Comments on: Review: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (Xbox 360)

By: Aaron Thayer

Aaron Thayer — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 18:57:25 +0000

The way you frame it is that most giant blockbuster titles have a tendency to skimp on logical plot elements, instead favoring cliches and more “stupid” aspects of storytelling. And I completely agree with you. Looking at Halo 3 and Gears 2 especially, I’ll gladly tell you I disliked the plotlines in both games. But that’s what we’re getting from these sorts of titles, because we encourage it. When it comes down to it, most people won’t care if a game can’t tell a story well — they’ll love it if it’s big, bold and graphically beautiful. Give people enough stuff to shoot in a nice package with a great control mechanic, and your game is (possibly) going to be a hit. So as far as Modern Warfare 2 is concerned, I felt it was appropriate to raise a complaint against this mentality. I personally am tired of buying the same exact game story, over and over again. It’s like every development studio owns the same few stories and shares them all cooperatively. MW2 is a beautiful title and cutting-edge in advancing gameplay, but it’s still stupid. Absolutely dumb. Just because we’re “gamers” doesn’t mean we should excuse every deficient plot that’s tacked to our biggest hits. Developers are encouraged to do this though by seeing the sales trends of these giant titles, Halo 3 and Gears 2 included. This isn’t a call for more “art” in games, it’s a call to use the medium more effectively than aping Hollywood and dumbing down your action titles to an extremely base level, and then throwing in some kind of controversy to drum up more sales and press, a la “No Russian.” So thank you for recognizing the stupidity that IS already present in a lot of other million-plus sellers. An entire article could be written on the trend, and maybe now it will. But I will stand my ground and say that just because other games’ stories might be more illogical than what transpired in MW2, and knowing it’s pretty in vogue right now to pick apart Infinity Ward’s latest, I’d feel like a dunce if I didn’t point out the glaring flaws of MW2. If anything, I’d like my comments to be a positive outlook, meaning that I truly believe in what Infinity Ward can do as a studio, and I’m encouraging them to try harder and stop appealing to the lowest-common denominator with worn-out writing techniques. That’s critique, not just airing gripes.

By: Kellen

Kellen — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 17:05:59 +0000

While I’m at it, I’ll throw Gears of War 2′s narrative into the mix. That was simply appalling, even more nonsensical than MW2. The game wasn’t even that memorable, and I played through it a couple times. Nevertheless, the gameplay was extremely polished and I had a lot of fun with the game when I played it. No reason to throw the baby out with the bathwater even if the campaign’s narrative had less inspiration than my morning bowel movement.

By: Kellen

Kellen — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 16:48:24 +0000

As I said in my other comment, I didn’t find the story to be outright “bad” as most of Halo 2 and all of 3 (god I was so ready for the end of that story arch like 1/3 into the game let alone the whole Arbiter fiasco). And while people did gripe about the letdown of the Halo 3 single campaign, a similar level of the contempt expressed by many gamers for the MW2 campaign was noticeably absent. I know we are working a bit off the assumption that MW2 was the game equivalent of the mega-blockbuster Hollywood film so it should be held to an excessively high level of scrutiny, but then again Halo was in the same situation before COD4 displaced it as the most salient shooter franchise.

By: The Backlog: Wow, It’s Almost That One Holiday! edition « Silicon Sasquatch

Fri, 18 Dec 2009 20:32:36 +0000

[...] and I tried some more Modern Warfare 2 multiplayer last night as a sort of bookend to my review. However, the infinite grenade glitch made me drop out in the middle of the second match. You [...]