Excessive swearing in Videogames

Let’s just start this blog post by informing you all that I consider my self an avid swearer, and that I have no problem with swearing in normal day to day conversations. This blog post will most likely also contains some swears.

The reason why I’m writing this is because during my recent play through of the campaign for MOH I was really struck by the amount of swearing in it. Because holy ball there is a lot of ‘Fuck’ and ‘Shit’ in that game. And considering that the campaign is only about a long afternoon to play through, the writers over at Danger Close deserve a smack on the mouth!

And I have to mention this is not the first game I have played where this has bothered me. Mafia 2 comes to mind (though I never finished it, due to the fact that I hated driving from mission to mission in what is a completely linear game) and Kane and Lynch. And I wonder to my self why in fucking hell the developers behind these games are doing this.  

First theory: It makes sense for the characters; NO! That argument is bullshit! Let’s stick to MOH for this one. There is a well known fact that members of the armed forces aren’t the cleanest of tongue, but god-fucking-damn-it MOH contains just to fucking much! I myself served for one year in the Norwegian Army. And yes the language of me and my fellow soldiers was horrible, but never close to the level of the characters in MOH.

I also asked my brother in law about this, who served in the special forces and was stationed in Kabul for six months, and he also was blown away by the amount of ‘Fuck’ and ‘Shit’ in this game. So please EA and Danger Close stop making the smack talk between soldiers into the dialogue you use to carry the story, soldiers smack talk to pass the time and to establish dominance, not for actual discussions or to share important information between each other.

Second Theory: Shock value; Well stop it! Do it through themes and actual content not by using language your grandmother finds inappropriate! Modern Warfare 2 comes to mind, even though it was handed a bit ham-fisted! (Airport Level)  

Third Theory: It’s to make the character seem more mature; well that is just dumb, excessive swearing is more juvenile than mature. Mass Effect 2 is one of most mature games I’ve played and you can count all the games ‘Fucks’ one your hands, all placed beautifully within the dialogue. To summarize the juvenile thing, the soldiers and airmen in MOH sound more like me when I was in school and was 15, not when I was in the army!    

At the end I have one final gripe, and that one is with the English language itself. Why only ‘Fuck’ and ‘Shit’? Why not use others swears? Is there too much to ask that a character scream out ‘Cunt’ at the top of his lungs when he gets pissed or whatever? That’s what I do, though I scream ‘Fitte’ since my first language is Norwegian.

So hey next time EA, make the Bioware guys go over Danger Closes script for their next game, those guys know how to place F-bombs the right way.        

Monkeys make everything better! Perriod!