I'll be honest, I didn't like the original blurb that FFG put out.
I disliked even more those who sought to try to say the US was doing exactly what the blurb stated and were also Americans (As far as I know, the US hasn't actually eradicated any nation entirely off the map, nor has it any plans to...UNLESS those same people claiming that America will do that and are Americans would ALLOW their own nation to do it...in which case...they should blame themselves).
What about the blurb that disturbed me was that this blurb went a complete 180 degrees from the original game Fortress America (and perhaps Invasion America).
America wasn't mindlessly lashing out, and it wasn't eradicating nations at will with it's defensive lasers.
It was instead wrapped around the idea as brought in by movies such as Red Dawn, that of a Democracy competing with the other super power at the time, that of Communisim (or in the above blurb...socialism).
So what happens when the world has turned to ideas different from the Democracy of the US, and invades the US...effectively turning the US into a fortress?
In the original new blurb it didn't seem so much as Fortress America...as Fortress World. If the US had that power to simply eradicate nations off the face of the earth...it shouldn't be nations attacking the US...it should be...the US get's a turn to eradicate some nation off the world map per turn...if that's what they are really fighting against. And yes, if the US had that type of offensive power to simply fire defense lasers and wipe a nation off the map...and other nations attacked it into what would appear to be a losing war...I would imagine they'd use it as the apocolypse scenario.
But this isn't a game about the US eradicating the world...at least the original wasn't...and the new game isn't. The original wasn't about the US trying to impose itself on the world, or the US trying to hunt down the communists. It was about the US defending itself on three fronts.
The original was more about the conflict of political ideology of Socialism/communism vs. that of a Democratic Republic...or any Democracy/republic.
I'd say terrorists are NOT a super power as akin to the USSR of the 80s. Maybe they could do something with the Chinese block of the East, with the Socialistic block composed of some of the ideas of South America...as per the game from the 80s. The problem is that there is no longer any real big Communist/Socialist scary guy to the East. I suppose they may take up that some of the more volatile nations in the Middle East and Africa get riled up with a socialistic complaint and unite to conquer the area and then challenge the US...but that's not what they apparantly did.
Instead of a challenge of political opposites in the same vein...it was more of putting it as if the US was destroying nations at will to hunt for terrorists...so in return the nations join the terrorists against the US????
First, last I checked the US was joined by many others in it's hunt for terrorists.
Second, most nations have problems with those terrorists and in many ways joined the US in joint operations.
Third, if the US did something that extreme to wipe others out without limit, other nations would first unite in the Middle East to take out Israel (fortress Israel?), perhaps some would wipe out the Kurds, and then others would wipe out a few of the nations in Europe...without US help.
It just doesn't seem to be in the same spirit as the original game to me.
Overall...I didn't like the original premise, it seemed completely OPPOSITE of the original...and I think that put me off on it, but it didn't mean I wouldn't buy the game. Other items actually were of more interest to me in what they changed from the original. The story is just so much filler to give some sort of plausible background and not actually important to the game play overall I'd imagine (which is still the three front war against the US).
What shocked me though was how many Americans were so eager to use it as a pad to voice their own low opinions of themselves (afterall, as Americans they have a say in what their government does and how it acts...if they don't like it...GET INVOLVED and change it!!!! If one doesn't in the US...they only have themselves to blame).
In fact that disturbs me FAR more than anything dealing with the game itself. That people would put their own nations down can be understandable in some instances, but when it's a nation where THEY CHOOSE THE LEADERS, THEY VOTE ON THE ISSUES, AND THEY DECIDE THEIR NATIONS FATE...and then they complain about their own nation...it only makes me feel as if they hate themselves for some reason...and all of those around them.
Either that or they don't recognize the power they have with the ability to vote, to rally people to their cause, to assemble (though I admit, with some of the ways they've been treating the Occupy movement recently...I suppose that ability to assemble has been called into question a little bit) and call for action, and other actions in the US's democracy to make them feel so powerless as if they don't matter.
The first makes me angry, upset, and a little nervous that someone is so self loathing as to hate themselves and me. The latter makes me sad that there are those who don't realize the power they have in their own hands to make change and a difference.
I don't see FFG as backing down or wimping out. I think they also realize that such text was seriously able to inflame some emotions...and being in the US...it wouldn't be a good idea to inflame such emotions anymore than to be located in China and try to create a game that said the Chinese govt. was a bad entity doing bad things (well...maybe a better idea in the US than china...in the US they won't jail you and then flail you alive with bamboo sticks until your skin falls off and you bleed in a slow painful torture...but don't die type of way).
I think it was more of one FFG individual got the request to put something up for a news article, wrote it up and posted it but didn't run it through anyone to see if it was a good article or not. Later, when run through the wickets it was seen that it was worded differently than how the leadership actually intended it to be worded.
Edit:
The first one sounds like the summary of a series of news headlines from an independent point of view, the second one reads like a spin-doctored press release from the White House, Pentagon, or a modern corporate news source.
Pretty much what happened.
To tell the truth that's the other thing that disturbed me about the original blurb. It sounded more like someone trying to shove their political opinions down my throat more than something to interest me in a game. I don't care what you may put out for a game...but try to shove your political opinions down my throat on a game that really didn't support those political opinions in the original...and expect me to really pay for such an opinion...sorry...I can read a bunch of those for free without buying a game in the first place.
However...as I already stated, that was hardly any reason NOT to buy the game...I just didn't like the way they set it up via that particular blurb...and those blurbs from FFG aren't typically the exact descriptions they give on the box anyways.
I didn't really like the theme of Chaos in the Old world (in fact I find the theme rather disturbing) and yet I bought and played that game as well...thought it pretty good even as far as gameplay goes.
Anyways, I've been too longwinded on a topic that is perhaps too political for me.
