In something of an inspired move, this years Call of Duty is enjoying a staggered release, with the campaign being made available to all those whove pre-ordered Modern Warfare 2 a week ahead of the full release on 28th October. And as campaigns go its possibly as big and bold as Call of Duty – a series thats not exactly renowned for being reserved – gets. Is it any good, though? Weve played through it all and here are our thoughts…
Martin: So first of all, before we get to the campaign itself – Im a fan of the split release. I love a good Call of Duty campaign but in recent years Ive found myself skipping them in favour of the real meat thats the multiplayer modes. In fact, I cant remember the last time I finished a Call of Duty campaign – maybe Infinite Warfare? They can sometimes feel like afterthoughts and its easy to pick them up for a couple of hours then put them down and forget about them. At least this way the campaigns getting its moment in the sun, and fittingly it feels like the biggest, boldest Call of Duty campaign theres been in an age. Now whether its a good campaign or not is another question…
Wes: I think its good! But I dont think its brilliant. Its a weird mishmash of different gameplay types, some clearly inspired by other games but not quite as good as them. Take for example the car chase level. Youre jumping from car to car, leaning out and shooting and blowing stuff up as you do in Call of Duty, but its not as good as Uncharteds famous car chase stuff.
Its a similar deal with the level that includes a sort of Hitman-style bit where youre in disguise and have a few options for how to proceed. And then the sort-of survival crafting level that felt a lot like The Last of Us in first-person and without the clickers. God, that went on for a while.
There are even levels that are cover band versions of famous Call of Duty levels, like the one where you shoot down at a battlefield from the target camera of a gunship, and the one where youre literally All Ghillied Up and prone in the long grass as soldiers walk around you, and lots of bits where youre walking up stairs aiming down sights behind a few soldiers who are doing the same, which is like Clean House from 2019 Modern Warfare but not as good. (God, Clean House is so good!)
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This campaign has good bits, for sure, but none of it is very good, I think. Its so constrained by that rigid Call of Duty campaign formula – you have a thing to do and you go in mostly a straight line to do it, following orders from Ghost or Price or whoever. Maybe I expect too much! This is Call of Duty after all. But there are flashes of deviance that offer a glimpse at what might have been: the backpack survival stuff – maybe that could have been fleshed out more? The level where you guide Ghost via CCTV cameras, telling him when to move from cover to cover, when to set off distractions and when to knife kill. More of that off-the-beaten track stuff, please!
Although, saying that, the shooting is so, so good, as Modern Warfares was, that I found myself pining for the simple pleasure of shooting enemies to bits in this campaign. It didnt seem to happen all that often.
Gosh, Ive gone on! I have thoughts about Modern Warfare 2. What do you think of it?
Martin: Well, Ive got to agree that the guns do feel good. Going back to your original points, there is a lot of Naughty Dog in Modern Warfare 2s campaign – it feels like a fair amount of talent has exchanged between Infinity Ward and the Uncharted studio. And thats no bad thing at all, because it makes for a more varied, more interesting campaign than the more linear shooting alleys of old.
I think a term being bandied around about the time of Uncharted 4s release was wide linear, and Modern Warfare 2 has a lot of that; these sort of semi-open spaces with objectives youre able to approach sort of how you see fit. Its pretty good, too! There are some really fun open levels where you can switch up from sniping to breaching and clearing outhouses, and they work well. It can be frustrating too, though – there are those same moments you get in Naughty Dog games where youre trying to find how to trigger progression, so it goes from offering open-ended action to something more like a pixel hunt. Which isnt so much fun.
Then theres that level that lifts from The Last of Us with you starting unarmed and then crafting weapons with what you find in peoples laundry baskets. Its a bit weird and I wasnt really convinced at first, but its only a matter of minutes before youve got a gun in your hand. Then a bigger gun. Then some mods for your bigger gun. By the time the level wrapped I thought it offered a pretty entertaining sped-up progression from being alone and vulnerable to being tooled-up and invulnerable like Arnie.
Theres a standout mission, too, in Dark Water – which understandably led the marketing with Modern Warfare 2 and was part of our very first look at the games campaign. Its more in keeping with traditional Call of Duty, I guess – and your beloved Clear House – in that youre fighting alongside special ops sorts and clearing out room after room, but its delivered with flair. With some real, proper flair – the section with containers that are skittering about the surface of the boat and providing cover thats constantly moving was inspired, and it helps that it all looks outrageously good. Its almost as mind-blowing as the tanker section was in Metal Gear Solid 2 all those years ago.
So yes there are some great bits. But then there are other bits, too… Its such a big grab-bag of ideas from other games that it can feel a bit too much, with some of those ideas being executed in a bit of a half-arsed fashion like that backpack. Im not sure a Call of Duty campaign needs to be as big as this, or as broad – by the end I was wishing itd been whittled down to a tight four hours rather than the sprawl it is.
Wes: You mentioned how good Dark Water is and looks – Modern Warfare 2 looks fantastic. Weve probably all seen that viral clip of Tradecraft, the mission set in Amsterdam. Yes, its super detailed and environmentally looks realistic, but that level in particular felt like a tech demo to me because of how constrained the objective is. Its almost a mini-walking sim.
Can we talk about the faces? Holy shit the faces in this game look amazing. Infinity Ward has taken video game faces to another level, I think. There were moments where I thought the characters looked like real-life, with their eye movements, smirks and head bobs. The voice acting is superb, too. Well, mostly. By the end of the campaign the dialogue between the Brits (Ghost, Price, Gaz and Soap) annoyed the hell out of me. But I couldnt get enough of prime PMC douchebag Graves (whos a dead ringer for Leeds United manager Jesse Marsch by the way), Mexican Special Forces hardman Alejandro and, best of all, Valeria.
Yes Martin, we need to talk about Valeria. I think Im in love…
Martin: It does look bloody spectacular, and the motion and facial capture is beyond impressive. Its so bloody weird to me, though, that youd go to those lengths with that tech and then waste it on some of the worst writing Ive encountered in any video game. The voice acting is grand, but the lines theyre delivering? Im sort of amazed that a script might have been passed around, people read it and went ok yeah this is fine. At one point Soap, whos Scottish, berates Ghost when he asks for a cup of tea by saying Bloody Brits. Did no-one read that line twice and think hold on a second, theres a bit of an error here?
Maybe its best they just keep to the barks, which seem to be a hundred variations on how to say fuuuucking hell.
Theres also the issue of tone, and I sort of wish this leant more into the late-Brosnan era Bond that the old Modern Warfare sequels did rather than attempt something more grounded that ends up leaving a nasty taste in the mouth. Its always going to be icky making a game about shooting people in the face with realistic military hardware fun, but Modern Warfare 2 certainly doesnt do itself any favours with some of the choices it makes, such as the regrettable scene where you go around de-escalating civilians by pointing your gun square at their faces. Grim.
Wes: Yeah, that whole level on the border with Mexico seems misjudged. Was it trying to make a point about something? Im not sure. Im not sure the campaign has much of a point at all, apart from the end of a sharp knife.
I also felt grim controlling a ballistic missile on its way to obliterating an Iranian general during a Russian arms deal, given everything happening in the world right now. To be clear, Im not disgusted, just uncomfortable. I dont think the game needed that bit. It would have been fine without. Multiplayer is like paintball to me. But the campaign for 2019 Modern Warfare and this sequel trade on their grounding in military realism. Its why levels like Clean House work so well. Thus, when set pieces feel too close to home, they hit harder.
What Modern Warfare 2 did need – and dont think I havent noticed you failing to mention her – is Valeria. Martin, what do you think of Valeria? Martin! Tell me!!
Martin: I hate to disappoint you but I dont think she really registered for me. None of the characters really did as theyre all a bit one-dimensional. By this time next week, once Ive got stuck into the multiplayer, I doubt Ill remember any of the characters from the campaign.
Before we wrap up – and this is going to head firmly into spoiler territory, so look away now if you dont want to know what happens at the very end – did you see the post-credits sequence?
Wes: I did! SPOILER ALERT READERS!
Theyre going to make us hijack that plane in No Russian 2.0, arent they? Shock, horror! Hear all about it! Hold the front page etc!
I wont kill any civilians, Martin. I just wont do it.
Its a bit Game of Thrones, isnt it? At what point will the soft reboot games catch up with the end of the original trilogy? What does Infinity Ward do then? I know! Soft reboot of Call of Duty: Ghosts. Call the dog Colin this time, you cowards.
Martin: Its a bit weird. Like, in Marvel films youll get a post-credits scene thats like heres your favourite character returning! In Modern Warfare 2 its more like heres that level in which you slaughtered loads of civilians! Again, grim.
Im up for them having another crack at Colin though. Or Modern Warfare 3, even. Just make it a bit shorter and punchier next time round, please.
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