Danes Use a Little Reason to Douse Medal of Honor Hysterics

GamePolitics reader Dante pointed us towards a short Finnish recounting (translated) of an article from a Danish newspaper, which appeared to indicate that the Medal of Honor “scare” started by Fox News, and perpetuated by UK Defense Secretary Liam Fox, had spread to Denmark.

In a pair of articles published on the Danish website MetroXpress, while the game did come under some criticism—it was described as “disrespectful” to soldiers from that country who served in Afghanistan—reasoning that Medal of Honor is just a game took over after a tersely worded introduction.

In the first article, a soldier named Carl Bratved said about the game, “We're actually at war, and I would fear that young people will not see the seriousness of that Danish soldiers lose their lives if they kill five NATO troopers every time they play computer game."

The ability to play as the Taliban also had Danish Defense Minister Gitte Lillelund Bech scratching his head, as he stated "I think the game seems tasteless, and I can understand veteran home concern, as this course is a conflict that has not yet been completed.”

He cautioned against overreaction though, adding:

But it is not something we should legislate on, and I actually trust that Danish youth may well distinguish between what is right and wrong.

Another piece published on the same website a little later asked a 20-year old Danish soldier for his take on Medal of Honor. The soldier, codenamed “Jacob” for the article, is a member of a unit currently stationed in Afghansitan.

Noting that games such as Counter-Strike are “often played” by soldiers in their base, “Jacob” said, “It sounds like any other computer game where you can be Nazi or Communist. This here is just an Afghanistan scenario.”

He continued, “I do not really understand that people think the game is tasteless.”

An Assistant Professor at Copenhagen University named Anne Mette Thorhauge, who was also billed as an “expert” in computer games, was also open-minded about the game:

Of course there is nothing wrong with wanting it. So one should know also prohibit people wanting to watch movies on the base or the like. On the contrary, I actually think it is good that you can now play a computer game where everything is not just being seen by Americans' perspective.

Mette Thorhauge added that, in the game you’re not actually killing NATO soldiers, but pixels.

She also thought that the game could actually be “tactically fun and challenging” for soldiers to play, stating, “I will then not exclude that some soldiers could use the game to relive the scenarios they have experienced in reality.”


Note: No online translators seemed to like translating whole pages of the MetroXpress website. But if you plug the text into Google translate a bit at a time, it works fine.