Naturally killing cops in a videogame is succulent bait for conservative media circles, but we just don’t ”understand the gravity of the situation,” cries EA.
”The frequent combat is highlighted by realistic gunfire and large explosions; characters sometimes scream and emit large splashes of blood when shot,” reads some of the ESRB ratings summary of Battlefield 3, due for release later this month.
”Players can also engage in hand-to-hand combat: repeatedly punching enemies in the face; stabbing soldiers to death with knives.” All standard stuff nowadays.
The next revelation is perhaps a ticking media time bomb: ”In one sequence, a restrained character’s throat is slit (off-screen); in another, players shoot police officers to complete a mission objective. The words ‘f’ and ‘s’ can be heard frequently in the dialogue.”
Nothing went down well as Infinity Ward included the now infamous ‘airport killing spree’ opening level with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 which involved, optionally, gunning down Russian civilians as you played the role of a deep cover US operative.
”If you put the player in front of a choice where they can do good things or bad things, they will do bad things, go dark side - because people think it’s cool to be naughty, they won’t be caught,” said producer Patrick Bach earlier in the year. ”We have to build our experiences so we don’t put the player in experiences where they can do bad things.”
However EA have now officially responded: ”I don’t think you understand the gravity of the situation. For God’s sake, there is a nuke in Paris! Millions of lives are at stake!!”
Battlefield 3 releases on Xbox 360, PS3 and PC October 25th in the US, 28th in EU.
