Indeed.

He shouldn't bash Activision for glamorizing war when the recruitment centers do the same thing.

At least in Activision's case it's exactly as advertised. A videogame with no real consequences.

I think in looking at this issue one simply needs to separate out reality and fantasy.

MW3 is just a game and the commercial is just about the fun of playing that game of pretend.

Video games didn't invent "playing ARMY" either. I remember doing that as a kid in the woods with friends. We used sticks for our pretend "guns." We were trivializing war? We were doing something terrible and bad? No. We were just kids having fun pretending.

Of course no sane person thinks there is anything good about war. You don't need to be a vet to appreciate this. Hell, all you need to do is turn on the television or read the newspaper to get a glimpse of how ugly the real deal is.

Only the loosest comparison really applies between MW3 and war. Some discernment I hope would be easy for the average person.

People just love to have something to bitch about. This is just one more case of that. The energy would be better spent bitching about the real hell that is war on this earth and not some silly depiction of it in a videogame or a commercial promoting one.

He chose to go to war, he knew the risks, the psychological and physical scarring. Don't ruin everyone else's fun because you made your own damn choice.

You don't see surgeons get offended at Trauma Center, why should Soldiers feel offended about this?

Part of the problem is that Veterans Administration is chronically underfunded and as a result the service personnel coming back aren't getting the treatment that they need to function in society. Many of them make do without, but there's a disturbingly large number of vets coming back that need help that isn't there.

Just recently a vet shot a ranger to death and was found dead himself of what appears to be exposure.

As long as the voting public doesn't understand what war is really like, I think there's a definite reason to avoid things that tend to glamorize combat or give a false impression of what goes on.

The US has this noxious combination of soldier worship and avoidance of responsibility that makes it a lot worse than it would be in most other countries.

Not that I fully disagree with your statement, but I do know that after playing through the Omaha Beach level of MoH:AA when I was in high school, I couldn't help but sit there for a good 30+ minutes reflecting on the fact that real people actually lived through this on both sides, people who were no older than I...and unlike I, they couldn't just reload their save if they died.

In any case, as a "n00b" I have to say I actually kind of enjoyed that ad, if only because it actually was both aware of, and revelled in, what it really was at heart: an over-the-top, goofy war game. I can only speak for myself though when I say that I've read enough books, watched enough history shows, and seen enough news footage to know that war isn't anything like that at all.

As for your garden-variety modern CoD player? God only knows.

How can this possibly be seen as a "false impression"? This is almost exactly what happens in Call of Duty, and if people are mistaking Call of Duty for real war, then it should be the Government's job to educate people on what it's really like.

And I really do not like it when people give excuses for Murderers. Veteran or not, if you kill someone outside of war you are a Murderer. You may not be in your right mind, but using that logic the few people with Schizophrenia who kill people should also be excused.

You know the risks and consequences of war when you join up. Like I said, don't ruin it for the rest of us because of the choices/mistakes you made.

When I saw that commercial it made me really embarrassed to be a gamer. That's the image we are spreading to everyone else? Wow.

Not really, you're suggesting that the same group of people that decide to declare war ought to also be responsible for making sure everybody understands what that entails? That's naive to say the least, even the most honest of regimes is going to fail that miserably.

You might not like it, but you're lacking in any sort of perspective or awareness. No, they shouldn't be excused, they should be hospitalized until such a time as they're able to properly tell the difference between right and wrong and adequately manage their symptoms.

Just because you're woefully unaware of what it's like to live with those sorts of conditions does not change the fact that throwing people in prison for mental health problems doesn't do anything positive for crime rates.

Wrong, nobody in their right mind would enlist if they truly understood what they're were getting into and the few people that would shouldn't be allowed anywhere near loaded weapons. It's not just the death, it's the time and effort that the military spends dehumanizing enlistees so that they're willing to kill people that are only guilty of being on the other side. The reality is that it's abnormal even for soldiers to kill somebody during that first encounter if they can avoid it and the military trains that out of them as quickly as possible.

Nothing about war is cut and dry and I doubt very much that I'm understanding the whole scope of things either.

Suggesting that there isn't a need to essentially deprogram and help with integration is just plain silly. At the end of the day whenever a vet goes nuts it's the government's fault for failing to properly provide the resources necessary to for them to reenter society as productive members of society.

I'm not offended by bad taste, I just shrug and say "that was in bad taste." Which is basically how I feel about 99% of ALL marketing, let alone video game marketing.

The only recent ad I can remember really hating and being pissed about was that Dead Space 2 ad that basically backed up every crazy video game ban political rant ever made. "You won't believe the sick filth your kids are playing... buy one today!" Fuck that ad right up the ass.

I believe the closest thing we have is akwater, let's wait for him to drop in here in a drunken haze to give his view.

I actually found that ad pretty funny. (Consider, the game is marketed for adults anyway), but it's basically playing up the sadism and emotional response of someone who wouldn't normally be exposed to it. It also never said that their kids (regardless of age) were playing, at least I don't recall it saying it. It's a little better anyway than showing the shooting, blood and gore of the gameplay on a public network that a child would be watching.

It was all about that, because it was mothers being upset about what their sons are playing. That was the core of the ad.

UGGHHH... that ad just cemented my complete disregard of the Dead Space franchise.

I never said throw them in prison. I study Psychology as well as Health and Social Care, so I totally understand the need for treating people with mental illness. The whole point I am making is that Soldiers should not be given any special treatment, especially for what is essentially self-inflicted.

If War is so grossly misunderstood, why have many users here said it is nothing like CoD? It is not naive to say that the government SHOULD be doing something, it would be naive to say they COULD or CAN do it.

My whole point I was trying to make was that Soldiers deserve no special treatment, and no more respect than say a Doctor, who helps people who may not necessarily have put themselves in the situation they are in. Soldiers should be aware of the consequences of going to war and killing another Human being, and while support should be offered for them, it by no means should be used as an excuse for things such as murder or domestic abuse.