So why am I doing this series? Well, after investing a lot of time in the multi-and-single player of Modern Warfare 2, I've come to realize that it's a good game with a lot of glaring flaws and mistakes that a lot of games make these days. I don't intend for this to be a hate article where I scream and bitch about a game being popular when it has a few drawbacks. I do intend for the series to be my soapbox to talk about what it takes to make a fun game with a good plot. That said, most of my criticism will probably be centered around the ridiculously awful plot (compared to the pretty good plot of the first MW game), with the rest mostly tying into that, so be warned that there will be spoilers. That said, to keep everything nice and neat, I will follow the game's plot level-by-level and assess the problems one-by-one as they appear in the game.
First level, S.S.D.D.:
Really, there's not a lot to say about the first few levels. In fact, up to about the end of level three I was ready to declare it to be my favorite modern warfare genre game to date. The first mission, like in Modern Warfare 1, pulls off a rare success in mixing tutorials with gameplay and plot to both be a fun introduction to game mechanics while also setting up a context for the story. In this case, you are a Ranger in Afghanistan tasked with helping to train Afghan Army recruits. The problem with many games these days is that while you're usually set up to be a total bad-ass conqueror, there's always someone in the game world that doesn't think you're quite up to the task of fighting your enemy without first learning that you need to press A to open a door. Here, there's an obstacle course where you get to shoot targets as you move and memorize basic gameplay features. Allowing a player to re-play this course as they please allows them to get used to the game mechanics at their own pace before heading into the fray. I have no real criticism for this level.
Second level, Team Player:
Again, there's not much to say. This level has some good, frantic firefights, broken up by a tense jeep ride where you have to keep your eye out for civilians and un-armed militia before you find yourself in the middle of a huge ambush. I don't have too much to complain about beyond the fact that General Sheperd is placed in a forward combat zone with absolutely no body armor, and supplied with a .44 magnum revolver, which he uses on enemies that are almost a hundred yards away.
Third level, Cliff Hanger:
This is where the game starts to get weird. Put in the boots of a British soldier of a joint US-UK task force, your job is to be part of a two-man team tasked with recovering a lost data module from a Russian airforce base in the middle of the Altai mountains. Nevermind the fact that airfields on top of mountains are almost impossible to fly to/from when you're an exceptional pilot with a small plane, but this game assumes that Russian Military pilots with powerful jets getting racked by the hideous weather can make it there without a problem. Again, this is another well-designed level that is fun and tense whether you're shooting something or not, but it makes the first mistake of creating a stealth level in an FPS. The only time I've ever seen these done well has been in MW1 and the Thief games. Granted MW1's "All Ghillied Up" stealth level was mostly a "follow the leader" affair, where you could only get busted if you were either stupid or trying to, but it realized its limits in that first-person perspectives in games (especially console FPS's) really limits stealth action gameplay. Unfortunately, this stealth level feels bland because you can feel the fourth wall-breaking mess that the developers had to throw on in order to make the section playable, including a blizzard, a heartbeat detector, and idiotic enemy AI among them. There's not much to complain about beyond that, except for one question: What the hell blows up that building at the very end of the snowmobile chase?
Fourth level, No Russian:
Now here's where things get weird, and the plot holes begin to pile up, so I'll just number the mistakes
1. You play as an American named Allen. Don't you think a group of ethnocentrist psychos would be able to spot a non-Russian who hadn't been speaking Russian his whole life? How much training did Allen have to go through in order to get into Makarov's group?
2. Why does Allen have to join in on the attack? Since Task Force 141 in this game is just intent on killing or capturing Makarov, why can't I just kill Makarov and the other attackers right there and save a whole lot of lives?
3. The double-cross at the end makes no sense. For one, there are tons of security cameras in an airport, so it would see Makarov and the other Russian terrorists, and telling from all of the newspaper clippings shown in loading screens, everybody knows Makarov's face and the fact that he's a murdering psychopath. Also, every time I've played through the game, one of the Russian terrorists dies on the tarmac, so what about him, as far as blaming the attack on the US? Weren't there any forensics experts who could also conclude that Allen was shot execution-style in the head, and that no police reported taking him down?
Fifth Level, Takedown:
This is where the game starts to reek of wish-list development without thinking ahead. In this case, we have Rio De Janeiro, a colorful and picturesque locale that has many real-world problems that would seem prime for some Soldier of Fortune reader's wet dreams. It's been featured in several recent military games (H.A.W.K.s is the most recent one I've played), so naturally Infinity Ward would want to take a crack at it. The problem i, that this is where the game starts to follow that weird military game habit of location-hopping to random world spots for no other reason than variety and spectacle. The Tom Clancy games get especially crazy with this. One minute you could be killing Russian terrorists in Russia, then you'll find out you need to kill Spanish terrorists in England, or in the case of some CoD games, you'll be a foot soldier conscript one day, and a tank commander the next, and eventually any plot that was there to begin with just becomes so thin and convoluted, that it breaks the narrative flow. If a respected author started doing this type of thing in his books, he'd either be homeless or Dan Brown.
Plot holes and weirdness:
4) What causes the destruction in the streets near the beginning of the level? There are flaming cars and aftermath explosions, but there's no hint of any major firefights beyond the first few seconds going on at that time.
5) It's odd that instead of taking preventive measures such as using their mole to kill or capture Makarov, Task Force 141 waits until Makarov commits a travesty (without being caught on camera, somehow), then obtain bullet casings from the scene(however they were obtained) that can somehow be traced back to a single man in Brazil, so they send fully armed, conspicuous operatives to chase down a man who might know the location of the person who sold the bullets to Makarov, and then just end up fighting militia in the streets without somehow causing yet another international incident.
Thus ends my analysis of Act 1. I'll be doing these in installments, and addressing multiplayer at the end. Thanks, and I hope you keep reading.
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