Crosseyed NEWS

The controversy over gamers being able to play as the Taliban has caused moms and Senators to hit the evening spin shows.
The game is now banned on 49 U.S. military bases.

The controversy surrounding Medal of Honor's inclusion of Taliban soldiers as playable characters "surprised" EA CEO John Riccitiello.

He said that the controversy "kind of caught me by surprise... There's always the other side - the good guys and bad guys, the cops and robbers."

In a NowGamer interview, Executive Producer Greg Goodrich explained, "Medal of Honor has always been rooted in authenticity, but it’s a historical fiction – so it’s fictional characters in a historical event. Even though we weren’t World War II we still wanted to hold true to those tenets. We really tried to find the narrative and telling these guys stories from their point of view, but they’re not literal recreations of these events – it’s all ‘inspired by’ and amalgams of different things."

"There was never any plan or any ideas ever to just do some fictional account of something in terms of a conflict," Goodrich continued, "But again, that being said, it’s not about that conflict; it’s not about the war in Afghanistan; it’s not about al-Qaeda; it’s not about the Taliban. This story is about a group of individuals in a fight that are going through an experience together."

In the long run it's a game. We play as Aliens, Germans, Italians, the Mafia, there's even an old NES game where General Custer ties up an Indian maiden and has is way with her. Where's the out cry over those?

The only conclusion I see is that the pain of War is too fresh and many families. Too many have lost loved ones and many more are making it on their own while their family member is away. We need the Taliban to be a thing of the past before we can consider it an acceptable "Historical Fiction"

The game is released on October 15, 2010.