GRAW 2 being pulled from Mexican retailers
According to a Spanish newspaper called El Diario, the Governor of the Mexican state of Chihuahua is demanding all copies of GRAW 2 be pulled from retailer's shelves. The Governor's knee jerk reaction to the game seems to be coming from the city of Juarez's mayor who has openly criticized GRAW 2's content calling it "a crime against the intellectual capacity of Juarez residents". And if you don't know, GRAW 2's storyline does deal with Mexican rebels and US forces duking it out on the US / Mexican border ... something the Mexican government obviously doesn't like. What do you think, silly government officials on their soap box or something to be really concerned about?[Via GamePolitics]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Juarez are they serious? @ Mar 23rd 2007 5:36PM
Juarez? Where women are an endangered species? They think GRAW 2 is what is making there city look like a cess pool of crime and corruption?
wako @ Mar 23rd 2007 5:38PM
BLAME CANADA!!!!
Their the ones that made GRAW 2 anyways ;)
Saccia @ Mar 23rd 2007 5:44PM
Where's the post from some Mexican fanboy complaining that they can't get GRAW 2 content in Mexico and how it's all Microsoft's fault somehow?
mike @ Mar 23rd 2007 5:47PM
Canada makes the games, but with a US market in mind (who they are gonna be selling the most copies too)
So any complaints should be directed towards the american audiance who wants this sort of stuff.
gamingitup @ Mar 23rd 2007 6:10PM
Just Mexico, no biggie.
Ciaran Gallagher @ Mar 23rd 2007 6:11PM
I agree with the game being pulled. If I were Mexican, I would not enjoy a game in which the storyline involved US forces coming in and killing people.
It's like a Catholic in N.Ireland playing a game where you are the British and you re-enact Bloody Sunday. That was an event that actually happened, this storyline hasn't but the game gives across the message that in real-life, it's OK to go and kill people probably for no reason - which is wrong.
You cannot justify war for any reason, and if its in a video game, you have to make sure that its all for fun.
Games should never give across the message that war and conflict is OK. It's not!
GGabriel @ Mar 23rd 2007 6:13PM
corruption are the name of the mexican and most all goverment...
all the killins from the drougs lords and they think that is bad for Juarez.
LOL...
by the way i am Mexican and tire of Goverment B### S###.
Peace
Ciaran Gallagher @ Mar 23rd 2007 6:13PM
...In fact for some people, it'll put them under the impression that the real-life version of GRAW is a lot of fun. (and it's not, unless your pyscho)
Rubbinz @ Mar 23rd 2007 6:30PM
Well, looks like he's solidified his place as moron of the year. Maybe if he actually played the game he would realize that in the GAME you are their fighting side-by-side with the Mexican Army. Fully authorized and requested by the Mexican President. Maybe, he has something against his Government, and is in fact an aspiring rebel looking to nuke the States and destroying his own country.
chops @ Mar 23rd 2007 6:32PM
2. BLAME CANADA!!!!
Their the ones that made GRAW 2 anyways ;)
nope! ubisoft paris made it,
wako @ Mar 23rd 2007 6:46PM
@Mike - reply 4
That is a dumb reason to blame americans. Americans never asked to be fighting Mexican rebels. The developers were the ones that chose the opponents for the US Forces.
@Ciaran Gallagher
Going by what you are saying then, my god a lot of Middle Eastern people should be furious too for the past 10 years then. Oh wait, their not because they realize it is just a game....
Is Jack Thompson your hero?
wako @ Mar 23rd 2007 6:50PM
Oh, and if some of you guys really are offended by this, in the 90s, how come none of you guys said anything about the Russians getting slaughtered in games? Or in the turn of the century, why didnt anyone say anything about the Middle Eastern people? Suddenly Mexicans are in our virtual crosshairs and oh my god what a terrible crime.
fez carlson @ Mar 23rd 2007 6:55PM
please, give me an f-ing break! it's a damn game(a damn fine one at that), lighten up people. & get upset about reality, thats where it's really f'ed up.
NitroFrost @ Mar 23rd 2007 7:15PM
WAKO!!!! UR AWSOME!
" Is Jack Thompson your hero? " PRICELESS.
You are one of the only people commenting on this with any cents.
and for Ciaran Gallagher
Any Jewish people out there cuz this guy must think that killing Hitler and his NAZIS was WRONG!.
Nick @ Mar 23rd 2007 7:26PM
It's a freaking work of fiction...
ryanrobot @ Mar 23rd 2007 7:28PM
Ridiculous.
I've played through the GRAW2 campaign a number of times. Not once did the game make me feel any prejudice towards the city of Juarez - let alone the country of Mexico. The Ghosts fight along with loyal Mexican soldiers in several missions - covering each others backs on both sides of the border against the rebels. One of the games cut-scenes shows a broken and beaten Juarez after battle. The loyal Mexican soldiers and the Ghosts express compassion for the town and what happened there. Unless the mayor of Juarez is concerned about protecting the integrity of rogue mexican rebels - I think this is all a bunch of political mumbo-jumbo. Infact, I'd bet Juarez Mayor Héctor Murguía Lardizábal and El Diario have some sort of political agenda for the game's seizure. I really doubt the kids I've played MP games against are making any kind of judgments regarding Juarez and the intellectual capacity of its residents.
Bad press is always press - the attention will boost sales. Congrats Ubi!
rinks @ Mar 23rd 2007 8:03PM
Oh, who cares, Mexico. Throughout my video game career I've declared war on countless nations, assassinated hundreds of public officials, and killed literally thousands of innocent civilians. The ramifications of this in the real world are exactly zero.
May as well declare a "War on Fiction".
Matthew Mac @ Mar 23rd 2007 8:15PM
@Ciaran Gallagher
Seriously? Two of the latest Tom Clancy games have taken place in the US fighting (and killing) US citizens. Yet I'm not a big pussy about it. I enjoyed it, cause it was a game. Wow, I'm floored by not only the Mexican gov being stupid, but posters on here as well.
Sometimes War is the Answer @ Mar 23rd 2007 9:13PM
Ciaran Gallagher, it must be nice living in your naive little fantasy world. You've got to be kidding me!
Check this out:
"having the bumper sticker 'War Is Not The Answer' on your car means it's only being seen by a part of the world's population. The rest of the world, like say people in the Middle East (just to pick a place) aren't seeing it and therefore, they don't get the message. For a large percentage of people outside of the US, War Is The Answer. Therefore, War Has To Be The Answer For Us Too because the only way to stop war is by going to war to end the war. Now examples abound of how war HAS BEEN the answer and how war MIGHT YET STILL BE the answer. Let's say you were in line to get smoked in a gas chamber somewhere near Birkenau in 1945. And then suddenly, in through the camp gates rolls an American Sherman tank. I've got a C note that says you'd be happy to see the guys in it. Well, that's what happened. War was the answer for those poor devils"
http://herbsewell.blogspot.com/2007/01/war-is-not-answer.html
James @ Mar 23rd 2007 9:24PM
The question is,... would you still play GRAW2 if the single player campaign put you in the role of a Mexican soldier killing Americans?
T Ghost @ Mar 23rd 2007 9:26PM
better change the sticker for:
war FOR OIL is not the answer!
War on terrorism is b.s., is the substitute for the cold war so some people can get richer and more powerfull on their belic businesses and armed forces supplies.
All staged by the same ones that claim that their people were cowardly attacked by terrorists.
And the ignorant Joe People falls for it.
Again...
Sad World.
stewie @ Mar 23rd 2007 9:34PM
New game for the xbox 360,its about crashing a plane into the twin towers. Will USA get mad?
Boff @ Mar 23rd 2007 9:42PM
@20 Yeah I'd play any game as anyone killing anyone. If it was an alien wiping out all of humankind to extinction of course I'd play it if it was fun!
I'm in it for the gameplay.
a2yroldboy @ Mar 23rd 2007 9:58PM
one word::::: WAAAAAAAAA!
BluesmanTLU @ Mar 23rd 2007 11:06PM
People are drawing all kind of analogies to potential games where you're killing U.S. citizens, but they're completely misapplying them.
GRAW 2 has you killing Mexican rebels, not Mexican citizens or the legitimate (I use the term loosely) Mexican military. A similar game set in the U.S., then, would have you as a foreign operative working with the "U.S. military" to defeat a terrorist group run by U.S. rebels. That game, of course, would probably not be considered offensive by anyone here in the U.S. not named Jack Thompson.
The only thing offensive about GRAW 2 from a Mexican perspective should be the fact that it portrays the country (and the city of Juarez in particular) as a place where something like this COULD happen. Nothing more, nothing less.
This, by the way, sounds suspiciously like something that Ubisoft did with the city of Las Vegas. Las Vegas, by the way, is actually in the United States. And the mayor of Vegas also complained. But it wasn't because you're killing (mostly) white people; it's because his city was portrayed as "unsafe."
3cubedminus3squared @ Mar 23rd 2007 11:14PM
Yeah I'm Mexican and I bought this game. It really isn't bad as some people said before your fighting rebels not citizens. You even get some Mexicans in your squad. I stopped playing it though because it was kind of slow and the whole team based tactics crap just didn't suit me.
wako @ Mar 23rd 2007 11:30PM
@22
You're an idiot. You are comparing oranges to apples. GRAW 2 is not taking ANYTHING that is publicly sensitive to the mexicans and making it into a game.
#25 brings up a good point. Half of the arguments on here are totally retarded. If you knew about the game you would know the game is about killing Mexican rebels. Yet people are bring up counter-arguments of killing US citizens? Rebels and Citizens are totally different.
If Mexico came into the states and started killing US rebels that were going for a revolution by disrupting US and Mexico relations, I would be rooting for Mexico.
michiyoyoshiku @ Mar 23rd 2007 11:31PM
It's as if they want the game to come true
T Ghost @ Mar 24th 2007 12:31AM
#27 said it all perfectly.
Kudos for you.
pipe @ Mar 24th 2007 1:08AM
if Mexico wasn't run by corruption and drugs, not to mention that Juarez is one of the worst in all of Mexico, then maybe those missions wouldn't be in the game. developers of games of this genre don't have ideas pop out of their ass's.
oh and the that one retard earlier saying war is not the answer, though i am not justifying that war is in any way or from ok but, FREEDOM COMES WITH THE HIGHEST OF COSTS. i'll give you three guesses to figure that one.
oh, and just to put it out there, i'm Mexican
vadermaggot @ Mar 24th 2007 3:19AM
nuke 'em.
foxdie @ Mar 24th 2007 5:12AM
i dont know how they do things down in Juarez, but up here we got a little thing called pride
Shama Edward Banks Jr. @ Mar 24th 2007 10:10AM
Games and movies have real world implications. other country's do not have freedom of speech, or freedom of ideas even if it is fiction. Look at all the movies in the 70's and 80's that portrayed Arabs as idiots, if you think those movies didn't affect how Arabs feel about Americans you are ignoring the truth.
wkcr @ Mar 24th 2007 12:00PM
Ciaran Gallagher : "You cannot justify war for any reason..."
Actually you can! War is often the best and only way of solving certain problems!
"George Bush takes no shit from terrorists!"
Go George! ^^
Kade Storm @ Mar 24th 2007 9:07PM
Yeah, go George - make MORE theocracies, and vindicate more terrorist causes while attacking utterly useless hotspots. Some of you are fucking idiots for being this naive, and probably belong in GRAW.
As for the topic - F*N STUPID! It's a game, damn it; get over the idea. Fiction, people, fiction! Politicians are whining about a game, when they and the people could spend their time, addressing the ignorance of the boneheads in this thread who seem to think that their God - Bush, is actually fighting a straight-edge war against terrorism (FUCKING-HELL-NO!). Seriously, instead of banning GRAW 2, or whining about political correctness, change the slogan, "In God We Trust" to something more fittin like, "In Bush we invest -blind- faith!"
Idiots! Both sides of the friggin' spectrum - full of idiots!
Shadow @ Mar 25th 2007 1:25AM
Huh, its not like you're fighting the Mexican citizens or Mexican Army. Its just a Mexican insurgent (terrorist) group, right? That takes place in Mexico. You're saving Mexico, the Mexican president and the Mexican public from the terrorists, whats so bad about that?
Anyway, you don't see Germany complaining about the 100+ games where you kill Germans.
GhostDoggy @ Mar 25th 2007 9:12AM
Am I the only one that thinks GRAW2 actually makes Mexicans look good in battle? I guess they were a little too silly to notice that.
Now, had we sent on Clowns Laughing At Weaklings (CLAW) then I could see why they would be upset.
cfsage @ Mar 26th 2007 11:20AM
Mexico has been very happy to take part in killing Japanese, Koreans, Germans, etc. on their systems, but shoot a Mexican, oh no, can't have that, thats just too wrong. This is pretty hypocritical of the people calling the shots in Mexico.
José Carlos Aguirre @ Apr 25th 2007 11:29PM
Hey!! I'm a Mexican and I don't care if the storyline is about killing mexicans... It just reflects the ignorance (and may be stupidity) of the guys making it... The most important thing is that I don't think that (at least most of the people) playing it actually think they're killing mexicans, I mean, if someone is that stupid it's not the game's fault... there are way more important things for everyone (incluiding politicians) to take care of.