The Best Bit About Modern Warfare 2

You know what’s really not given half the amount of praise it deserves? Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. Now, don’t get me wrong, I hated the hype it got, and the blind love that it receives from the millions of players whom have never even touched another title since it’s predecessor unleashed itself upon the world two years ago. I don’t like the multiplayer and I think that there are far greater titles out there that people could be playing.

The thing is though, that a lot of people aren’t playing those other games. They sit home on Modern Warfare 2 which they keep on playing until the end of the day. Rinse and repeat for the rest of the week. But there were statistics released towards the end of 2008 which showed that only 71% of Modern Warfare owners played the game’s story mode. From there it dropped to only 48% who actually completed it. That’s less than half. It’s a shockingly low statistic for a game that’s played so much, yet I think that it’s also a massive injustice considering how much praise the game actually gets. People go on and on about the multiplayer, but for me, it feels like they’re going on and on about the wrong part.

I’m sure that many of you will also fall into the category of “I didn’t touch the single player” but it’s really something you should change. Especially if you’re someone who enjoys a good story driven experience. The single player doesn’t grant the satisfaction of downing the annoying 13 year old with the headset, but it more than makes up for that with massive set pieces and great characters.

Just yesterday morning, Richard Morgan, writer of the upcoming Crysis 2, went on record to say that the game was an “Immense disappointment” claiming that everything was a step down from the original. A lot of people agree with him and he’s made some very good points. “It was totally implausible. It doesn’t resolve.. It doesn’t hang together.” and you know what? He’s absolutely right.

Throughout the game’s three act plot, the initial is definitely the messiest. You jump from one mission to another with little to no time to understand why you’re there or what you’re doing. Afghanistan, Russia, Khazicstan and Brazil are all over within the first two hours. Shetland might even have been in there too, it all went so fast everything’s a blur.

Reading back the plot on Wikipedia (something I hate having to do) revealed that a lot happened in those opening levels. Sure there was the “No Russian” level, but until you were turned on at the level’s climax, I didn’t understand why I was there or what the mission was supposed to represent. Your characters get promoted, demoted, start wars, unravel schemes and even die all within the opening two hours, but I barely noticed any of it, and for this, we can blame two reasons.

Firstly we have the mission briefings which mask the load times and let you know what’s going on. They work well for these two purposes, but are over relied on to actually tell the plot of the game. They certainly look slick, but there’s just too much information there to take in during the 30 or so seconds that they last. Not only that, but it feels like the plot is simply being yelled to you in a “This is what you need to know!” “Here are all the facts!” fashion. It’s impersonal and takes away the impact. The second problem is a much more significant one. War in America.

War in the streets of suburbia is certainly an interesting concept and sets up some fantastic gameplay opportunities. Unfortunately though, the image of soldiers fighting on the front lawn is one that has little impact on a none American after the first few shoot outs. The shock factor of seeing the white house being shot up by those no-good communist Russians wears off quickly. Yet despite this, Infinity Ward seemed so excited by the prospect themselves that they rushed the opening levels simply so that they could get to what they felt mattered.

While these levels might take American gamers to a place where they can ignore the lack of a plot, for us outside the US, it just means we get a string of levels with no characters, no one to care about, and nothing to fight for. Maybe we were supposed to assume the war was all part of Stalin’s master plan and that after America we were next, but such a concept was not something I bothered to care about at the time. I was too busy trying to remember what had happened in the Shetland level.

The thing is though, I actually really like the story mode of Modern Warfare 2. The plot is all over the place and it does feel like you’re just playing a string of mission levels but outside the opening act and frontline in America is a group of characters who you play along side, care about and want to fight for. They are given a(n admittedly patchy) plot you can (sometimes) understand and (sometimes) follow. But it’s really not about the plot. The bits I cared about during the game were those that were entirely surrounding the characters of Task Force 141.

Soap McTavish and his crew are characters who speak to you and let you know what’s happening around you. They’re characters you consistently fight along side and are both assisted and saved by them in return. It’s for this reason that I felt that the Task Force missions were far superior to those when you played as one of the many unnamed American soldiers.

It’s when you’re playing as and with the characters you care about that Modern Warfare 2 handles it’s story best. Because the characters interact and bounce off each other, you really care when anything happens to them or take notice when they do something out of line. You feel the betrayals, sit up for the twists and care about the deaths. Story unfolds in front of you and to you. Sure, this happens in a lot of games, but rarely with characters you’ve been able to develop a bond with yourself and rarely with such an emphasis placed on the player themselves.

Take for example, the game’s final boss fight. It’s not something that simply has you shooting at an enemy with one beast of a health bar, but instead has you getting involved in a very scripted, yet very powerful, scene. Following you’re opponents acts earlier in the game, it’s hard not to feel a tremendous amount of hate towards them. This only makes the level of interaction you receive in the sequence all the more rewarding. Too many games leave an enemy’s death to a cutscene which is triggered only after you’ve fire enough bullets into their body. It’s meaningless and gives you little payoff. Here however, you’re motivated to hammer down on the triangle button like there’s no tomorrow and it’s all because you care about the outcome. Considering I also played the final act of MGS4 the other day (which also uses the triangle button to play off your connection to the characters), I’m surprised the poor thing is still fully functioning.

It’s the fact that, outside of those annoying mission briefings, the story does unfold in front of you and to you that you feel so involved and care so much about what’s happening more so than if it were in a cutscene. Killzone 2 had a story that didn’t bother me because it’s cutscenes removed me from the action and turned me into a spectator instead of a witness. It was inconsistent and didn’t work for engagement. MW2 is aware of what works with the FPS genre and has stuck rigidly to the rule of never removing you from the action. It might have missed the mark with plot, but in terms of characters, for at least half the levels, it’s nailed it. Infinity Ward have clearly been paying close attention to Half Life 2.

But why haven’t more been doing it? Just witnessing the technique being utilised properly once again was enough to motivate me to write the closest thing to an essay I’ve done since I finished school. There really can’t be many of you out there who don’t own Modern Warfare 2, but chances are that for those of you who do, a large chunk won’t have tried the campaign. So take this from me, if it’s good enough to warrant a 1,500 word article, it’s good enough for you to play. People praise MW2′s multiplayer like it’s the second coming of jesus, and when there are smaller, superior titles out there being overlooked because of it, this is something that pisses me off. So if you are going to be one of those people that never tries another title in your life, why not at least give the single player a shot? You won’t be disappointed.