5. Killing Evil Foreigners In A War
Depressingly, most games in the war genre - all 93 billion of them, approximately 78% of which include "Call of Duty" in the title - are resolutely irony-free, ignoring the ripe potential for some self-satire with regard to the "follow" command that appears above important NPC's heads, instead usually opting for a straight-faced, macho, "America, f**k yeah!" approach, which has become pretty damn tiresome by now. Too often are these games single-minded flag-waving exercises, keen to paint the enemies as the savages who
must die, whereas the allied side are respectful, sharp men we should be proud of. The problem is that it doesn't reflect the soupy moral stew of war, and instead too often feels like the shameful propaganda that our governments would have peddled out many decades ago. In this day and age, is it too much to ask for a little intelligence along with the gun-play, and particularly in the case of Vietnam War games, some questioning our duty, as opposed to the usual clichés of Rolling Stones and Credence Clearwater Revival tracks being included on the soundtrack?