Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 — A Hater’s Review
I am the wrong person to review Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. I hate console shooters. I think shooter that doesn’t use the tried and true keyboard and mouse setup is severely lacking in accuracy. I also hate realistic or historical shooters. I never saw the point of dying in a few bullets and using the same old guns you can see on The History Channel when I could be blowing people up with lasers and sticky grenades, or fighting off hordes of zombies, or something! Yes, I am the definition of a hater, and I couldn’t wait to pick up Modern Warfare 2, if only so that I could rip it a new asshole when everyone else was jumping up and down singing its praises … except I can’t. As much as I am an admitted vindictive bastard when it comes to hating the Call of Duty franchise, I have to say that I really enjoy Modern Warfare 2. Damn you Infinity Ward! Damn you and your well developed games!
A lot of the game is the same old Modern Warfare 1 you are used to, except with more guns, more characters, game balance tweaks, and so forth. You still get the same old pseudo auto-targeting that the franchise is known for, which effectively solves the lack of a keyboard and mouse problem. This means the game is a lot less twitch oriented that other shooters, but the game makes up for this with its relentless pacing. You will be driving on snowmobiles, climbing cliffs diving out of the way of explosions, jumping from rooftop to rooftop, and doing much much more. The scripted elements of gameplay are actually quite numerous, but they integrate themselves seamlessly into the normal pace of the game. You will easily find yourself doing epically heroic war stunts one after another as you blaze through the game’s single player mode.
Speaking of epically heroic war stunts, Modern Warfare 2 obviously thinks of itself as a game with the special effects budget of a movie. I try not to pay attention to stories in first person shooters, as they more often than not totally suck. I didn’t break this rule for Modern Warfare 2, and that is a good thing because the game is a lot more of a compilation of the greatest stunts and explosions of all time, rather than any coherent story. Michael Bay would be proud, and honestly so was I. It got my adrenaline pumping, which is exactly what a game like this should be doing. I was on the edge of my seat, waiting for the next missile to explode but a few mere feet away from my position.
Unfortunately, when my body was suffering from adrenaline exhaustion, I unfortunately picked up some pieces of the plot, and through it the worst part of the Call of Duty franchise reared its ugly head, the rampant patriotic propaganda. The villain of Modern Warfare 2, Vladamir Makarov, is less a realistic terrorist treat and more a loony exaggerated spawn of Satan. Infinity Ward takes his characterization way beyond “love to hate”. News clips, briefings, and even random historical tidbits about Makarov’s character all portray him as a man who has no respect for human life whatsoever, and who is following an evil plan that seems almost designed to be as senselessly violent and heartless as possible.
One scene even puts you in the shoes of one of these terrorists, and it asks you to ruthlessly slaughter innocent civilians in an airport. It seems designed for shock value more than anything else, and it does effectively one-up Modern Warfare 1’s nuclear bomb scene. You can choose to skip controversial scenes and levels like this but what’s the point. It’s almost like an admission of guilt with Infinity Ward saying “this will probably offend you.” If you are buying a war game, shouldn’t you be ready for … oh I don’t know … war? Scenes like this, and the outright demonic characterization of Makarov are both rather wacky and for a game that markets itself on a sense of realism, Makarov and his surrounding story and puppy kicking personality are probably the least believable parts of the game. I’d say he was something of a Bond villain, but I don’t believe Bond villains are this ruthless.
Still, the game keeps you moving so fast it is easy to forget the outrageous and exaggerated American propaganda story. You are repeatedly put into the shoes of several different characters, each taking on many different missions, and when I say different I mean different. The game spans missions from deep sea infiltration, to vehicle combat, to mountain climbing, to strategic air strikes. It’s a short campaign, only took me about 7 hours to complete, but believe it or not, that is a good thing. There are so many different features of Modern Warfare 2, an overly long single player campaign would just stall gamers from getting to the other awesome modes.
There is a co-op mode entitles spec-ops, however, as the trend seems to be, the majority of the co-op gameplay exists in missions outside of the standard campaign. These missions can be played single player, but since you already have a single player campaign, why would you want to? It does have online capability though (in that it is its only capability), and that is a serious plus. These missions too have you in the shoes of several different soldiers taking on many different tasks, many of which involve assigning different tasks to each player. You earn stars in these missions based on mission difficulty, and you use these stars to unlock yet more missions. This slow grind and frantic co-op gameplay make spec-ops mode one of the more addictive features of the Modern Warfare 2 package.
Of course, I’ve ranted for ages about everything in Modern Warfare 2 you don’t want to hear about, when what all you really want a review of is the multiplayer. The multiplayer content is actually pretty much the same as it was in Modern Warfare 1. You still get experience and perks and all the game modes you know and love. They remembered to include capture the flag this time, thank you very much. They also included a new demolition mode, and I’ll admit I didn’t really try it because it gave me horrible flashbacks to Counter-Strike. I have a good confidence testimonial, however, that it is fun.
The thing that made Modern Warfare 1 a great multiplayer FPS were the RPG elements, and these are all back for Modern Warfare 2 and then some. You still earn experience and get to customize your classes with perks and lots of different weapons, except this time there are more perks and weapons to choose from. The game keeps track of how you are playing, and can even give you perks and bonuses if you suck. Personally, I like this feature, but then again, I suck. Besides, none of these perks will be as cool as the kill streak rewards you get for playing well, like the friggin tactical nuclear strike you get for 25 kills! Some perks that were controversial or overpowered (cough cough matryrdom cough) from the first Modern Warfare have been taken out, but that is made up for by the new perks that have been added in.
This may not sound like a lot, but tiny tweaks and new gameplay elements go a long way to making a game that has tons of replay value. Modern Warfare 2 is one of those rare games makes up for its short single player with a multiplayer mode that is just phenomenal. With only a few games I can already feel addiction starting to set in. Someone once said that Modern Warfare is the new Halo, and I think that is very true. This is the shooter that you will see people playing years after its release.
To wrap this all up in a nice little package, let me say I still want to hate on Modern Warfare 2. The fact that the longest part of this review was the one about how much the story is an exaggerated bunch of crap is evidence enough for that fact. However, the cold reality of the matter is I can’t. I like the game. I like it a lot. Infinity Ward did a great job, and I congratulate them. If you are a shooter fan, you will like this game. That is just how the chips fall. Congratulations on proving me wrong Infinity Ward. You have made a truly great game that will withstand the test of time. Guess I’m just going to have to go back to hating on the new Halo project in the mean time.
(14 votes, average: 3.21 out of 4)
(8 votes, average: 3.63 out of 4)
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