Call of Duty: Black Ops "There's A Soldier In All Of Us"

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Call of Duty: Black Ops "There's A Soldier In All Of Us"

Postby Bruce Dazzling » Wed Nov 10, 2010 11:09 pm

Fucking speechless.

:jumping:

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Re: Call of Duty: Black Ops "There's A Soldier In All Of Us"

Postby Simulist » Thu Nov 11, 2010 12:04 am

Me too, Bruce.
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Re: Call of Duty: Black Ops "There's A Soldier In All Of Us"

Postby AhabsOtherLeg » Thu Nov 11, 2010 2:33 am

.
This laughable pre-adolescent fantasy is "rated 'M' for Mature." That says more about our culture than I'd like to hear, or admit.

I like video games. I like violent video games, about war and murder and bloody dismemberment. I like other sorts of games too - building, crafting, all that. But there's absolutely nothing mature about it - never has been. I wish they had a different ratings system for games - this one should be rated MBFOC: "marketting budget far outstrips content."

The advert is terrifying in it's implications, though (for society as a whole, but also for gaming, which I still stupidly care about) mostly because of how crap it is. One of the scariest aspects of it is the total accepted devaluation of the very concept of maturity. When I was a kid, I would've laughed at this shit - not because it's designed to be laughed at, but because it's such transparently, ghoulishly mass-marketted ...shit.

"There's A Soldier In All of Us." That's good advertising - it includes everybody, which is always nice. But then you remember your demographics - this game is designed for the 10 to 35 male console FPS crowd, who like to imagine they really are soldiers, or at least could have been (a goodly number of them, in fact, will be either currently serving, or soon to join). They are men - warriors! But who plays computer games? Nerds. How do you sell to both? They're pretty different audiences. But you can sell the nerds the fantasy of being soldiers, while simultaneously selling the "soldiers" the fantasy of being far better soldiers than the nerds. All in one advert.

I'm off on a deep illuminating trip through the obvious here, I know. But bear with me.

Nowadays, it's not just nerds and Xbox warriors that have to be catered to. It seems that even "well-adjusted" working adults (one of the obvious target markets) can be suckered in by this garbage - and they must be included if you're going to shift units in the tens of millions. Maybe it gets easier to sell this kind of stuff to them when a lot of them already feel an honest desire to shoot everybody around them lots of times with high-powered weaponry during their daily business.

Gah! Make it go away!
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Re: Call of Duty: Black Ops "There's A Soldier In All Of Us"

Postby stefano » Thu Nov 11, 2010 2:50 am

To be fair, it's not that different from these football game adverts, which I thought were great:



I was a lot more disconcerted by a series of adverts for Playstation about three years back with the tagline This is living. Erm, it actually isn't.
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Re: Call of Duty: Black Ops "There's A Soldier In All Of Us"

Postby AhabsOtherLeg » Thu Nov 11, 2010 4:17 am

stefano wrote:To be fair, it's not that different from these football game adverts...


It is quite a bit different, unless you equate football with warfare and death.

Don't tell me you're an Old Firm fan! :lol:
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Re: Call of Duty: Black Ops "There's A Soldier In All Of Us"

Postby stefano » Thu Nov 11, 2010 6:07 am

Well playing a football game isn't that different from playing a soldier game, I mean, and it would make sense that the adverts be the same, making the buyer think that buying the game is pretty much like playing top-class football or fighting in a war (or driving like a maniac, planning a city, etc.)

I guess it is different in a broader, '20 years ago no-one would have made Saw' kind of sense but I tend to relativise this kind of thing. I played Cowboys and Crooks as a little kid, shooting at my mates with a plastic pistol, how different is that to shooting someone in Call of Duty?

total accepted devaluation of the very concept of maturity
That's true, though. I am amazed sometimes when mates of mine talk about playing PS or whatever, I tend to launch into a rant about how capital creates silly needs and they're victims etc. But then I spend my money on dinners out and booze, so I don't really have a leg to stand on I guess.
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Re: Call of Duty: Black Ops "There's A Soldier In All Of Us"

Postby AhabsOtherLeg » Thu Nov 11, 2010 6:52 am

stefano wrote:I played Cowboys and Crooks as a little kid, shooting at my mates with a plastic pistol, how different is that to shooting someone in Call of Duty?


It's better exercise! Hehe. I wish I could go back to that myself - running around up the woods playing at "Sojers". Even that kind of game can get creepy after a while, though: http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/arc ... azi/64319/ :confused

I'm not sure what offended me more about that story - the Republican candidate who enjoyed reenacting the history of the Wiking SS, or that dozy bugger standing next to him in a kilt.

Anyway, like I said, I love computer and video games. I'm not trying to judge anybody guilty of anything that I'm not guilty of myself. I'm not jack Thompson. But don't you think the advert itself, regardless of the product it's advertising, is a disgrace - and a new wrinkle in the increasingly disgraceful modern history of gaming? Not just because it's inviting people to vicariously enjoy war, but becauses it presupposes that the target audience are morons, and treats them (us) as such?

It's a modern Call of Duty game, so the audience are mainly morons, but still... there should be more of an effort made to disguise that fact in the advertising. :lol:

stefano wrote:
total accepted devaluation of the very concept of maturity
That's true, though. I am amazed sometimes when mates of mine talk about playing PS or whatever, I tend to launch into a rant about how capital creates silly needs and they're victims etc. But then I spend my money on dinners out and booze, so I don't really have a leg to stand on I guess.


When my Dad was my age, he was raising and supporting a family of five, as the sole breadwinner of the household (it was still possible to do that in those days - only twenty-odd years ago - on only one person's wage).

I, meanwhile, at my age, am still a child, and a petulant and greedy one at that (specially when it comes to booze). Can't complain, though. I'm currently playing Minecraft for up to twelve hours at a stretch. It is an awesome game. Give it a go, if you ever tire of all the bloodshed in your beloved militarist crypto-fascist slaughter-fests! :lol:
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Re: Call of Duty: Black Ops "There's A Soldier In All Of Us"

Postby stefano » Thu Nov 11, 2010 7:25 am

AhabsOtherLeg wrote:But don't you think the advert itself, regardless of the product it's advertising, is a disgrace - and a new wrinkle in the increasingly disgraceful modern history of gaming? Not just because it's inviting people to vicariously enjoy war, but becauses it presupposes that the target audience are morons, and treats them (us) as such?
It hadn't occurred to me... actually if I'd seen the advert on TV I probably would have quite liked it. The ones that piss me off are the washing powder adverts, talk about treating people like morons. And the toothpaste ones. And, a more recent development that has me in fucking conniptions, Dettol adverts that basically say you're a bad mother if your kid isn't washing his hands all day long.

Related:


AhabsOtherLeg wrote:Give it a go, if you ever tire of all the bloodshed in your beloved militarist crypto-fascist slaughter-fests! :lol:
I haven't played a game since Doom II... I quite want to give Sim City a go but they're making it annoyingly hard to steal, what with security features and what not.
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Re: Call of Duty: Black Ops "There's A Soldier In All Of Us"

Postby jam.fuse » Thu Nov 11, 2010 8:13 am

The fact that the Roliing Stones' Gimme Shelter is the soundtrack to the commercial is far more disturbing to me than the visual content.

BTW someone here opined K. Richards' actually looked 'good' on the recent RStone magazine cover. I think he gives Freddy Krueger a run for the money. He did look happy though I noticed.
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Re: Call of Duty: Black Ops "There's A Soldier In All Of Us"

Postby AhabsOtherLeg » Thu Nov 11, 2010 8:18 am

The original Sim City? The one that looks like this?

Image

If so, here 'tis - all free and legal: http://www.hotud.org/home/46-simulation/24331?lang=en

That's some serious retro gaming, though. That version came out in 1994. You might need all sorts of silly third party programmes to unzip it and run it, depending on your computer, and the version of Windows you're using.

If it's one of the more modern versions you're after (I haven't played any of those, but I'm told 4 is good) you will be able to find them free of charge and perfectly playable after download .... on the internet.

Using Google, SimCity4 could reach you in next to no time, with the speed of an onrushing torrent. :thumbsup

As for adverts, I don't expect any effort from the home or body cleansing crew anymore, but when it comes to a modern media product I want to see subtlety, ingenuity, and intelligence in the sales pitch. Never have yet, though. They're not selling to me anyway, so fair enough. I don't buy anything.

Mitchell and Webb are good. Have you seen the Nazi DeathsHead one? I was saving it up for a relevant thread, but since we've derailed this one already, here it is. I really like this sketch a lot. Not sure why, but it is good:

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Re: Call of Duty: Black Ops "There's A Soldier In All Of Us"

Postby AhabsOtherLeg » Thu Nov 11, 2010 8:40 am

jam.fuse wrote:The fact that the Roliing Stones' Gimme Shelter is the soundtrack to the commercial is far more disturbing to me than the visual content.


That bothered me too, and I'm not sure why. Maybe just knowing what that song means to people, and seeing it used for... commerce. I remember reading Greil Marcus' panegyric to that song, many moons ago - how he believed it was one of the only songs that could reliably silence a crowd of drunks, alongside Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone."

He maybe hung out with an especially couteous crowd of drunks, but anyway, the point was made, and it's stuck with me. These are special songs, carrying a heavy message. You don't use them to sell tat.

I also remember the song being used in "Tour of Duty" - the good and pretty honest series about the Vietnam War that got shown over here in the early nineties. It was a good programme - touched on front-line suicide, fragging, drug abuse, etc. as well as the usual heroics.

I suppose I don't much want to see fantasist IT Consultants blowing up SUVs with two bullets set to the same song.
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Re: Call of Duty: Black Ops "There's A Soldier In All Of Us"

Postby jam.fuse » Thu Nov 11, 2010 9:55 am

The fact that the Roliing Stones' Gimme Shelter is the soundtrack to the commercial is far more disturbing to me than the visual content.

That bothered me too, and I'm not sure why. Maybe just knowing what that song means to people, and seeing it used for... commerce. I remember reading Greil Marcus' panegyric to that song, many moons ago - how he believed it was one of the only songs that could reliably silence a crowd of drunks, alongside Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone."

'Musick has Charms to sooth a savage Breast'

I don't know if this happens on UK and\or Australian TV, but in the USA songs by, to name a few of the more shocking examples, the Stooges, the Ramones and the Clash have all been featured in commercials for respectively, running shoes, shitty american beer and luxury automobiles. And one of poor Kurt Cobain's anthems was played in 'Blackhawk Down' a straight up fascist propaganda film in my view. Which is all part of the ongoing rape of all that is sacred on this miserable fucking planet.

(And on second thought Freddy Krueger looks like Cary Grant next to old Keith. Who does look happy, though, as noted.)
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Re: Call of Duty: Black Ops "There's A Soldier In All Of Us"

Postby Bruce Dazzling » Thu Nov 11, 2010 10:30 am

I DO appreciate the analysis of this from the "gamers" perspective, but my reason for posting it, and indeed, the reason for my initial flabbergasted speechlessness, had much more to do with my immediate realization that it simultaneously serves as blatant Goebbelsian propaganda normalizing and glorifying the murderous empire, a recruitment tool, a training tool (push-button skills are in demand these days, just ask a drone operator), and a money-making enterprise for an international conglomerate (Vivendi SA).

The one positive thing I can say about it is that it doesn't seem to depict the enemy as scurrying rats.

What ever happened to shooting fucking asteroids?
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Re: Call of Duty: Black Ops "There's A Soldier In All Of Us"

Postby stefano » Thu Nov 11, 2010 1:55 pm

No I get what you're saying, Bruce. It's just that as I say I tend to rationalise things and think about Black Hawk Down and GI Joe and Risk (and chess?) and think that it's not such a new thing... Except for the "training tool" aspect you mention. There have been a couple of threads here about "America's Army", a game specifically developed by the US Army. I found these two now searching:

Welcome to the Machine
Violent video games linked to aggression in children

...but what I didn't see from a cursory look now is that one of these games, maybe America's Army, had a system where players' scores were tied to their real names and what not, and Army recruiters would visit the best ones and offer them a job. I'm sure we talked about it.

Back to off-topic: I love Mitchell and Webb. Someone here (I think jingofever?) switched me on to Peep Show, then I went on a whole mission and watched everything by them I could find, then found Bruiser, Darkplace, Man to Man with Dean Learner and The IT Crowd. But let's keep that in the Lounge.
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Re: Call of Duty: Black Ops "There's A Soldier In All Of Us"

Postby justdrew » Thu Nov 11, 2010 1:59 pm

AhabsOtherLeg wrote:The original Sim City? The one that looks like this?

Image

If so, here 'tis - all free and legal: http://www.hotud.org/home/46-simulation/24331?lang=en

That's some serious retro gaming, though. That version came out in 1994. You might need all sorts of silly third party programmes to unzip it and run it, depending on your computer, and the version of Windows you're using.


for a slightly more updated version try FreeCiv
http://freeciv.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page
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