I have been reading through the comments of the "Opposing Force" article, and the majority of the readership (due to spin or whatever) have missed the entire point of what EA has done.

IN MEDAL OF HONOUR EVERYONE YOU FIGHT IS TALIBAN.

The Actual statement from EA goes as follows.

"This is a very important voice to the Medal of Honor team. This is a voice that has earned the right to be listened to. It is a voice that we care deeply about. Because of this, and because the heartbeat of Medal of Honor has always resided in the reverence for American and Allied soldiers, we have decided to rename the opposing team in Medal of Honour Multiplayer from Taliban to Opposing Force"

Emphasis added myself

The point everyone is missing here, is that you face the taliban in single player, and that "Opposing Force" is a statement rather than the name of anything.

You have to ask yourself, who are the opposing force. In single player you fight the same guys and they are called the taliban right?

The point being, opposing force is a cover for the fact that they are the taliban.

But rather than everyone elses ham fisted, Balitan ridiculousness, i.e., you could actually present them as what the company calls them, there is no way to present the multiplayer component as opposing force.

"Opposing Force" is word play. Where as other games present a fictional setting with fictional narratives and fictional wars, inspired by real events, THE WHOLE of Medal of Honour is based on the afghan war, and the Multiplayer sides are allies vs the taliban.

Its just a sidestep to make the moms happy.

Thoughts?

Its a fucking pig on a spring. spring and oink = spoink.

this is no ekans shit, theres no stroke of genius backwards writing, there could of been, the could have called it gip, or "ytivitaerc fo tuo nar ew tihs ho" but i suppose that wouldnt fit on a gameboy screen.

myself i would have just canned the idea.

i think i could work for the pokemon company. i could do it.


lets just think, some funny mechanised part, coupled with a cute animal?

how about a penguin with a fork for a face.



I dub him penork. ill be awaiting my cheque in the mail.


id fix my grammar, but spoink doesnt even deserve it.

(pun)

Yeah I'm new. This must be boring by now, so ill save all the usual promises of blog posts and all that jazz, and get talking about interesting things.

Today advertising of all things made me happy. I started off at kotaku reading an interesting article about different perspectives on race , (jazzed up with the promise of dantes inferno chatter), and ended up watching japanese adverts for a mobile phone company.

So why I hear you ask was i doing this? (come on you're not asking but you know i'll tell you anyway) because the adverts were completely charming.

The phone company had reinvented the nuclear family as two japanese girls, a big burly black "cbrother" and a dog "father". Watching the adverts didn't come across as a sale, it came across as sharing a family anecdote, nad by the end of the first 30 seconds, not only was I hooked on finding out what was happening to the dog and his family. but i wasn't asking anymore questions.


A charming example (they are all on that channel.

"Only in Japan" right? but why? What is so wrong with consumers that we cant be presented with real people, even if the premise of them talking about offers is a bit flimsy (he daughter is supposed to work at the phone company) without the company cheesing it up a bit, see the atrocious iceland adverts, or in the same vein forgetting to advertise. The white dog adverts are charming, but the phone company takes a back seat to the adventures they take. And it works, i'll be forever etched with the words "softe Bunk" in my head, even if im not gonna buy phones from japan. *waves fist*

The only ads i can think of that match this phenomenon from the uk, are the bt home hub adverts, the ones that feature "nick from my family" and his bird having a shit life. This is something I've never understood either. I get the advertising crap, their lives are shit, if they had our product they wouldnt be, but i never got why going for the relationship brakedown markets was ever a socially acceptable thing. Stiff upper lip of the British workforce and all that, but you know, fuck you i like being happy. I mean if i want to see that stuff, i'll just watch american beauty again, Sam mendes is british. I dont want to see you guys crying over pointless crap between reruns of COMEDY shows on dave.

I wanna see an advert with a white supremacist, a muslim extremist, a coal worker, and margret thatcher getting along like a happy family. I mean if the japanese can get over their gajin shaped hump with these adverts then why cant we. it makes me happy.

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I'm separating the blog into two distinct sections so you can skip to the end and comment.

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Another thing that grinds my gears, (this is distinctly more game flavoured) Is charity Donations.

Both Blizzard and Naughty Dog have been in the gaming news today for making donations to charity, with very different styles of bringing the unfortunate joy.

Blizzard profiteered a mighty 1.1 million for the make a wish foundation, and Naughty Dog donated a rescue home for pets in the area near to the studios.

Just take a second before i rip it out of one of the companies (I'm sure you can guess which) to salute them for their charity.

I cant be bothered with the specifics on this, but read this article for why naughty dog are nice and this one for why blizzard should add a naughty moniker.

I dunno, maybe I'm being to confrontational, but when you make more money from a charity scheme than the charity itself makes from said scheme, I'm gonna get on my high horse.

HAVE YOU GOT YOUR PINCH OF SALT?

I love blizzard but what the hell. Buy this and the cash goes to charity. but only for a select time, so afterwards when little Timmy sits in his chair and sees the item, oh that money used to go to charity, thats nice, i'll support blizzard and buy it because they are such a nice company! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

I think i'd be happy if they came out and said that it was an after thought to add the charity incentive to the pandaren pet. We just thought it would be nice to pay our taxes in charity for a little while, cos we have big hearts. i mean that would actually be a heartwarming story. But no. the charity aspect was there from the get go as the selling point of the product. They aren't losing out, all the money just goes to the Taxman anyway, it just makes absolutely no sense.

But hey, its only blizzards morals that lose out here. God help if someone made something just for charity.

p.s. don't forget your salt in the comments.