Modern Warfare 2

Aside from more yardwork, I spend most of this weekend hammering through the Modern Warfare 2 single-player on PC. It lives up to a lot of the hype, but for me it was more a rent than a buy.

My PC Specs:
Intel Q6600 Quad Core Processor
EVGA GeForce GTX260 Core 216
Windows 7 Professional
4GB RAM

I think the most impressive part of the game is the graphics. This is the first game that’s really pushed my newly built PC hard, and it was a lot of fun to see something look so good on my system. The textures, fog, flora, and animation were all spectacular. Infinity Ward’s really got the hang of dropping characters realistically when you shoot them. They don’t ragdoll all over the place, and it really helps keep you immersed.

As with the last MW title, you jump all over the place, from Washington DC to a South American shantytown, to snowy tundra in Russia, and it all looks amazing. One of my favorite levels places you in a snow-covered forest, and when I say sneaking through the forest was a chilling experience, I mean that in the best way.

The campaign really doesn’t take long at all. On Normal mode, I think I finished it in 8 hours. There were a few spots that I had to retry quite a bit, but again, I didn’t get stuck anywhere for too long. The story, which I won’t go into here, has enough twists and turns to keep any conspiracy junkie happy, but it can be hard to follow at times. The motivations of some of the characters were lost in the shuffle, and one of the later twists really had me scratching my head.

Of course, it’s impossible to talk about Modern Warfare right now without talking about “The Airport Scene.” Get ready for spoilers, if you weren’t already. This level has you infiltrating a terrorist cell. Participating in one of their strikes, you accompany three other men to an airport. Calm and cool, the four of you step out of an elevator, machine guns held at a relaxed height. The three begin mowing down civilians and it’s your choice from here whether to pull the trigger or not.

Sadly, that decision has no bearing on the game. You end up the same way—and here’s the spoiler—dead on the floor while the terrorist leader escapes, leaving an American accountable for the death of thousands of Russian civilians.

To be very clear, I have no issue with the scene existing. I think games approaching these kinds of scenes is great, and it’s a step in the right direction for an M-rated game. However, I don’t know that it actually worked. First and foremost, the leaked information, something I didn’t even pay much attention to, really blunted the effect of the scene on me. I wish I could play it without any inkling of what’s coming. Instead of a reaction like “Whoa, what’s going on here? They’re really asking me to do this?” I said “Oh, here’s that controversial part everyone is talking about.” And it’s not like games don’t affect me. I felt looming terror in Silent Hill 2, genuine remorse in Shadow of the Colossus, and simple, real happiness playing Flower. The first Modern Warfare’s nuke scene also affected me deeply, leaving my jaw dropped as I crawled out of the helicopter, saw my dead friends through my fading vision. That scene really stayed with me and was one of the stronger scenes in I’ve seen in a game. Unfortunately, the terrorist level in Modern Warfare reaches for that but doesn’t quite make it. Terrorists mowing down civilians is certainly horrible, but here it felt telegraphed.

Further, I have to repeat something Arthur Geis of Team Xbox said: I think that the terrorist killing you at the end of the level invalidates a lot of what was said on the way into the level. It’s hard to feel like you’re giving up a piece of yourself when you just end up with a hole in your head at the end.

Lastly, let’s not talk multiplayer, because I didn’t play it at all. I know, blasphemy. I’m just not interested. Even after just a couple days the level of play’s going to be way too high to make it fun.

Overall, I thought it was an excellent game. Every aspect of the visuals stands out. The guns are especially fun to try out, and I think I probably picked up half of them, if that. The story is a solid continuation of the last game, with some weird but not game-breaking twists. In fact, some of the scenes that followed them were the best in the game. I look forward to checking out the guaranteed sequel in, oh, about a year when Activision craps another one out.