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Call of Duty Would Like to Remind You That PMCs Are Still Probably Evil

Kevin Spacey answers to no government, you got that?!?!!

Jul. 29 2014

Posted by: Jeff

86 Comments

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karmaghost

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Edited By karmaghost

"Ideas don't determine who's right, power determines who's right..."

Alright Virtua Stacey, I'm with you. I see what you're alluding to.

"...and I have the power..."

Wait, what are you do--

"...so I'm right."

I'm out.

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budgietheii

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@newjack said:

...so the twist is going to be that Atlas blew up the reactors right?

I'd almost put money on it.

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AssInAss

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@john1912 said:

Man Spacey's lip sync, and facial animation sucks ass! Otherwise, interesting I guess. Last 3 CoD games couldnt get any of my interest. This has a little at least.

It's funny, nearly every single CoD has this kind of comment that previous games didn't interest them but the upcoming one does. Every time. Just an observation :P

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moondogg

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Just once make the pmc the good guy. Just once. 'Oh we were fighting and shit and then it turned out they were right'. That would really get my interest.

Game looks like it could be fun.

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korwin

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So does Troy Baker fight Kevin Space to the death in a knife fight on top of a giant super drone at the end of this game?

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Spiritof

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If you can get Kevin Spacey's Social Link up to Level 9 he gets nose bleeds in multiplayer.

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revpeters

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Edited By revpeters

never wanted to play a CoD game until now...

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Cerebus

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Nice

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deactivated-57d3a53d23027

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They made Personas and they run a mercenary company!

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SpicyRichter

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So metal gear solid meets the matrix robots?

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John1912

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Man Spacey's lip sync, and facial animation sucks ass! Otherwise, interesting I guess. Last 3 CoD games couldnt get any of my interest. This has a little at least.

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Blackout62

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Edited By Blackout62

Oh dear, someone at Sledgehammer finally played Bioshock. We're going to be inundated with lazy Atlas Shrugged references.

Also Spacey's monolgue is terribly written.

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kinnonyee

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With the design of those tanks, it sure looks like ATLUS has their hands all over this one :)

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sephirm87

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@sephirm87 said:

PMCs are no more or less evil than any other military organization, government or not.

Of course not. There's no such thing as an "evil" nation, either. However, for the reasons I listed above (lack of transparency, lack of oversight, lack of standards with regards to hiring, profiteering from conflict) PMCs often appeal to the worst kinds of people -- those who want to fight wars because they want to kill people. (In most professional militarys, if a potential recruit told the Recruitment Officer that they want to "kill people", they'd be referred to a mental health professional and forbidden from joining the armed forces).

Blackwater is (or was) the most notorious PMC whose operators perpetuated what basically amounted to war crimes, but they're not the only ones. "Erinys" (a British PMC) was sited has being involved in several incidents in Iraq where their operators used disproportionate amount of force. Agents employed by the "Custer Battles" PMC (based in the US) went on a joyride in Iraq in 2004, shooting at civilian vehicles and officers at an Iraq police checkpoint before being detained by British military. Contractors for Britain's "Aegis" PMC have videotaped themselves shooting at (and wounding and killing the drivers of) random civilian cars on one of Iraq's main highways while blasting Guns & Roses from their radios. Peruvian PMC "Defion Internacional" has been rumored to hire former Shining Path terrorists into their ranks.

In short, having the head of a PMC being the major villain in a video game doesn't require a whole lot of imagination.

At least PMCs are honest about their motives. We also don't tend to forgive PMCs for war crimes for nationalistic reasons. The marine corp does this kind of stuff all the time, but nobody reports on it because they don't want to be "unpatriotic." People in the military just kill people because some lawyer in DC (who only got to their positions of power because they were able to convince people they liked Jesus more than their opponent, or promised a bigger payout) told them to.

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extintor

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I continue to be confused about just how enthusiastic I am for this game. I thought I was done with CoD.... but perhaps not it seems.

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mr_creeper

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Edited By mr_creeper

The power suits might make multiplayer worth getting back into. Shit got stale.

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Dberg

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Edited By Dberg

Kevin Spacey better be playing the video game with Kevin Spacey in it in the next season of House of Cards.

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GunsAreDrawn

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I don't know what you guys expect from a story but Call of Duty always wants to stay relevant and right now we have two things: Drones and PMC's, and since they already did drones 2 years ago I think it makes sense that they would go this way. It's not like the PMC story has been done to death, I can only think of 2 Metal Gear games and Mass Effect (which this is starting to look more and more like, including Kevin Spacey Illusive Man).

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Corvak

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Most shooters being 'about America' is pretty much because the majority of people who buy shooters are American. Same goes for action movies, they feel it's an easy way to get the audience to identify with the characters.

PMCs offer a very easy way for writers to avoid painting another nation (potentially full of video game buyers) as 'evil'. And putting the good guys in a PMC offers similar creative freedom, as they aren't limited to real world constraints, which is one reason Metal Gear can be so crazy with its plots.

That said, if Call of Duty was 100% trope free, would it still be Call of Duty? Either way, Advanced Warfare seems like it'll be one of the best ones in years, so i'll actually pick it up.

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NTM

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Edited By NTM

@aeonfell: I have, but most shooters are about America most of the time, not just Call of Duty. I liked what they did in the Modern Warfare games, with Price, Soap, and who have you. I'm American, but I like when there's more nationalities working together.

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ames

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@dutchelvis92: that's because real PMCs are boring, and not at all scary. There is only one instance of PMCs being hired by non-states, and that's anti-piracy PMCs who are hired by shipping companies. In every other instance they are just hired and contracted to do boring manual work around government stuff.

PMCs will never be as effective or as big as national militaries, because PMCs need to make a profit. Government militaries dont.

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Aeonfell

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Edited By Aeonfell

@ntm:

Did... did you not play any CoD ever? Brits have clearly been the coolest.

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kubqo

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Maaaaan! I would be so stoked about this if it did not have "Call of Duyt" in the name.

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Architecture

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EquitasInvictus

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War never has Kevin Spacey.

War has Kevin Spacey.

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mackgyver

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Trailer looks pretty good.

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Edited By CrimsonNoir
@giantstalker said:

Game looks good, but... I find it's funny how PMCs are "evil" and now the go-to villain for so many franchises these days. In the vast majority of these companies 95% of these guys just stand around guarding shit, the other 5% drive them there and back.

Within national militaries, because they're held "accountable," there's a much bigger incentive to hide or cover up anything incriminating if possible. If they can't, then they can spin doctor it so that something or someone else gets blamed.

But whatever, Cold War's over and Russia's on our side now right guys?

PMCs have a greater incentive than militaries to cover up because they'll lose billions of dollars. A national military will either prosecute or lay the responsibility on the person in charge of an incident to distance themselves from whatever took place. There's a reason why PMCs are seen as evil, like when they threatened a US State Department investigator in Baghdad.

http://news.yahoo.com/blackwater-threatened-kill-us-investigator-iraq-report-070024512.html

And the investigator was only investigating their performance. This is before Blackwater killed those 17 civilians.

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Edited By Elwoodan

That 3 second MP clip showed a dude jump pretty high, so there's that.

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NTM

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Alright so this seems to be the answer to fixing the whole America being center of it all theme that goes on or whatever you want to call it. I just hope it's American's and other nationalities together, kind of like the older Rainbow Six games. It'd be cool to have a British, Scottish, Spanish, etc. person to have alongside you or play as instead of a bunch of American's going with you with.

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AdequatelyPrepared

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Is this game CoD:MW:MGS4?

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Edited By skuupin

Spacey's eyes in that last shot... so blank... so robotic. Is the actual twist that this PMC is run by androids out to destroy humanity? Cause I could get behind that, rather than this false flag terrorist stuff.

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PMCs are no more or less evil than any other military organization, government or not.

Of course not. There's no such thing as an "evil" nation, either. However, for the reasons I listed above (lack of transparency, lack of oversight, lack of standards with regards to hiring, profiteering from conflict) PMCs often appeal to the worst kinds of people -- those who want to fight wars because they want to kill people. (In most professional militarys, if a potential recruit told the Recruitment Officer that they want to "kill people", they'd be referred to a mental health professional and forbidden from joining the armed forces).

Blackwater is (or was) the most notorious PMC whose operators perpetuated what basically amounted to war crimes, but they're not the only ones. "Erinys" (a British PMC) was sited has being involved in several incidents in Iraq where their operators used disproportionate amount of force. Agents employed by the "Custer Battles" PMC (based in the US) went on a joyride in Iraq in 2004, shooting at civilian vehicles and officers at an Iraq police checkpoint before being detained by British military. Contractors for Britain's "Aegis" PMC have videotaped themselves shooting at (and wounding and killing the drivers of) random civilian cars on one of Iraq's main highways while blasting Guns & Roses from their radios. Peruvian PMC "Defion Internacional" has been rumored to hire former Shining Path terrorists into their ranks.

In short, having the head of a PMC being the major villain in a video game doesn't require a whole lot of imagination.

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white

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War has changed.

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face15

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I'm glad to see that Virtua Spacey still looks janky as fuck.

I haven't played a Call of Duty game since Black Ops 1, but this is looking really interesting. I might end up playing this one.

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I'm not a massive fan of COD but damn if this doesn't look pretty.

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This actually looks awesome.

Of course, every CoD will look awesome compared to the turd sandwich that was CoD: Ghosts

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Edited By IcyEyes

If only real people were as honest as fake villains, but less cringe worthy.

@sephirm87 said:

PMCs are no more or less evil than any other military organization, government or not.

I don't know, man. Blackwater firing into a crowd in Baghdad and killing 20 civilians is pretty messed up. Not saying actual military haven't done terrible things but they're typically thought to be kept more in check.

Imagine how horrible it would be if an organization was put in charge of your entire way of life, forcing you to use their services... Wait a sec. Isn't that what a government is?!

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Mister_Snig

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Looks like all that sex paid off.

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Giantstalker

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Game looks good, but... I find it's funny how PMCs are "evil" and now the go-to villain for so many franchises these days. In the vast majority of these companies 95% of these guys just stand around guarding shit, the other 5% drive them there and back.

Within national militaries, because they're held "accountable," there's a much bigger incentive to hide or cover up anything incriminating if possible. If they can't, then they can spin doctor it so that something or someone else gets blamed.

But whatever, Cold War's over and Russia's on our side now right guys?

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MariachiMacabre

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PMCs are no more or less evil than any other military organization, government or not.

I don't know, man. Blackwater firing into a crowd in Baghdad and killing 20 civilians is pretty messed up. Not saying actual military haven't done terrible things but they're typically thought to be kept more in check.

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gektech

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hmm is the atlas name a dig at respawn .

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sephirm87

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PMCs are no more or less evil than any other military organization, government or not.

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katsu044

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Edited By katsu044

What is the world coming to i'm actually looking forward to a call of duty game!?

that and i love anything pmc related thanks to MGS

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Humanity

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Say what you will but the tech in this game looks cool as hell.

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deactivated-62a216db3532b

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@newjack: Probably, a better twist would be that the PMC isn't actually evil. Just that the CEO is a bit of a douchebag but then this game wouldn't have a heel.

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dasakamov

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Expectations of the CoD campaign:

A.I. Fellow Warrior: "Hey, shoot here, here" ... "Hey, shoot here, here" ... "Hey, shoot here, here" ... "Hey, shoot here, here" ... "Hey, shoot here, here"

Player: *shoots*

A.I. Fellow Warrior: "Well done, now let me block your pathway to give you some exposition"

So you're saying your fellow soldiers are Navi from "Ocarina of Time"?

That would be AMAZING. :D