Medal of Honor will allow players to be the good guys and the bad guys. If you are playing the bad guys, then you get the opportunity to pretend that you are a Taliban fighter killing American soldiers in Afghanistan.
The families left by those who died in the real-life combat did not like this part of the game’s features.
“I don’t see how shooting soldiers based on real Americans is entertainment while people are dying every day for this country. How can they say it’s OK for someone to play the Taliban? You’ll have people sitting at home, drinking beer, shooting at American soldiers, maybe missing, then starting over. Well, Ken didn’t have a chance to start over,” said Karen Meredith, the mother of Lieutenant Ken Ballard who died in the field last 2004.
The commander of the Army & Air Force Exchange, Major General Bruce Casella, said that the game was pulled out of sensitivity concerns for soldiers, airmen and their families around the world.
British Defense Secretary Liam Fox also asked British retailers not to sell the game.
EA meanwhile said that the video games are just another form of art like movies and books. They said that it is not fair that films and books did not get the same attention as video games. The film The Hurt Locker was cited as an example. The film actually won several awards including Best Picture at the Academy Awards early this year.
The game is due for release on October 12.
