Call of Duty: Black Ops upsets Cuba with Castro mission
Cuban government says segment of game in which players try to kill former leader glorifies real assassination attempts by US. A video game developed in the US that challenges players to assassinate former Cuban president Fidel Castro has provoked an angry response from Cuba.
Call of Duty: Black Ops, which went on sale in the UK this week, is set during the cold war, with gamers taking on the role of a special operative as he saves the US from a communist plot, travelling between Cuba, Vietnam and Russia.
However, a mission in which players try to kill a young Castro has sparked a fierce response from the Cuban government.
"What the United States government did not achieve in more than 50 years, it now tries to do virtually," said a story on the government-run Cuba debate website.
It said the game glorified real US attempts to kill Castro – there have been 638 attempts on the former leader's life, according to one of his bodyguards.
In 2006 Fabian Escalante, the former head of Cuban intelligence services, revealed how plots ranged from an exploding cigar that was intended to blow up in Castro's face to a fungus-contaminated wetsuit that would infect him with a chronic skin disease.
Perhaps the most fanciful plot involved planting explosives inside a mollusc shell painted in bright colours in the hope that Castro might be drawn towards it while scuba diving in the Caribbean.
In a section of Call of Duty: Black Ops set in Havana, players gun down enemy combatants while pursuing Castro, who was president of Cuba for 49 years before resigning in 2008.
"This new video game is doubly perverse," the article on cubadebate said. "On the one hand, it glorifies the illegal assassination attempts the United States government planned against the Cuban leader … and on the other, it stimulates sociopathic attitudes in North American children and adolescents."
It is not the first military-style shooter game to generate controversy this year. Medal of Honor was banned from US military bases before it went on sale last month because it let players take on the role of Taliban fighters battling US and Nato troops in Afghanistan. Developer Electronic Arts later changed the name of the combatants from Taliban to Opposing Force.
Reviewers of Call of Duty: Black Ops, which retails at around £50 in the UK, have been unfazed by the challenge of gunning down one of the primary leaders of the Cuban revolution. The game was given five stars by the Guardian.
Call of Duty: Black Ops is 'biggest entertainment launch in history'
Call of Duty: Black Ops has generated revenues of $360m in its first 24 hours on sale in the US and UK. Released on Tuesday, the military shooter has out-performed its record-breaking predecessor, Modern Warfare 2, by $50m. According to MCV, 5.6m units have been sold across North America and the UK. Furthermore, according to developer Treyarch, within one hour of the launch, the game's online mode was being used by 1 million concurrent players.
Activision is claiming that the Black Ops launch now represents the biggest entertainment launch in history. By comparison, the blockbusting 3D movie Avatar made 'just' $232m in its opening weekend. CEO Bobby Kotick has issued a jubilant statement: "There has never been another entertainment franchise that has set opening-day records for two consecutive years and we are on track to outperform last year's five-day global sales record of $550m."
Although, the publisher has always been bullish about the prospects for Black Ops, industry pundits previously doubted that the new game would match last year's release. Modern Warfare 2 was developed by Infinity Ward, the studio that created the Call of Duty series; its games have often been thought of as the superior iterations. Treyarch, meanwhile, has been responsible for solid performers like Call of Duty 3 and Call of Duty: World at War, but has never attained the same levels of critical support.
Meanwhile, Cuba's state-run news website has criticised the game for its opening mission which involves a CIA attempt to assassinate Fidel Castro. According to the Associated Press, an article on Cubadebate claimed, "What the United States couldn't accomplish in more than 50 years, they are now trying to do virtually."
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