New Releases: Modern Warfare 2
Posted on Nov 24, 2009 by Dave in 360
I’ll get this out of the way: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 is good.
With accomplished first-person-shooter developer Infinity Ward behind it, and with the backing of 800-pound gorilla-slash-publisher Activision-Blizzard (and the expectations of their shareholders), there was very little chance of the game being bad. Modern Warfare 2 is too big to fail.
Recognized or not, the understanding that MW2 was a “sure thing” appears to have made its way into the public consciousness in the form of mammoth first-day and first-week sales (perhaps the most successful entertainment launch of all time).
As a gamer—an FPS gamer—and perhaps as a member of the more violent sex, I was probably as guilty as the next guy in those assumptions. And there were a lot of “next guys” on my Xbox friends list: on the game’s release, the colourful array of Dragon Age, Lego Rock Band, Forza 3, Borderlands, and FIFA 10 box art that populated the list of games my friends were currently playing immediately became a uniform phalanx of pale brown Modern Warfare soldiers. It wasn’t exactly peer pressure, but I’d be lying if I said it didn’t influence the urgency of my purchase or cement what platform I’d be purchasing it for.
And with a game like Modern Warfare 2, friend availability does come into play. Call of Duty games have always had very well-crafted single-player experiences—perhaps even best-of-breed in a crowded class of WWII shooters (the setting for the first few iterations of the franchise). Increasingly, however, the real meat and potatoes of these games have been their robust and addictive multiplayer features—both competitive and cooperative.
Modern Warfare 2 continues this trend by offering a single-player campaign that I completed in somewhere around six hours, and multiplayer in which I’ve logged eight hours so far and still feel that I’m just getting started.
I don’t feel cheated by a campaign that’s short by current standards, nor did I feel the need to lengthen the experience by playing at a harder level of difficulty (I played on “regular”)…
Dave: OK, so at this point those who play these games are likely questioning my gamer cred, if not my masculinity—so let me go into overly defensive man-talk mode: Fuck that. I can compete just fine in multiplayer, but when SP gets hard it doesn’t get more fun—it just makes you play the same short sequence until you manage to sprint to where the next damn checkpoint is or find the perfect spots to exploit the endless stream of AI. The Ferris wheel in CoD4 was the last time I will do that.
Like an action flick, I don’t really play Call of Duty campaigns to be challenged—I want to be thrust into spectacular circumstances, locales, and scenarios. Infinity Ward knows this, or they wouldn’t constantly steal scenes directly from movies (like the shower scene from The Rock) or call chapters “Wolverines!” (Red Dawn). In action movies, the hero rarely dies; in games, dying now and then is necessary. Dying more than 20 times in a row, on the other hand, only kills my suspension of disbelief and spoils the cinematic experience.
Like watching a movie, Lori can appreciate a well-orchestrated single-player campaign when she sees one. When it comes to action games, she’ll happily defer to my hand-eye-coordination to facilitate the experience—especially when the game has a compelling story or art style (Bioshock being an excellent recent example of a shooter with both). When at its best, Modern Warfare 2 is like watching a Michael Bay/Tom Clancy collaboration for a summer blockbuster—an “action-packed thrillride.” However, just like that theoretical crazy Michael Bay/Tom Clancy blockbuster, Lori isn’t too excited about watching it.
Lori: I actually don’t mind watching the single-player campaign if that’s what’s being played, and I don’t mind providing the occasional “sniper on your left, sweetie” during multiplayer. However, the removal of party chat in some modes forces one to listen to ten-year-olds sing “This Is How We Do It” perhaps more often than my limited tolerance for such things will allow—and that’s when the DS comes out.
So this one, like an over-the-top action movie, I’ll enjoy with just the guys. Virtual soldiers will be shot in the head, there will be bright flashes and loud bangs, and we will yell a lot. If someone asks, I won’t say it’s a masterwork that advances the medium and forces one to consider the nature of 21st century armed conflict; I will simply say that Modern Warfare 2 is good.
Photo by Andrew Spearin.
