The game is set in an island nation called Yara. Yara is very clearly meant to be a stand-in for Cuba. The reserve history of Yara goes something like this. Yara underwent a war of liberation. I don’t remember if they explicitly say that it was to overthrow Yanqui colonialism but it seems to be implied. This is similar to what happened in Cuba. But from here, the world veers into the realm of alternate timelines.

This war of liberation results in someone called Anton Castillo becoming the sole dictator of Yara. Yara is under American blockade (like Cuba). Yara has developed a drug that stops cancer cells from metastasising. Cuba has also made some progress against cancer coincidentally. Thia drug is Yara’s chief export. The problem is that it is produced by using a poisonous fertiliser on tobacco plantations. (Cuba is also heavily reliant on its tobacco export.) So Anton Castillo’s regime forces the poor to work on the fields despite the deleterious effects of this poisonous fertilizer. They also perform brutal human experimentation on the underpriviliged. Yara sells this drug to everyone except the US because the US has embargoed them.

So you play as a guerilla who is a member of a liberation movement trying to overthrow Castillo. You are supposed to form a coalition with other guerilla groups to achieve this end. There isn’t much ideology to these movements. Sometimes they talk about the important of free elections but that’s it.

My question is… why? Why do all this? Why not just let me liberate Yara from Yanquis and their stooges which would be far less confusing?

    • Shrike502@lemmygrad.ml
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      1 year ago

      Extremely steeped in western propaganda. I’m saying this as someone who had sunk quite a few hours into it. The gameplay is fine, fun even. But the story… Hoo boy! IIRC in the first one you actually spend more time shooting Soviets than Nazis (because they’re after the same Nazi scientist or something). The rest are just whitewashing Britain and USA hard.

    • Soviet Snake@lemmygrad.ml
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      1 year ago

      I’ve been playing Borderlands and I’ve been using the sniper quite a lot, but the game is kind of boring, I think the second is a lot better, so not sure if that helps. I think Team Fortress 2 just got an update and it has nice sniper and some Soviet aesthetics, so that maybe scratches your itch?