By on 4 Nov, 2011 at 2:45 PM
309 Views | 17 Comments

Modern Warfare 3′s “No Russian” Moment Is A Lot Worse

And we have the video to prove it. Just be warned that this video, post, and comments that are likely to follow will be very spoiler filled to those who want to keep Modern Warfare 3′s intricate story a secret. Ok, I’m lying. Modern Warfare 3′s story should be far from compelling, but there are some spoilers after the jump.

Still here. Good, let’s get started. In Modern Warfare 2, there was the highly controversial mission named “No Russian”, which involved you, the player, strolling into a packed airport and shooting everything with a pair of legs. Yeah, it was gruesome, and you were at the helm. It cast a massive shadow of controversy on Modern Warfare 2 even before it released, and it seems Infinity Ward have done it again.

In Modern Warfare 3, it’ll be a bit different though. Firstly, you won’t be massacring civilians. In fact, you won’t be in control at all. You’ll be forced to simply sit back and watch the horror unfold. There is no moral choice placed before the player.

If you’ve read this far, stop and watch the video.

Now, you should have seen the little girl get blown to bits, right? In gaming, that’s not something you see every day. The sight of an innocent girl being blown up right in front of your face is both shocking, terrifying and brutal, and it’s certainly worse than “No Russian”.

No doubt the media will be all over this in a few short hours, but let’s put things into perspective where they seemingly never can. Modern Warfare 3 is rated 18+. It’s not a game for your 10 year old son to be playing. It’s certainly not a toy or for children, and in my opinion it’s a step in the right direction for the industry. The gaming industry needs to move away from the conception that it caters for children. You may think “Hell, they’ve already done that”, but you’d be surprised. Compare it to the film industry. Films are able to discuss important social matters, like violence, sex, murder, rape etc. in a manner that has not yet been seen in gaming. If the industry ever wants to evolve and have audiences take it more seriously, it needs to make more and more bold moves such as this one. I’m not saying that developer’s should make games with mass amounts of sex, drugs and violence in them, but rather present them in a more adult manner, and less in a “gamers are all lonely perverts” style.

I have no doubt that this is going to cause an uproar in many parts of the world, but I for one applaud Infinity Ward for continuing with the “No Russian” styled missions. The world needs to come to the realisation that gamers aren’t just children, and that we are more ready for some real mature and bold games. Without moves such as these, we may as well all just continue playing Super Mario for the rest of our lives.

If You Liked This, You Should Try These!

Name: Alessandro Barbosa
Location: Johannesburg
Position: Editor, Tech

Alessandro has published 1290 posts. Read all of Alessandro's posts.
  • http://egamer.co.za Dean Oberholzer

    :O

  • SairenSA

    Okay…

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=507060530 Luqmaan Lulu Abrahams

    She got pwnt! Shame though i was telling myself hell naaw!

  • o_O

    I stopped reading after “both shocking, terrifying and brutal”

  • Farkyne

    It was removed!

    I cant watch it

    • Anonymous

      New video up, hurry before it’s removed as well :-)

  • http://egamer.co.za/author/cavie Caveshen Rajman

    Having resisted the urge to watch the No Russian videos prior to playing Modern Warfare 2, only hearing about how shocking it was, I have to admit that I felt like I should have been more shocked than I was during that level when I saw it for the first time.

    Granted, I still never fired a shot until I had to, but the fact that the internet made such a fuss about it really ruined its effect for me, in-game.

    So with that, there’s a few points that bear mention.

    1. I’m pretty sure there’s a rule that prohibits displays of violence against children in games, which is why most games don’t even feature children or they’re invulnerable to damage. So any ACTUAL harm to her body will not be shown taking place.

    2. The game is about a worldwide war. Did you gamers really expect only adults to die? On that note, I could bring up things like Hiroshima and Nagasaki but it’s superfluous and unnecessary.

    3. It’s clear that Infinity Ward added that in for emotional effect because nobody likes to see a happy little girl explode. What’s going to happen now, and something everybody no doubt knew would happen from the start, is that people like Fox news will pick this up and rant and rave about how gaming is evil, and Modern Warfare 3 will sell another hundred million copies thanks to the free publicity.

    4. I like numbering stuff.

    • Staple2

      Strangely enough, there was nothing more satisfying that massacring undead babies in Dante’s Inferno.

    • http://egamer.co.za/author/cavie Caveshen Rajman

      Or Cherubs in Doom 3, or Pack in Dead Space 2, or Crawlers in the former and Dead Space.

      The only work-around seems to be “make them undead.”

      There’s your answer Infinity Ward. If you wish to pull something like this, use zombies.

  • sage of the six paths

    What’s so fascinating about birds? The spinning is strange but understandable, but birds? And they were pigeons as well, the most common kind.

  • http://egamer.co.za/ Azhar Amien

    I really don’t think this is worse to be honest o_O It’s war, two innocent people got blown up. Yeah it’s sad, but you’re not walking in there and blowing their heads off yourself, which I think is the key difference.

    It’s tragic, not “disgusting” or “shocking” if you want to bring media terminology into it.

    Although in all honesty that level in Modern Warfare 2 didn’t do much for me because of the media hype and because there were like five civilian character models, so in my head it felt like I was shooting a bunch of freak clones. :D

  • Anonymous

    I honestly think this isn’t as bad as people are making it out to be. Yes, the girl goes boom but you don’t see it and you definitely don’t see her severed head come flying at the you.

    No Russian was worse because you were in control and were actually gunning down all those innocents (provided you did it right way i.e. the un-Cavie way :P). This is just a cutscene and ranks as no worse than some depictions of violence in movies.

    There’s a bit in Ultimate Spider-Man that’s worse than this. It’s when you get to play as Venom and your first directive is to consume a little boy to sustain yourself.

    Call me insensitive or whatever but I just don’t see much controversial with this possibly because it’s actually quite emotionally detaching. Not only is she as far away from the foreground as possible but you also don’t hear a thing from her as she gets blown up.

    That’s just my opinion.

  • http://twitter.com/Clones694 Akshar Sunichur

    I am usually like…an opponent of censorship but from my (really fucked
    up if you know me) moral perspective, this is not as huge of a deal. I
    loved No Russian. You don’t see details of her death in this. In No
    Russian, screaming + machine gun fire + wounded civilians begging (yeah
    you know you popped him in the face with that LMG) = emotional
    experience. This…random much? But sadly, I do agree that some stuff
    just shouldn’t be in video games. Like rape. That’s bad mmmkay? (Sigh
    really Japan? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapelay ) Also, this is one
    of the least graphic deaths in gaming. Think every single kill in Gears of War.

    That being said, this is only a cinematic. This is meant to be a WW3 game anyway.
    Also, is it bad that some people (myself included) just think that this
    is tragic and not disturbing? Because you know we’ll hear about how this
    is disturbing…and like 90% of people will think it’s not as
    disturbing as other stuff they’ve seen on TV/the Internet.

    Respect the attempt at
    creating an emotional scene. They are trying to show us the random and tragic nature of terrorism. Terrorism, which is what the series is about. The fact that people are speaking about it makes it a success anyway. Also…**** censorship.

    PS. This kill doesn’t even count because nobody went and got the dog tags. Kill Denied. Too soon?

    • http://egamer.co.za/ Azhar Amien

      Completely agreed Akshar, and I said the same thing about it being tragic rather than disturbing, shocking or disgusting.

  • Anonymous

    Japan doesn’t count when it comes to censorship and morals. Fetish outweighs all else.

    I’m pretty sure the Japanese national anthem has one line that goes “something something something tentacles ftw something something.”

    Just ask Cavie, he knows all about it.

    • http://egamer.co.za/author/cavie Caveshen Rajman

      It’s true hey. Bukkake!

  • NeoN

    Haven’t seen the vid, wanna go into the game spoiler free – although I know a lil girl dies. :P Hoping to be left in shock and awe when I do see it for the 1st time in-game, months from now.