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Two of the world’s biggest games publishers – EA & Activision – are going head-to-head during this weekends Champion League final as both Call of Duty and Medal of Honour will have new trailers premiered during the halftime adverts.
Last year EA managed to give Activision’s Call of Duty a bloody nose with the release of its Battlefield 3 franchise, and from today’s news they want to do it all again with the release of Medal Of Honour.
Yesterday Activision declared that the world’s first trailer for the new Black Ops 2 title would premiere during the Champions League final. Well, not be be outdone by its closest rival, EA has announced today they will also show off a brand new trailer for Medal Of Honour at the same time too.
Medal Of Honour was rebooted in October 2010, and came under heavy criticism after the games’ developer decided to use Afghanistan as the threatre of war. The online mode created for Medal Of Honour drew most criticism as the developer decided to let players play as the Taliban, rather than fictitious terrorists.
The then Defence Secretary Liam Fox made a scathing criticism of the game, stating that it was “shocking that someone would think it acceptable to recreate the acts of the Taliban against British soldiers”.
He said: “At the hands of the Taliban, children have lost fathers and wives have lost husbands”.
“I would urge retailers to show their support for our armed forces and ban this tasteless product.”
The developers subsequently responded to the criticism by stating the reality of the game necessitated it.
“Most of us having been doing this since we were 7 – if someone’s the cop, someone’s gotta be the robber, someone’s gotta be the pirate and someone’s gotta be the alien”, Amanda Taggart, senior PR manager for EA, told AOL News.
Due to pressure from various military officials and veterans organisations, the word Taliban was removed from the multiplayer part of the game in which players would directly play as the Taliban, instead replacing with the term “Opposing Force.”
With both games looking to steal each other’s limelight this weekend, the new trailers mark the start of another massive marketing push from Activsion and EA, which will run through to next month’s E3, and continue right through to Christmas when the games are set be released.
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