Untitled Document
The controversial Modern Warfare 2 scene in which players are tasked with terrorising and killing innocent civilians in an airport has been explained by its crafter, Mohammad Alavi.
"No Russian" was a level that received global news coverage and condemnation for its ruthless killing objective. Mr Alavi explained that the level was created to "sell why Russia would attack the US, make the player have an emotional connection to the bad guy (Makarov)."
"In a first person shooter where you never leave the eyes of the hero, it’s really hard to build up the villain and get the player invested in why he’s bad,” Mr Alavi explained.
This motive, however, was questioned, seeing as the Makarov was sidelined for the rest of the game so that he could appear in Modern Warfare 3.
“What’s relevant is that the level managed to make the player feel anything at all,” Alavi said, referring to three opportunities in which players can opt to skip over the level all together. “In the sea of endless bullets you fire off at countless enemies without a moment’s hesitation or afterthought, the fact that I got the player to hesitate even for a split second and actually consider his actions before he pulled that trigger – that makes me feel very accomplished.”
Source: Magic Wasteland
What do you think of this? How does this moral motive compare to games like, say, Spec Ops: The Line?
By Gaetano Prestia