To be fair, GTA games have a cop response mechanic if you just start shooting things up. The Far Cry games do not. Base assault can result in “reinforcements” but only if you don’t silence the alarms. Just tooling around the countryside, firing guns and throwing grenades attracts no attention in Far Cry.
Oh yeah, the games’ frameworks are completely different, didn’t mean to imply otherwise. FC games are basically you vs. pretty much the whole damn place, whereas GTA has the veneer of civilization over the rotten core.
Which is why this is going to be so weird. If you shoot up Kyrat, a fictional Himalyan country taken over by an insane tin-pot dictator during a civil war with drug smugglers and religious extremists, it’s easy to accept why there isn’t a coordinated all-hands-on-deck government effort to stop you. If you shoot up Montana, even away from Helena or Billings, everyone has a phone and can call the police.
I thought we already knew/suspected it was a cordoned-off area? And surely cell phones can be confiscated by the backwards group.
I really, really didn’t want to wade into this again, but I can’t let this inconsistency to recent history stand.
Christian terror groups are real. Look at the Michigan militia. It’s just fortunate most of them have been stopped before they committed mass murder. The Oklahoma City bombing was Christian terror related. They committed the act of terrorism on the 2nd anniversary of the branch Davidian compound being raided.
But I guess they get a pass because “evil government” is thrown in there too. And the Oregan refuge being fortified with thousands of rounds of ammunition, tons of guns, explosives etc… they too were all religiously affiliated with an extreme sect of Mormonism. They are terrorists and if they’d been Islamic terrorists (American Citizens or not) the government would have just raided and probably killed them off. But white Christian extremists get a way longer leash than anybody else.
Even bigger, don’t forget about the IRA. Once again, Christian terrorists. They did way more damage than Islamic terrorists have done in Britain. Similar number killed but they dwarf the number of people injured and the damage caused to the country by way of buildings and infrastructure. For a long tine you couldn’t go a month it seemed without some kind of bombing in England performed by the IRA.
Let’s also not forget the thousand plus people who showed up armed and ready to kill government land bureau members. They used kids and wives as human shields in a hope to draw them into a gun battle. All these people were far right Christian conservatives, many once again within splinter groups of far right Mormonism. Bundy’s called on their church and friends to come armed and ready to die at that confrontation. You don’t have to kill to be a terrorist.
If an army of Muslim Americans showed up and threatened the government with armed force you can be sure they’d be labeled as terrorists. If you’re a white Christian you’re given a leash so long you have to strangle yourself with it to be called out, and then sadly sometimes they’re even let off with time served.
Yes, this was the objection I mentioned early on above.
Actually, the evidence is not clear cut. McVeigh was raised as a Catholic but at times described himself as believing in God, not believing in God but science, or called himself an agnostic. So who knows what he really believed. It’s possible he wasn’t even sure.
From McVeigh’s biographer:
Question: Does McVeigh have any spiritual-religious beliefs?
Lou Michel: McVeigh is agnostic. He doesn’t believe in God, but he won’t rule out the possibility. I asked him, “What if there is a heaven and hell?”
He said that once he crosses over the line from life to death, if there is something on the other side, he will – and this is using his military jargon – “adapt, improvise, and overcome.” Death to him is all part of the adventure.
He might have been crazy.
@Mike_Cathcart just reminded me of something that has completely set my mind at ease about this project:
I think we’re in good hands.
Your statement is literally the first time I have seen anyone try to associate the OKC bombing with “Christian terror.” Terrorism has a point, and nobody used that occasion to make a political point about Christianity. But then I never associated the Branch Davidians with Christianity, either. Once you claim to be the savior and start assembling a harem of other men’s wives, I think your doctrine is unsound, to say the least.
McVeigh’s own reaction to his one authorized biography was that “there was a superficial treatment of his motive.”(CNN.com - McVeigh 'pleased' yet 'disappointed' with book - April 5, 2001) That said, McVeigh did indicate that Waco was a factor, and I saw someone the other day claim that the OKC bombing was a message to the government that there would be “no more free Wacos,” so there is probably some sort of connection. Not convinced it’s the Christian faith, though.
In other news, April 20 was both Hitler’s birthday and the day of the Columbine shootings . . . connection? I kid. Mostly.
Far Cry is known for being set in “remote” tropical locations that are supposed to be “other-worldly” in a way, so it makes sense that being set in the USA feels very different and fresh for the series.
I think the Columbine shooters (or the Alpha one, anyway) specifically mentioned April 20th being Hitler’s birthday as the reason for picking that date for their attack (in the stuff found thereafter).
No, the decades since any major “Christian” fundamentalist group doing any significant damage in the US, plus their very low risk and danger to those of us who aren’t paranoid, is precisely what allows Ubisoft to approach a sensitive subject like this. It’s why TV and movie plot lines still use Russians, an enemy from decades ago but still somewhat plausible, instead of Islamic terrorists. It’s too soon.
Again, their use as antagonists in a mainstream videogame proves how little threat they pose these days. It’s now an acceptable fantasy for a fantasy videogame.
Setting aside, the main detail I want to know is if Clink Hocking is involved or has been working on Far Cry 5. If that is confirmed I will pre-order the moment I find out.
I’ve been re-listening to a podcast where Steve Gaynor interviewed Clint Hocking which is quite interesting.
[details=Summary]Timestamps:
0:00:00 - introduction
0:01:35 - getting started at Ubi
0:08:11 - impressive tech of Splinter Cell
0:09:45 - traversal animations / a character who physically connected to the world
0:11:08 - Steve Gaynor: the first level design experience using Splinter Cell editor
0:14:17 - sit down at my desk and work for 14-16 hours… feeling awesome
0:16:35 - at alpha the lead game designer left the project, at beta the script writer left
0:18:47 - I cut my own level
0:20:00 - levels made by Clint
0:21:39 - shepherding a lot of stuff
0:22:58 - the core of the team vanished
0:25:15 - CT pre production
0:26:27 - writing for Tom Clancy licence
0:27:12 - Navy Seal improved Cargo Ship mission
0:28:20 - characters and playfulness between them
0:29:31 - I’ve only played Pandora Tomorrow once / Patrick Redding
0:30:55 - relationship between Sam and Grim
0:32:25 - Sam’s dark sense of humor
0:33:32 - a ‘funny’ story about interrogations
0:37:31 - Steve Gaynor: Gone Home creepy attic SPOILERS!
0:39:32 - Chaos Theory release date slips
0:41:35 - E3
0:45:03 - ridiculous animation of switching weapon’s attachments
0:46:48 - big changes in Splinter Cell philosophy / no game overs
0:49:45 - all interactions must be as systemic as possible
0:52:25 - GDC talks
0:58:41 - Far Cry 2 / I don’t want to make another Splinter Cell, I won’t make a better one
1:04:07 - choosing the setting: from Mars to The Arctic
1:05:31 - Steve Gaynor: mundane/magic of Dunya engine
1:07:23 - early prototypes: trees, wind, fire
1:10:23 - making sure everything is simulated
1:12:37 - Steve Gaynor: downtime in open world games
1:14:24 - Steve Gaynor: Far Cry 2 is nihilistic
1:15:11 - Far Cry 2 is kinda hopeful
1:17:10 - The Jackal
1:18:34 - Steve Gaynor: awful quests from awful people
1:20:02 - the game is too dark
1:22:05 - finished the game for the first time… on Infamous
1:23:37 - the game is unforgiving / weapons degradation
1:25:47 - the majority of people who gave up did so within the first hour
1:27:36 - weapons jams and improvisation
1:30:37 - buddy system design
1:36:11 - unique arms and legs
1:37:20 - minimum number of buddies
1:39:32 - Steve Gaynor: highly systemic, highly emergent, highly surprising game
1:41:24 - GTA3
1:43:00 - people still care about Far Cry 2
1:47:00 - pet zebras / simulation of animals[/details]
I think the other thing is that nobody except the most radical atheists are going to say that these types of groups are stand in’s for Christianity as a whole. But if you were to create a game about a radical jihadi group in America, Muslims would react very sensitively and some would use this against all Muslims ins some way.
I’d just like to say I hate it when people whitewash history. Most of what ISIS knows they learned from the IRA and insinuating there is no comparable Christian terrorist organization has got to be insulting to all those who died or were wounded.
Got it. Muslims were harmless until 1969. Someone tell Vienna to quit making shit up about 1683.
[quote=“jpinard, post:156, topic:129895, full:true”]
I’d just like to say I hate it when people whitewash history. Most of what ISIS knows they learned from the IRA.[/quote]
Who’s whitewashing history? No one has claimed Christianity is innocent of religious violence.
I just like to say I hate it when people conflate religious violence in Northern Ireland with the same in the US, as if it is relevant in any way to a game set in the US.
We’ve been talking about the US, not the entire world.
One of my friends is a writer on this, and knowing him, he’s probably cackling about the dustup this has caused. But at the same time, since he’s a writer, he’s probably all nervous and wracked with worry about how the reception will be once it’s out.
If the IRA were still going and someone in Britain made a game about killing them off, I believe they would have gotten the Charlie Hebdo treatment.
And when you look at the Internet and the constant stream of violent threats and actual actions towards people of minority status and religion from Trump supporters - is that not a form of terror?