This is unbelievable!

This is a screen capture from the upcoming Xbox 360 game Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. Up to this point, the Call of Duty games have all been set during WW2 and this is the first one to be set in contemporary world. Now, look at the road signs in this screen capture very carefully. It has a particular resonance to anyone from Egypt...The Autostrad...Midan Abbas...Shari3 il Gaysh...these are all actual places in Cairo!

Shocked? I was. A game about what is ostensibly World War 3 is set in the streets of CAIRO, EGYPT where you play a US soldier pitted (presumably) against the evil Ay-rab Islamofascists. Click on the picture for a closer look. Go to the game's website and play the trailer and watch the footage. It simply beggars belief!

There's been a recent outcry in Britain about the game Resistance: Fall of Man for the PS3, that's partly set in a cathedral in Manchester. The Church of England deemed it disrespectful and irresponsible. To me, this is no less disrespectful, irresponsible and is another example of how the war against terror has become synonymous in the minds of a lot of people here in the States, as the US versus an Arabic country. I mean, Egypt isn't even unfriendly to the West.

I don't want to get hysterical about this and I do understand that this is just a game. I'd also like to see if one of the developers or consultants on this game is an Egyptian who thought it would be funny to put in names of places he knew..but it really did give me a jolt when I saw it. I was disgusted by the irresponsibility of it and a little concerned about how something like this could blow up into another Danish Cartoon outrage.

I'm going to email Joystiq, Activison and the New York Times. I'd like some answers.