Jim. I miss the old intro with the hooded inquisition people. I thought it fit so well. :(

Is it sunny in there?

My thoughts exactly on some of the "commenters" from that post, awesome video!

Thanks Jim. Mostly for not ripping on Hamza and for sticking up for him despite your differing opinions.

This is great shit Jim.

Good jimquisition jim

I also like your pronunciation of al qaeda.

Good video, Gamers just seem to be too defensive when the situation doesn't call for it.

I perfectly understand what Hamza was saying, but as I have no personal experience in the matter like he does I really have no opinion towards it.

"Yeah, good points, but when N'Gai Croal wrote about his discomfort with Resident Evil 5 Jim's response was quite different."

That guy assumed no black people worked on the game. He didn't respectfully say he didn't want to play it.

"I'm not saying Black people should be discriminated against, but I never want to see them myself personally. My dad was killed by a black man so it's a sensitive topic for me."

So black people is a voluntary group of people, and not just a genetic skin color thing?

That is some stupid logic there.

I really don't get why people got so crazy about this. It isn't like a game has to be bought by every gamer with the system, or we'd see games with a 1:1 console attach rate. Obviously every game will have people who just will not buy it, and Hamza portrayed a very valid reason for why not to buy it.

I remember when The Saboteur was talked about, I saw and heard a lot of people saying "Irish person, with bombs = IRA" which was a load of bullshit, that wasn't what the game was about. But if it was, I wouldn't have bought it. I'm Irish, and I'd not buy something that portrayed that, or the English killing the Irish in some militaristic action.

There isn't much that'd make me turn away from something, I've been pretty desensitized to stuff but there are limits. Do the people who whined have no limits at all? Or is it, merely, as I expect, not a barrier they have, and so, on with the whinging, stupid, childish, moronic stupid shit that the internet seems to cultivate with the skills of a cuisine chef?

"Yeah, good points, but when N'Gai Croal wrote about his discomfort with Resident Evil 5 Jim's response was quite different."

The crucial difference is that N'gai said things that were straight up wrong and made assumptions about the game based purely on what he saw. He also claimed that Capcom had a "responsibility" to his sensitives. Not only that, but RE5 was a horror game with science fiction elements and had done the same things in a totally different, non-African location without complaint.

Hamza didn't do any of that. He'd played the game, and decided respectfully that it wasn't for him. He never said Electronic Arts had a social responsibility to Afghanistan. He didn't think EA needed to do it, but he respected and defended its right to do it. He never once imposed his opinion onto EA. There is a huge difference between Hamza's reaction and N'gai's assumptions.

Good Times.

i never realized that hamza had to take it on the chin for his terrorist comments. i, for one, support his decision. it's certainly in poor taste (at best), to put al qaeda in a videogame. in fact, i'd say all the war reenactment based fps games are in poor taste. BUT, the video where hamza declares his love for collette was much worse than any of the afore mentioned perpetrators. yeah, those two vids went live on the site for at least a few minutes, and hamza, i feel embarrassed for you.

@spectre - Well you know, everyone knows that there's blatantly no black people in Africa, and that shooting at them because they have the T-virus/Las Plagas/Kijuju/whatever the hell they called the zombie-like virus is blatantly racist because you're not shooting at white people, hur durr!

...Yeah, no need to cry over spilt milk long after it's gone sour ;)

I totally agree, Jim. I really respect EALA's decision to include Al Qaeda. It's going to make people uncomfortable, but its a matter of free speech and ultimately I think its going to be apart of the movement that is pushing forward the medium. If we had to make games that appealed to everyone and catered to those that are most easily offended I don't think we would have a very interesting, diverse and progressive medium in the slightest.

I absolutely dreaded reading the comments to that post. I know this is the internet and all but I could not believe some of the responses.

After all, the guy was only saying playing as Al-Qaeda made him uncomfortable (and for good reason, if I might give my humble opinion) and that he 'couldn't support' the game because of it.

So I guess my point is: Spot on, Jim. Good job.

Well that's a relief. After the swell of users that we raging at Hamza after that article, I started to wonder if that was the general opinion on Destructoid right now. I went back and forth with a couple of commenters for almost an hour, and it got to the point where they started to say I was "just repeating myself" and that I "don't get it", as well as some other mean statements about myself. I was beginning to wonder if my defending Hamza against people calling him "a fucking hypocrite" and straight up "wrong" was not something that was worth doing.

Glad to see fighting the good fight.

Jim is exactly right, as he usually is. Why is it such a big deal one man voice his opinion on not wanting to play Medal of Honor for it's content? I'm sure most of you have things you don't want to do or refuse to do based on the same type of situation. That being they infringe on what you think is right or decent.

Save the hatred for the backlash from the media, because you know FOX is going to be all over this. Also stop being such fucking douchebags about everything. Jesus it's you assholes being dicks about everything that makes gaming look bad to outsiders.

I could rant more and about something meaningful, but fuck that someone will just shit all over it anyway.

But dude, it's like all one big conspiracy.

Have you seen that movie Zeitgeist? Did you know that, like, all the Jewish people left New York before 9/11? Al-Qaeda was actually a bunch of CIA operatives working for the Bush family. Bin Laden is a deep cover plant, designed to bring the world behind America to bring about the New World Order and shit. Fluoride in the water is part of it too I think. 9/11 was all about manipulating our bodily fluids. Something was in the dust, I think. EA is actually an acronym for the Economic Alliance, and their video games are made to make capitalism spread its dark tentacles over the world. FPS games were made to start training the stormtroopers of the United Nations World Army. Bankers make a lot of money. Don't fill in the census, or else the government will know who to bring to their reeducation camps first. The Cold War was created through media manipulation. Obama's death panels are still coming. Back and to the left, back and to the left. The RROD was actually a signal that your mind had been scanned and entered into the Skull & Bones mental database. Don't trust the mainstream media. China is a red herring.

In conclusion:
Hamza and Jim are CIA agents.
Medal of Honor is multiplatform, so it cannot be trusted.
Who actually owns Destructoid? Check the paper trail!

Great video. It's a shame that the people who made those comments, and who you were directly addressing in the video still won't understand what it's all about. They'll probably fill this article with another 500+ comments on how Hamza's a baby for not wanting to play as Al Queda.

Good Vid. I like these videos because you call out idiots. I like that =)

Idiots? On the Internet? It's more likely than you think.

Jim, way to stand up for your buddy. On the other hand, you guys work for a video game site, WTF do you think is going to happen when someone shares personal feelings? This is the internet dude, it's full of anonymous people who feel invincible because you will never know who they are. The best thing you can do is not give power do these people by commenting on them.

Jim, way to stand up for your buddy. On the other hand, you guys work for a video game site, WTF do you think is going to happen when someone shares personal feelings? This is the internet dude, it's full of anonymous people who feel invincible because you will never know who they are. The best thing you can do is not give power do these people by commenting on them.

Jim, this video was thought provoking. It seems that if one were to express an ethic that could be applied universally, it would go something like this:

1. It's good to talk about your own feelings and reaction to a game.
2. It's wrong to assume that anybody else shares your point of view or to assert that other people SHOULD share your personal feelings and reaction to a game.
3. It is good to assert that people performing #2 SHOULD switch to #1.

Jim, you're being trolled so hard by these idiots. You're making response videos for no reason, these people don't have reason. You aren't going to convince them that they're wrong. They're stupid, it's what they do. They're always going to say stupid things, they are legion and you have to deal with it.

These are interesting, funny, and meaningful. They are also pointless, because berating idiots does nothing. They keep coming back. I guess the point is that you can just keep making these because people always make stupid comments, but nothing will change. People who already agree with you will agree, and those who were stupid to begin with are going to stay opposed to you.

I'm probably thinking too deeply into this. Good job on the video.