Begin forehead slap now. British Defense Secretary Liam Fox has urged video game retailers in Britain to ban the sale of EA Games’ upcoming Medal of Honor reboot because it’s “thoroughly un-British,” as it lets players play as the Taliban.
"It's shocking that someone would think it acceptable to recreate the acts of the Taliban. At the hands of the Taliban, children have lost fathers and wives have lost husbands,” says Fox.
"I am disgusted and angry. It's hard to believe any citizen of our country would wish to buy such a thoroughly un-British game. I would urge retailers to show their support for our armed forces and ban this tasteless product."
However, the first vital piece of information Fox failed to notice, or research, before making these wild accusations is that players of Medal of Honor get to play as the Taliban in multiplayer only. For years now we’ve been playing multiplayer games where one side is the good guys, one side is the bad guys. For Christ sake, we’ve played as Nazis before and no one complained! In response to Fox, EA issued a statement saying roughly the same thing. “The format of the new Medal of Honor game merely reflects the fact that every conflict has two sides. We give gamers the opportunity to play both sides. Most of us have been doing this since we were seven: someone plays the cop, someone must be robber. In Medal of Honor multiplayer, someone’s got to be the Taliban.”
.jpg)
Also, Fox failed to notice that the new Medal of Honor does not feature a single British soldier. Whoops, there goes that whole “un-British” argument right out the window. “Medal of Honor is an 18-rated highly authentic depiction of the soldier’s experience in Afghanistan – matching US forces against the Taliban in today’s war,” said EA Games. “The Sunday Times and other media stories on Medal of Honor contain inaccuracies. For one, Medal of Honor does not allow players to kill British soldiers. British troops do not feature in the game.”
After the formal bitch-slap that Fox received from EA Games, the British Government issued their own response to distance themselves from Fox’s comments, saying, “Dr. Fox was expressing a personal view and we understand why some people might find the subject matter of the game offensive,” said the department in a statement to GamesIndustry.
There should have also been an unofficial addendum to the British Government's quote, saying something like, “We’re also incredibly happy that our Country’s Defense Secretary pays so little attention to detail.”
