new Call of Duty are misguided, since we’ve been over that a trillion times before. And not just with games like like Manhunt and Carmageddon (both of which I owned. And loved. Yet my body count is still 0…), but with every new medium for the past 30 years. At least.
I’m amazed we take these moral guardians (be it Keith Vaz, the now disbarred US lawyer Jack Thompson, Mary Whitehouse when she was alive, etc) seriously. Their tired out arguments have been nothing but decades of “Same shit, different day”. Please, please, please change the record
Whilst we’re at it, go and get Modern Warfare 2. Seriously. I’m thinking about getting two so I can wear one around my neck. It’s that good.
Keith Vaz is one of the perpetually offended in my name squad, good for an outraged soundbite but otherwise ignored as an utter tosser and Islamic apologist.
I’m not gonna lie, I hadn’t heard of the fucker before this. Obviously he’s upset he hasn’t been in the papers enough.