Modern Warfare 2 censored in Russia?

[Hairbautt]

Modern Warfare 2 censored in Russia?
Nov 16, 2009 2:40 pm PT by By Tor Thorsen, GameSpot

" Daisy chain of online reports indicates that latest Call of Duty has been recalled in Eastern European country due to airport massacre scene.

SPOILER WARNING: Details of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2's plot are discussed below. Those who have not played through the single-player campaign of the game should stop reading now.

What we heard: Anyone who has played the single-player campaign of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 knows it doesn't exactly shine a positive light on Russia. The game begins with machinations by a villain from the Eastern European country leading to a full-blown Russo-American war. That bloody conflict sees both a Russian invasion of the US and extensive American Special Forces operations inside Russia's eastern-most regions--not to mention a very limited nuclear exchange.

It's not surprising, then, that reports have surfaced, which indicate Modern Warfare 2 may have been censored--and temporarily banned--in Russia. A post on the Russian-language site Gotps3.ru claims that the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions of the game were recalled from stores on Friday. The PC version was released, but only after it had the game's most controversial level removed. In it, players participate in a terrorist massacre at a Moscow airport named after Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare's antagonist, the ultranationalist militia leader Imran Zakhaev. According to Gotps3.ru, console editions of Modern Warfare 2 will likely be rereleased in the next 10 to 20 days with the airport level excised.

The official story: Activision had not responded to requests for comment about the Russian release of Modern Warfare 2.

Bogus or not bogus?: Though it sounds not bogus, there isn't any hard evidence. Most mainstream reports on the matter--including pieces in the Silicon Valley blog VentureBeat and the British tabloid The Daily Mirror--link to Web sites that link to the Gotps3.ru story. With that the only source, the ban is far from officially confirmed. "

Source: Gamespot Related: C|NET's Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 banned in Russia

[ShadowsServant]

If that is real, the that is wrong. I do think it is insulting for Russia. I think that it's better if games have made up continents or based on an alternate planet. Then their wouldn't be any conflict like this. Censoring is wrong, I think they should have just taking it up with the developers.

[SonsOfLiberty]

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 banned in Russia

Sometimes, one's biases can balance out very nicely. So please let me lay mine out in all their militant glory.

Bias No. 1: I do not play many video games, and Call of Duty does not impact in any way upon my emotional or personal life.

Bias No. 2: Members of my family were arrested by Stalin's miserable cohorts and abused daily in Siberian labor camps, from which only some emerged and even they were permanently scarred.

So I truly do not have a heavily armed platoon in the feral battle currently waging between Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and the fine nation of Russia.

According to the vaunted experts at Hellforge, the designers of this sickeningly successful Call of Duty game decided to push the creative boundaries. The chaps at Infinity Ward incorporated a "No Russian" mission in which people who seem to reek of rather pure vodka massacre lots of folks, leading to--disgust upon depravity--the erection of statues of supposed deceased terrorists in Washington, D.C.

The game, you see, imagines a world in which the Russian Federation is being ruled by extreme nationalists. Positing such a heinous concept clearly took a huge level of imagination and led to Russian gamers expressing their internal pain at such monstrous cultural insensitivity.

Russian politicians, perhaps the most independent-minded in all the world, huffed and puffed and threatened to the degree that the console version has been banned, according to the Mirror newspaper. The controversial scenes have also reportedly been removed from the PC and Steam editions.

I am not sure either side comes out of this looking, well, brave.

Somehow, I have a sense that the game designers at Infinity Ward might have known that a little controversy would be caused by scenes so clearly offensive to a nation of peace.

However, I am also concerned that the Russians might be overreacting. If Salman Rushdie had written such an imagined scenario in one of his books of so many words, would the Russian government have banned the book? Would it have sent some operative to stab him with an umbrella or poison his sushi? I think not.

So why get so worked up about something that will largely be played and pirated by youths of an already doleful spirit?

It is hard enough these days to select a country for villainy in works of art. I notice that in Bond movies, where once evil had its origins in Eastern Europe, now it emerges from some indeterminate or impotent nation in order to keep feathers muffled rather than ruffled.

By getting upset about a video game with an obviously false and fictional characterization, Russian politicians are surely giving it far more credence than its creation merits.

I mean, it's not as if Infinity Ward had shown scenes of Polish officers being murdered by Russian soldiers in the Katyn Forest near Smolensk, is it?

Source: CNET

[PunkMaister]

If that game gave them headaches KI think they would have dropped dead had they ever seen command & conquer 2 and it's sequel Yuri's revenge!

[markchain]

well the Call of duty modern warfare(1) also had some missions in Russia, guess that Chernobyl nuclear plant or somethin they didnt banned that why this one

[SonsOfLiberty]

Well I just heard the new Alien Vs Predator (vs Marines) game got banned in Germany just recently, seen the preview game on X-Play today and it looked awesome, you can play as the Aliens/Predator/Marine and they said Marines by them self get chewed up by the other factions, but you mainly by yourself , so I'll being going with the Predator (awesome movie the one with Arnie and Jesse Ventura ) I know it's way off topic sort of, it got banned to.

[Hairbautt]

I posted this already, you jackass.

[Darth Sushi]

BTW, that flag is not big enough

[Hairbautt]

BTW, that flag is not big enough

Says the guy who posted the Star Trek screenshot.

[SonsOfLiberty]

No shit you to, no images bigger than la la la, you scorn me all the time, and I didn't see the thread, did you forget to approve your own threads or was it buried hairass?