Call me jaded, call me crazy, call me whatever you’d like, but something about the new Modern Warfare 2 trailer gives me a very familiar, slightly bitter taste in my mouth. The trailer, finally unveiled last Sunday, gave the world the full glimpse at what the heavily anticipated sequel to last year’s most popular game was bringing to the table in November 2009. Now, one would imagine the teasers would have benefited the full trailer’s official unveiling with a steady hype train following Infinity Ward’s every move, but instead I felt as if the full trailer was a bit of a letdown. Truly, it appears that the teasers took away from the shock value of the final reveal, but let’s examine it a bit closer.
At first glance, Modern Warfare 2 is about on par with COD4 graphically, which really shouldn’t come as much of a surprise to anyone, although it is a tad disappointing to see that a noticeable graphical leap wasn’t really evident. Textures look nearly exactly the same, and I noticed that the animations appeared to be recycled wholesale. While it would be unrealistic to expect a complete overhaul of the graphical appearance of MW2, it remains a moot point on whether or not this is a reflection of the level of effort going into the final product that will hit store shelves later this year. It’s nice to know that the game still hasn’t sacrificed its now standard 60FPS frame rate, and to expect anything less would be a little bit ridiculous, but in all honesty, when it’s this evident that things are being reused, one becomes a little concerned about the innovations that might come along with the not-so-shiny-anymore graphical appearances.
Not quite what I was expecting.
What I mean by that is, well, is Infinity Ward going to put all of its eggs into the singleplayer basket? The recent Game Informer article that uncovered some key information about the game shocked me in more ways than one. The announcement that player customization and experience would be completely omitted from the campaign mode was a huge missed opportunity to correct the Call of Duty franchise’s lack of replayability on the singleplayer front. COD4 had an extremely fun singleplayer story mode, but it was over way too quickly and the lack of co-op hurt. Guess what? That’s exactly how it’s going to be for MW2. Expect a 6-8 hour campaign (less if you’re good) and a story that feels like it’s plucked straight out of a Tom Clancy novel. While that isn’t bad, it seems as if Infinity Ward is playing it safe and giving more of the same rather than innovating in several key ways that it did with COD4. The FPS landscape has changed since 2007, and seeing as co-op is the new hotness (Left 4 Dead is based wholly off this concept), it’s really a shame to hear that IW deems it an unnecessary factor that kills immersion. If I were playing Bioshock and I heard a friend whispering in my ear about something completely irrelevant while I tried to put together the pieces of an epic story that played out like an A-list movie, yea, I’d be a little bit disgruntled, but we’re not talking about Bioshock. This is Modern Warfare 2, and in this day and age, you make co-op work in the framework of your story. You put the extra narrative effort in to create a secondary, important character that makes the campaign immersive, and exponentially more fun as you blast Russians (again) with a friend. I can understand leaving out character customization in the singleplayer realm, but eliminating the meta-game experience of an XP system/leveling up is a foolish mistake. Maybe the briefly mentioned Special Forces mode will touch upon this, but even then, it’s not in the same context as blasting through a thrilling (although likely somewhat generic) singleplayer mode with a friend.
Guess who you fight this time? MORE RUSSIANS!
Speaking of story, it’s pretty much a guarantee that MW2 will be an enjoyable romp through several different countries in pursuit of some sort of Russian ultranationalist leader, which, while serviceable, isn’t exactly original. Although it’s unclear whether or not players will be taking on the role of different perspectives throughout the campaign mode, it would sure as hell be a nice change if gamers had some sort of attachment to the characters they’re playing as. In previous Call of Duty games, just when you were starting to like the guy you were playing, something either: 1.) Totally fucked up happens to him (i.e. Dies in a crashed helicopter after a nuke goes off) or 2.) Kills a shitload of bad guys and calls it a day. Where the hell is the immersion in that? Honestly, if MW2 is told from multiple perspectives, I’m going to pretty damn skeptical of Infinity Ward’s intent when designing the singleplayer story. While I’m not expecting Oscar-level quality here, it would be nice to see a little more sophisticated than: “This guy bad. Go kill bad guy. Oh bad guy not here. Go to other place where bad guy is and kill him dead.” At its most basic level, Call of Duty games’ stories are but hollow shells for the action that follows. Give the player drive and motivation, and to do that make him/her give a damn about the player he is controlling and those around him. Camaraderie that doesn’t center entirely on witty British jokes is a beautiful thing, and if you can have a likeable cast of characters with a solid story and a playable being that doesn’t feel like a camera with a gun attached to it, Modern Warfare 2 might actually surpass my expectations.
At this point, it’s too early to tell what’s going to happen to the multiplayer, which is where the real action is. I’m very worried that we may just get the same thing from COD4 with a new lobby interface and a few new maps/perks/guns and that’s it. With the foundation Infinity Ward has here, it’s almost impossible not to see the possibilities available. As I mentioned in my other post, customizable weapons/characters would add a hell of a lot more personality to the online sphere of Modern Warfare 2, and it’s really the next logical step in the sense that it’s what everybody seems to want. Infinity Ward introduced awesome customization options with COD4, and now people want more. People want more depth, more guns, more attachments, more everything. However, that doesn’t mean weigh down the game with needless excessive realism and such, but there should be some fine-tuned additions to the game that make it feel like more than just COD4 v2.0. If the company is going to make claims that Modern Warfare 2 has become something entirely different on its own, we better see some evidence to back it up.
It’s likely that Infinity Ward will dispel these fears with time, but on the same token, I can’t help but suppress that sinking feeling that what I am expecting to be included is something that Infinity Ward might just consider wishful thinking. It’s a hard pill to swallow, but it’s worth pointing out these early flaws so that maybe, just maybe, someone at IW reads this and (hopefully) agrees in such a compelling manner that he/she finds himself implementing such ideas into the final product. Hey, it’s an idea.
You should probably click that.
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