What I do like about SpecOps, though, however lacking in subtlety the narrative as a whole may be, is the combat banter over the course of the game. I love how it goes from milsim, sterile “Tango neutralized.” to psychotic “And stay the f-ck down.” or “Guess you should’ve stayed at home today!” I think this…

Great to hear! You can find my name in the footnotes ;-)

Did you happen to come across Johannes Fehrle’s essay ("Gaming Into the Heart of Darkness", I think) on this by any chance? Same topic, might be worth a look if it's not already on your reading list.

I never said otherwise. If anything, I hope that this security clusterfuck will be the end of his career for good. Public opinion seems to be turning against him, finally.

There hasn’t been an election in Gaza since 2006. What has been there, however, was a civil war in which Hamas drove out Fatah - ever since then (so for the last 16 years), they’ve been ruling over Gaza with force.

Horrible as the occupation is, it does not and will never justify atrocities against civilians. Calling out this whataboutism does not mean I don’t see the injustices of the occupation - I have friends in the West Bank living under it their whole lives and their hopes of any resolution have been wiped away by Hamas’…

I have to concur - call a spade a fucking spade, Kotaku. I’m all here for supporting just causes to alleviate Palestinian civilians’ horrible situation - but never, ever qualify those who committed a callous massacre and publicized their own atrocities for major shock and horror value as a simple “political and…

Epilogue. The word is epilogue.

You forgot the bit where they start screaming about "woke cancel culture".

That person is me! And Black Flag is running quite smoothly, actually, just like all the reviews state. But hey, don’t let that get in the way of your prejudice.

Read before you start insulting people. OP was talking about CP2077, not GTA Remasters.

That’s a major part of what’s wrong with it. It’s essentially the symbol of Japanese imperialism and the racist massacres it entailed. Unlike here in Germany, something akin to Denazification has never happened in Japan. Mind you, “our” Denazification hardly deserved that name - but in the long run, it was effective…

...and that’s where we disagree. We’ve all seen our share of war movies, and even anti-war movies. And we’ve all played our share of war games, but I still think it’s inherently impossible to publish an anti-war video game. As I stated above, games require active participation and input. In a movie, you can show the…

I still think that there is a fundamental difference between war films and war games, the latter being interactive and requiring active user input. A film can make the person watching it uncomfortable, a game always requires its player to keep playing to advance its story - which probably won’t happen if it makes the…

As a European, I simply cannot understand what all the fuss is even about. Thank you for pointing out the hypocrisy at the heart of it all so succinctly, there really isn’t anything left to say.

My son is the same age and I’d just like to share that my experiences, and thoughts, have been remarkably similar a continent away here in Germany.

My brother puked all over my OG Gameboy, circa 1990. Still works.

You are deliberately misconstruing what I’m saying, right?

Because the difference between all of your examples and the one in the article is this: none of your examples can be used to kill. Xbox gamepads now can. There is literally no difference between the gamepad and the weapon.

That’s not what the article suggests at all. The article suggests that the very distinct differences between “pretending to kill in a videogame” and “killing in a real conflict” are being blurred, even down to the ways in which both acts are carried out. And I agree: that is horrifying.