I don't know if it's just me, but has anyone begun to really hate, I mean REALLY hate, how simple and shallow game characters tend to be?
Okay I'll partially discount Roleplaying Games because by definition most of these are deep, though they fall into the trap excusing a whole tonne-of-brick typecasting characters, and generally only getting the term deep partially correct (where deep is word-replaced in their minds by "verbal diahorrea for dialog and backstory, and exemplify characteristics by DnD Stats, and a look defined by the BIG BOOK OF MYTHOLOGICAL SHIT"), but still , big budget game developers should be truly ashamed of what they excuse as characters in their games and game storylines.
By character, I'm speaking to every essence of what a well-rounded character personifies-
A percieved history, personal traits both good and bad , behaviour that backs up their traits and history, and appearance. At the moment, games as a general medium address merely two of these most of the time and the rest is usually Mary-Sue/Marty-Stu'd from wherever that shit comes from (probably Fanfic.net). The result is dull characters that one could not give a crap about.
Okay, take Marcus Fenix. Epic gave him a marty-stu armoured-hulk backstory, hulking armor and a voice from the same guy who does Bender from Futurama. He is, however, not well rounded. His actions, or more importantly, the actions the player had at his disposal didn't do any credit to his character's demeanor or backstory, it went tangentical to it in fact. He shows little remorse about his actions, doesn't lament for the dead, and as far as the game will let you go toward being a psychopathic senseless killer.
While that's all fine and great in the scope of the game, where you're stopping an enemy that threatens humanity in all existence, it's still inconsistent with Fenix's background as a decorated soldier who was imprisoned after abandoning his post to save his father. Rarely does this get reflected in the game. In Gears, all he does is tow party line, at the expense of comrades and friends, mercilessly slaughtering locusts for the good of the COG.
For all intents and purposes too, Marcus' background is locked back tight with only a few surface shreds to show for it's existence, and it is never delved into. For the intents of the game, he could just be a robot with a gun and the game would play more or less similarly.
A comparable character to Marcus is Duke Nukem. Yes, Duke Nukem. Unlike Marcus though, Duke Nukem is that way by legay and by design. He's shallow because he comes from an age predating Quicktime events and dead-serious drama in games. He's a cryogenically frozen and occasionally-thawed clone of 1980s Arnold Schwarzenegger, without the bad accent, in a game. The difference between the two is not in the gameplay (because they both are action heroes with over the top bloody combat and crazy weapons and one-liners). The difference is that Duke is 10 years Marcus' senior, and overal game story deisng has moved on, but Marcus hasn't.
Then of course the question begins to be asked- " Would I want to find out about Marcus?"
Appallingly, the answer is no. Especially not in the midst of a psychotic chainsawgun-powered testosterone-injected superviolent action game. There is space for exposition, but it'd be a waste in Gears. I mean really, why even bother. Also while I'm at it, I'll thumb Halo for similar characterization.Though to it's credit, it does go out of it's way to break that where it can and has limited success, but fuck it anyway.
Of course someone will inevitably bring up one of several Bioware games, or Fallout (probably 3).Again, RPG games, and they are true exceptions to the rule, because they spend exorbitant amounts of effort doing it.. Except Fallout 3, 'cause fuck that. It shows, mind you, because Bioware games are AMAZING at that specific edge of storytelling. Especially Mass Effect 1 and 2 (and aside from Dragon Age) , do not fall back on DnD Cruxes and typecasting).
People go around and thumb their noses at Far Cry 2 for being quite "bland and boring", however there is a lot to be said for the writing and characters of that game. Like Anthony Burch, I find myself unequivocally attracted to the writing and storyline fuelling this game, as well as it's technical achievements. In particular the characterisation in the game is brilliant. Every characters is unique, with their own goals and ideals, and they back their traits with their actions. Even the Buddies, the interchangeable characters that the player can play as and have as help are all varied in their background, look and vocals. Then there's the Jackal, the elusive bad villain, who you pick up the tapes of in your quest to apprehend him as you venture through the very closest a video game has yet got to the genius introspective of Apocalypse Now, all be it as a subtext to the immediate plot.
Far Cry 2 is characterisation done right. Uncharted 2 is Characterisation done right. Gears is characterisation done wrong, Darksiders is characterisation done wrong.
Characters, at least in my book are not all generic Mary-sue. Everyone in the world has a certain amount of uniqueness to them, everyone has a story. Games with any shred of narrative structure should reflect this. It's almost Lit 101 grade basics here. Movies came to grasp with this, theatre REVOLVES around character, hell even anime/manga as a whole has a concept of how characterising works ( though typecasting is common, but it's still stronger writing than most games).
Characterising , in my books is the one area of game narrative that is being held back continually. It's probably the one thing stopping the progression of games as a progressive medium towards the realms of artistic recognition, and away from comic book territory. There is hope, as long as Bioware and Valve keep doing their thing, we may still cling to the hope the industry wakes up to realise that Rounded characters from design to execution are MUCH better for them than, say , Genenric overarmoured grunt, generic space marine, generic soldier (with insert twist), generic fantasy group, generic space travellers. Good design means you could Have ANY of those archetypes, but you can layer one detail of history, ideals , emotions, traits.
Guiltier than Gear and Halo though, are games featuring Modern day soldiers. Not joking, they are literally the shallowest of the charaxcter archetypes. Rarely do you get more than an "oh he's here, he's from X, he's here to Y".
Soldiers are people too, I should know, I know a few, and they all have personalities. When they get together, they have ways of speaking that aren't just text-book military lexicon. Especially in Military groups like Spec Ops or at the squad level, interactions between people is on a much more personable level than games lead you to believe. Game soldiers are, as a whole, cardboard thin cutouts of what soldiers embody. Granted, soldiering is their job, but like all jobs, that's not al lthat defines them, even "lifers".
I think, and I know I'm going to get rozzered for this, Rainbow Six, even Vegas are about the closest I've seen to characterisation in any Modern Day shooter. This maybe because Tom Clancy penned the original script to work off of, but there is enough character to even the NEW Rainbow Soldiers (Logan, Bishop, Kan, etc) to not worry about mary-sue syndrome. Every character has backstory, and even though the games aren't focused around character interaction much at all ,and game tech limited greatly how much visual characterization each had, every rainbow operative has backstory, a height ,weight, build, traits, things he/she excels at, things he/she fails at, and though All the games up to Lockdown couldn't visually or aurally express the difference, the AI for each handled differently, which in the game's scope was enough. Of course Lockdown and Vegas had proper characterising, complete with graphics and speech to boot, which was probably their only strengths, but my point remains the same. Rainbow Six - Best Character portrayals in modern shooters given it's scope.
Now imagine what you could do with a good script write, and today's game tech.
Lastly A brief look at another excellent characterisation game- Battlefield Bad Company. Every one of the main protagonists has a back-story (it's not deep, but it serves purpose), and coupled with creative writing and easily discernible looks for each, you have a recipe for great characters. Though the back-stories are shallow, they are deepened by the actions ingame, a shared experience between the player and the 3 other characters.
The player's character was introduced the right way, scripted in cutscenes the right way, each of the other characters was executed the right way that it seemed almost seamless the way the characters grow on you.
Bad Company sets to change the tone of things for the characters, which I'm personally apprehensive about, but providing they don't mess the characters built out of the first game, I'd still probably find it acceptable.
So yeah, game characters are on a whole, shallow twigs. They shouldn't be, but are. One day I shall fix this. Maybe today, maybe tommorrow.
Umm that's all I have to say for now, tune in next week where I chew something even more massive out maybe. If you have anything you wanna say, drop it in the comments below or reach me at the usual places.
Thursday, February 4, 2010
my grenades are calling me.
Before I Begin , I'd like to make an apology. I never intended to purchase or play this game. None. It was on my do not buy list. However, when gifted to you, where monetary value is nullified, I saw little reason not to take the oppertunity. Anybody upset by this turn of events, I apologise.
With that out of the way, I'd like to open up the can of worms I have fetched myself- Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. Also known as Call of Grenade: Oscar Mike 2.I'm going to try and keep my review as even handed, as there is a tendancy for Reviews of this game, particularly PC eviews, to be incredibly biased and bigoted. Not unjustly, mind, but bigotry none the less.
Where to begin?
With that out of the way, I'd like to open up the can of worms I have fetched myself- Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. Also known as Call of Grenade: Oscar Mike 2.I'm going to try and keep my review as even handed, as there is a tendancy for Reviews of this game, particularly PC eviews, to be incredibly biased and bigoted. Not unjustly, mind, but bigotry none the less.
Where to begin?
Oh, and Spoilers. I don't care, but you might.
Singleplayer, May as well.
As the story goes, it's 5 years since the events of COD4 (and they even give an overly showy matrix green intro sequence with flashback for those not in the know.Basically, the Ultra-nationalists still somehow took over Russia, herald Zakhaev as a martyr.. and the US invaded Afghanistan. This Commander Shepherd is on the lookout for outstanding soldiers to promote into a Multinational Task-force he runs. First mission sees you as private Allen, a normal 75th Ranger Battalion foot mook with no discernible magic powers or powered armor, and you're in Afghanistan doing things that only Private Allen from the 75th Rangers can do. A convoy gets shot up, you go out on the counter offensive with a bridge-laying machine into a town that looks remarkably un-Afghanistani (More... Iraqi.. maybe? Definitely not A-stan though). Cue the Hans Zimmer music and the non-stop-sizzling action. From there you visit a Kazakhstani Airbase on top of a mountain (involving a left-click-right-click interactive quick time event and James Bond Snowmobile chase), An Airport in Russia, Rio Di Janiero, Virginia, USA and Oil Rig, A pre-soviet castle-turned-gulag, A Villa, and Afghanistan... Again. Sound pretty conclusive, but really, you're on a 6 hour roller-coaster that's tense enough that it's like someone's force feeding you adrenaline so you overdose on it. I think the plot does itself several disservices in the name of keeping succinct.
First of them is claiming Authenticity and realism then presenting what in some areas barely scrapes for Hollywood levels of realism. Now I know that some people are already about to jump to it's defense, claiming it still did somethings realistically. I will concede this, but for every single authentic ,believable thing it does, it does two things that if you've got a grasp of even basic military shit will twig with you as very wrong.
QED- in the First real level, in Afghanistan, a scramble of F16s topple a large building with Missiles, they observe a low, but believable flight vector across the place, peeling away well before the target, to confirm the shot.
Later in the game, during the Gulag mission, you'll see F16s again, but instead of flying at a low safe altitude, you see them , drop below the strike team of AH6 Littlebirds you are on, then decelerate to little-bird cruising speed (I think it's about 150 kph on he ground), fire off their missiles, then zoom through the debris. THE FUCK. Then mere minutes later, again, F16s do some stupid shit. That latter one,mind, was given a bit of credence and they do play that out properly, making the chopper shake and lose some altitude as the air's disturbed above and below it. But still. Only one small example out of several dozen I can think off of the top of my head.
"Wait, one MAJOR plot point is all fucked up though, how could i forget", he jests.
ACS, the Attack Charazcterisation System, the lynch-pin for hiding a soviet Force Projection Assault on Virginia. Now they say in the game, that the Russians managed to decrypt the ACS module off a downed satellite (which is why what you were retrieving in Kazakhstan), used it to create a phantom attack force over the West Coast, disguising a mass invasion force to the East(which is in itself a bit odd, but i'll slide that for the moment).Now, surely, a military and intelligence force as LARGE as America would have other , non-satellite imaging/radar-based ways of detecting and preparing for an invasion force. At the Very LEAST the CIA and NSA have field spooks, even in a hostile nation like an Ultranational Russia. There are about 4 or 5 different spectrum of dedicated radio frequency that can be used to transmit messages, without the use of a satellite relay. Several of these are even used under the bracket of ship-to-shore radio. SURELY somebody between Russia and Virginia SAW this force. SURELY. It's massive enough, hundreds of aircraft; migs, Heavy lift planes, Kamovs, Hinds and Hips. You'd have to be blind and deaf to not spot it before it hit you. And yet, somehow, that's exactly what happened.
Oh, then from there the story changes from a war shooter to a personal vendetta game, initially with Task Force 141 going after the Russians to find where Makarov is, then Captain Price and Soap after Colonel Shepherd after he for reasons not made clear at all stabs you in the back after getting the dirt on Makarov. It is indeed a bizarre tweest, and in opinion, probably the icy sta to the heart of the game. It was a cheap cut you never saw coming, and does nothing to explain itself. Then it sets itself quite cleanly to a sequel being pushed out.
Lastly on plot, I feel I have to address the Airport level in no short amount of words. It's uh... Very very out of place. That's the only way I can put it. It comes from nowhere, it goes nowhere in a game sense (though in theory it does actually forward the plot, it's very tenuous, ACS-level tenuous). Really, nothing it did couldn't have been done with a sightly longer level change video. This, coupled with the fact it's incredibly narrow-minded in design makes it more awkward than the disturbing shock to your sensibilities that it should be.
In Short, the storyline is tolerable with a forecast of horrible tomorrow. I want to take the writer out the back and scrub them down for being atrocious with their inconsistency. Military authenticity is hit and miss, and they scapegoat misses as hits, sometimes even contradicting their own fiction.
The Gameplay. How do I explain it? it's clean. If you've played a Call of Duty game, particularly COD4, it plays exactly as you expect. Except there is no leaning now, which is an odd removal,considering it's tactical implications...and it being a legacy feature of the series. A host of new guns, a host of little tweaks to the AI. should probably Break it all down.
The AI's been given a work-over. Notably, enemies are much less likely to be pants on head retarded. Probably a good thing considering that no longer does the game rely on indefinitely respawning enemies (though infinitely respawning friendlies is possible).What is a bit disappointing is that the game IS overall easier than the first Modern Warfare (bar two levels, which are hard no matter which way they're sliced.) quite a bit so, and this coupled with the shorter designed play time makes the game feel very short indeed by game standards. In fact, the length coupled with it's cinematic approach to design, and linear corridor execution makes the much closer by virtue to a movie than an actual game. I Beat the Easiest Difficulty without deaths or restarts in a smidgen over 5 hours. Veteran was tougher, and took about 8 just because of sheer numbers of deaths in two levels.
More bugbears I have with the gameplay - Enemy Weapon selection is very.. odd.. from a realism standpoint. Russians carrying American Anti-vehicle missiles, Israeli and Belgian ARs, South African Shotguns, and everything in between. Especially given the number of Russian weapon variants available in the world today, it is indeed a myth why Infinity ward didn't decide to put in AK74s, AN94s, even stuff like OC14 Grozas and VSS vintorezes, is beyond me. Oh, and the ACR is Bullshit.And changing the Default Keystrokes around from CoD4 was a dick move. Completely unnecessary.
Not to worry though, there's plenty of variety in the mission design, combining plenty of tried and true level design tropes,mixed with nearly every action movie ever. Sneak abord an Oilrig, boobie-trap bodies, be a gunner on a BlackHawk, a Hummvee, and several other vehicles, sneak through heavily patrolled areas. You know, the usual suspects. It's hardly innovative about itself most of the time.
Oh and there's Spec Ops, which is it's own up-to-Two player challenge mode. You're going to get more money out of Spec Ops than the campaign I reckon, 'cause Spec ops is gold. I haven't tried it with another player yet, but the single player was enough for me to be sufficiently pleased with the thing overall. Spec ops will take you a while to fully clock, I promise.
Onwards and upwards- Graphics.
Here is where I think Modern Warfare 2 really shines. The attention to atmospheric detail in the game is incredible, in every level. It is impossible to deny the beauty of this game. Not even joking, it's level of polish is incredible. Character animation is detailed and fluid, in that Infinity Ward twitchy kind of way, weapon models and animation are, compared to COd4, much improved. Character design is clever too, and I'll explain later on.the games visuals are overall nothing short of flawless, and it's clear that most of the money for the game went straight into sound and art.
Starting off, environments are richly detailed. Very few of them are brown messes, and particularly the levels set on US soils are full of minutia that while trivial, really make the scene. The Burger Town restaurant in "Wolverines!" looks scarify like a standard fast food restaurant that's taken a few hits, with cup stacks over the place, Broilers and Fry vats emptied, exterior with a few bullet holes.To ad to this, the amount of that minutia the responds when shot at is gleeful. Notably, Glass has been given a work through and now holds it's figure much more like real glass than sugar-glass. Most awe-inspiring visuals definitely go to the level "second Sun", without question though, especially combined with the silence and additional minor touches (like the EMP'd Optics gear), make it a stunning set.
Clearly, when Infinity Ward were taking input from COD4, they were listening when people complained about the models, and in particular how attachments were handled visually. The guns have been given a noticeable poly and texture boost, complete with excellent normals and proper specular mapping. This combined with well executed and fluid animations, you get probably some of the best visual representations of the weapons portrayed in games(except for for the enlarged rear apertures, and missing iron sights when scopes are attached). Additional points for managing to squeeze a Winchester 1887 in.
Now, character design I have to say is cleverly done. Main Piece characters like price and McTavish have been given full tailored designs dedicated to mostly only them (but still fitting whatever theme they're playing into), but piece characters, and enemies for that matter, follow a very clever modular design system. It allows for the artist just to make set number different pouches, helmets, faces, headgear, etc, and apply the variations in gear and camo ingame directly (saving hundreds of megs on texture and model data). Very Clever. Mostly it works, except for the Spetznaz/VDV in the US invasion levels, where it is right out of place (because it's all rigged up on mostly NATO gear).Camo was fine though.
Moving on Sound.
Sound, as usual, is fricking fantastic. IW once again one-upped themselves on sound design. Guns sound punchy and pingy, ambient sound has been ramped up again, and Foley. And everything. Is it realistic? Not painstakingly so. It's very hollywood sopund design, so take it as you will.
One pleasing little thing was the TMP and Mini-Uzi shooting. Now, if I had to onomatopaeia the sound for a Machine pistol, or a small sub-gun, it'd be BRAAAAP. Not a single game.. no wait, all games bar two so far... have managed to encapsulate that sound. Then we come to Modern Warfare 2, and suddenly, spraying a TMP and it just going BRAAAAP is the best experience I've ever got from sound in a game in ages.
So that's that then. Singleplayer is a very polished average shooter experience with the adrenaline valve jammed open and with a fun side coop thingy. I really with they'd made the game more like Spec Ops and less like the Campaign though, Ultimately that was too short, too over the top and just a little too.. convoluted.. all the time.It's fucked right up. Still a blast to play though and you should if you are planning on getting this game, just to say you've done it.
So that's it, get someone else to buy you MW2, because the two bits of game they give you aren't worth the retail + 10 they're charging...
..wait a sec...
Mul...ti...play...er? What's this?
OH fuck me with a brick I suppose I'd better talk about it, now I've sunk enough time into it (about 24 hours worth of game time in just under a month).
I really do think that this is a hard portion of the game to say whether I like personally or not, because I really don't know if I do or don't.
The first thing that strikes you about the multiplayer is is pretty much drops ALL pretense about realism. It's a pure multiplayer-driven game that is pat twitch shooter, part team-play. The visual and audio authtenticity is incredibly shallow, and for all intents and purposes doesn't mean much in the grand scheme of it. While it drops all pretense there, it makes up for it by being a VERY well designed experience, top to bottom. The Levelling system present in COD4 has been expanded and elaborated greatly.
Kills and points may be handed out a bit more liberally, but the level cap is proportionally much further away, and there are 5 levels of prestige. For those who haven't played the console version (like me) this was a change, PC players never received the Prestige system. But here it is now, which allows you to run the 1-70 leveling 5 times, each time resetting all your weapons and perks, but giving you some extra stuff unlocked initially (that were unavailable in the first run through). It's clever, and combined with call-signs and emblems , it makes the climb to the last prestige varied.
Oh there's callsigns and emblems. You unlock them through levelling, achievements, and just doing things the way you do them. You use them in a forum-like signature that people see when you kill them, or in lobbies. Just adds some personalizing, I do like that and it distinguishes it away from blandy-mcblands shooter number 5.
Let's see.. OH
Remember how Killstreaks used to be annoying? UAV was fine,but then Airstrikes were spammed, which led to Helo spam. Well, that's more or less irrelevant and/or a thing of a past. Modern Warfare 2 has customizable killstreak configuring, and it's effing brilliant. Not only does it give you that extra level of customization, you can ALMOST do away with airborne stuf if you want. Personally, I dig having supply drops and Sentry guns, so I usually rock them in my profile. That said, there's 15 killstreak unlocks, and even the ground-based ones (like the care package and sentry gun) get airdropped in. Don't worry though, there's a limit to 3 aircraft on the map at one time, and even stuff like Attack choppers can be countered, and very few of the killstreaks feel overpowered (except the AC130, and the nuke, one because it has cannons and the other because it makes for instant endgame where you win)
In fact, everything can be countered in MW2. That's probably the great thing. UAV can be countered by Counter-UAV and cold blooded, weapon perks balance, even the weapons do for the most part, and it all lets you tailor to your style of play, which is I must be honest, brilliant. The option to switch out your hand grenades for a Tactical Insertion flare is a godsend for team defensive modes like Domination, but the flares can still be shot or blown up to counter it.
Challenges return, and there are no shortage of them. Not kidding, there's hundreds. if you're a completionist, you'll be at them for a while.
Now, for the thing to take with a huge grain of salt.
IWnet. For those not in the know, IWnet was and is a huge source of contention with PC gamers, because of the lack of control over servers, matchmaking, especially regarding performance and bandwidth disparities. I am here to tell you that the fear of this IWnet is somewhat justified, at least Here in Australia.
The matchmaking is really odd I will admit. All the broadcasts for games are done via IWnet servers, which send back the list of games currently hosting, and your PC does a ping and filter through them until it hits one. Unfortunately, this leads to huge delays getting games up. and Unlike where in COD4 it was a 5 click job with minimal wait to get int oa game in your favourite server, now it's a 3 click process, with a potentially lengthy waiting period and a prayer. Lobbies seem to be quite volatile and players jump in an out sometimes by the second. It may work fine in the northern hemisphere where all the servers and players are within 100-200 ping of each other, but here where you've got to ping out to IWnet (which is a 400 ms round trip), then ping servers, it's somewhat nightmarish. Heck, Valve's matchmaking works better in L4D2 and L4D1. And host migration/Picking best host has a 50/50 chance of failing for whatever reason.
Once a game is Up though, generally it's fine, as long as the guy isn't an idiot running a torrent or something in the background chewing his bandwidth, or one of those exploiters doing that to farm levels (it's possible). So far, the game's been pretty clean of cheaters for me too, which surprised me considering all the oogie boogie people were screaming about.
Oh and there's no Offline LAN support. Forget it for LANs unless you've got an internet connection. IWnet, in short is the most disappointing thing about the multiplayer, and a huge frigging thorn in the side of the regrowth of PC gaming.
In short, the multiplayer is a blast, but the method of delivery is really letting the side down.
So, would I recommend you go out MW2?
NNNNNnnnnnnnnno.
Here's why - it's 10% more expensive than any other new release AAA PC game, and it's only about 80-90% worth the unmarked-up one, The SP is good but short if you put the blinkers on, and the MP is a blast, but is hampered by IWnet being a farce here in Australia. If someone gifts you it, by all means take it with both arms, or if it goes on sale, take it, but at $110 Australian, it's like Buying a Falcon for the price of a new Aston Martin-
Sure, they;re both decent cars, but the Aston is just that little bit more justifiable for it's price-tag, the Falcon jut isn't. MW2 just isn't. Almost, but not.
Here's a Bunch of pictars to go along with the review. Keep in mind, this is on a now-3rd-gen PC with shadows off (for whatever reason, my poor cassidy does not like to display the things AND keep a solid framerate)
http://tinypic.com/a/1jkuw/3
Singleplayer, May as well.
As the story goes, it's 5 years since the events of COD4 (and they even give an overly showy matrix green intro sequence with flashback for those not in the know.Basically, the Ultra-nationalists still somehow took over Russia, herald Zakhaev as a martyr.. and the US invaded Afghanistan. This Commander Shepherd is on the lookout for outstanding soldiers to promote into a Multinational Task-force he runs. First mission sees you as private Allen, a normal 75th Ranger Battalion foot mook with no discernible magic powers or powered armor, and you're in Afghanistan doing things that only Private Allen from the 75th Rangers can do. A convoy gets shot up, you go out on the counter offensive with a bridge-laying machine into a town that looks remarkably un-Afghanistani (More... Iraqi.. maybe? Definitely not A-stan though). Cue the Hans Zimmer music and the non-stop-sizzling action. From there you visit a Kazakhstani Airbase on top of a mountain (involving a left-click-right-click interactive quick time event and James Bond Snowmobile chase), An Airport in Russia, Rio Di Janiero, Virginia, USA and Oil Rig, A pre-soviet castle-turned-gulag, A Villa, and Afghanistan... Again. Sound pretty conclusive, but really, you're on a 6 hour roller-coaster that's tense enough that it's like someone's force feeding you adrenaline so you overdose on it. I think the plot does itself several disservices in the name of keeping succinct.
First of them is claiming Authenticity and realism then presenting what in some areas barely scrapes for Hollywood levels of realism. Now I know that some people are already about to jump to it's defense, claiming it still did somethings realistically. I will concede this, but for every single authentic ,believable thing it does, it does two things that if you've got a grasp of even basic military shit will twig with you as very wrong.
QED- in the First real level, in Afghanistan, a scramble of F16s topple a large building with Missiles, they observe a low, but believable flight vector across the place, peeling away well before the target, to confirm the shot.
Later in the game, during the Gulag mission, you'll see F16s again, but instead of flying at a low safe altitude, you see them , drop below the strike team of AH6 Littlebirds you are on, then decelerate to little-bird cruising speed (I think it's about 150 kph on he ground), fire off their missiles, then zoom through the debris. THE FUCK. Then mere minutes later, again, F16s do some stupid shit. That latter one,mind, was given a bit of credence and they do play that out properly, making the chopper shake and lose some altitude as the air's disturbed above and below it. But still. Only one small example out of several dozen I can think off of the top of my head.
"Wait, one MAJOR plot point is all fucked up though, how could i forget", he jests.
ACS, the Attack Charazcterisation System, the lynch-pin for hiding a soviet Force Projection Assault on Virginia. Now they say in the game, that the Russians managed to decrypt the ACS module off a downed satellite (which is why what you were retrieving in Kazakhstan), used it to create a phantom attack force over the West Coast, disguising a mass invasion force to the East(which is in itself a bit odd, but i'll slide that for the moment).Now, surely, a military and intelligence force as LARGE as America would have other , non-satellite imaging/radar-based ways of detecting and preparing for an invasion force. At the Very LEAST the CIA and NSA have field spooks, even in a hostile nation like an Ultranational Russia. There are about 4 or 5 different spectrum of dedicated radio frequency that can be used to transmit messages, without the use of a satellite relay. Several of these are even used under the bracket of ship-to-shore radio. SURELY somebody between Russia and Virginia SAW this force. SURELY. It's massive enough, hundreds of aircraft; migs, Heavy lift planes, Kamovs, Hinds and Hips. You'd have to be blind and deaf to not spot it before it hit you. And yet, somehow, that's exactly what happened.
Oh, then from there the story changes from a war shooter to a personal vendetta game, initially with Task Force 141 going after the Russians to find where Makarov is, then Captain Price and Soap after Colonel Shepherd after he for reasons not made clear at all stabs you in the back after getting the dirt on Makarov. It is indeed a bizarre tweest, and in opinion, probably the icy sta to the heart of the game. It was a cheap cut you never saw coming, and does nothing to explain itself. Then it sets itself quite cleanly to a sequel being pushed out.
Lastly on plot, I feel I have to address the Airport level in no short amount of words. It's uh... Very very out of place. That's the only way I can put it. It comes from nowhere, it goes nowhere in a game sense (though in theory it does actually forward the plot, it's very tenuous, ACS-level tenuous). Really, nothing it did couldn't have been done with a sightly longer level change video. This, coupled with the fact it's incredibly narrow-minded in design makes it more awkward than the disturbing shock to your sensibilities that it should be.
In Short, the storyline is tolerable with a forecast of horrible tomorrow. I want to take the writer out the back and scrub them down for being atrocious with their inconsistency. Military authenticity is hit and miss, and they scapegoat misses as hits, sometimes even contradicting their own fiction.
The Gameplay. How do I explain it? it's clean. If you've played a Call of Duty game, particularly COD4, it plays exactly as you expect. Except there is no leaning now, which is an odd removal,considering it's tactical implications...and it being a legacy feature of the series. A host of new guns, a host of little tweaks to the AI. should probably Break it all down.
The AI's been given a work-over. Notably, enemies are much less likely to be pants on head retarded. Probably a good thing considering that no longer does the game rely on indefinitely respawning enemies (though infinitely respawning friendlies is possible).What is a bit disappointing is that the game IS overall easier than the first Modern Warfare (bar two levels, which are hard no matter which way they're sliced.) quite a bit so, and this coupled with the shorter designed play time makes the game feel very short indeed by game standards. In fact, the length coupled with it's cinematic approach to design, and linear corridor execution makes the much closer by virtue to a movie than an actual game. I Beat the Easiest Difficulty without deaths or restarts in a smidgen over 5 hours. Veteran was tougher, and took about 8 just because of sheer numbers of deaths in two levels.
More bugbears I have with the gameplay - Enemy Weapon selection is very.. odd.. from a realism standpoint. Russians carrying American Anti-vehicle missiles, Israeli and Belgian ARs, South African Shotguns, and everything in between. Especially given the number of Russian weapon variants available in the world today, it is indeed a myth why Infinity ward didn't decide to put in AK74s, AN94s, even stuff like OC14 Grozas and VSS vintorezes, is beyond me. Oh, and the ACR is Bullshit.And changing the Default Keystrokes around from CoD4 was a dick move. Completely unnecessary.
Not to worry though, there's plenty of variety in the mission design, combining plenty of tried and true level design tropes,mixed with nearly every action movie ever. Sneak abord an Oilrig, boobie-trap bodies, be a gunner on a BlackHawk, a Hummvee, and several other vehicles, sneak through heavily patrolled areas. You know, the usual suspects. It's hardly innovative about itself most of the time.
Oh and there's Spec Ops, which is it's own up-to-Two player challenge mode. You're going to get more money out of Spec Ops than the campaign I reckon, 'cause Spec ops is gold. I haven't tried it with another player yet, but the single player was enough for me to be sufficiently pleased with the thing overall. Spec ops will take you a while to fully clock, I promise.
Onwards and upwards- Graphics.
Here is where I think Modern Warfare 2 really shines. The attention to atmospheric detail in the game is incredible, in every level. It is impossible to deny the beauty of this game. Not even joking, it's level of polish is incredible. Character animation is detailed and fluid, in that Infinity Ward twitchy kind of way, weapon models and animation are, compared to COd4, much improved. Character design is clever too, and I'll explain later on.the games visuals are overall nothing short of flawless, and it's clear that most of the money for the game went straight into sound and art.
Starting off, environments are richly detailed. Very few of them are brown messes, and particularly the levels set on US soils are full of minutia that while trivial, really make the scene. The Burger Town restaurant in "Wolverines!" looks scarify like a standard fast food restaurant that's taken a few hits, with cup stacks over the place, Broilers and Fry vats emptied, exterior with a few bullet holes.To ad to this, the amount of that minutia the responds when shot at is gleeful. Notably, Glass has been given a work through and now holds it's figure much more like real glass than sugar-glass. Most awe-inspiring visuals definitely go to the level "second Sun", without question though, especially combined with the silence and additional minor touches (like the EMP'd Optics gear), make it a stunning set.
Clearly, when Infinity Ward were taking input from COD4, they were listening when people complained about the models, and in particular how attachments were handled visually. The guns have been given a noticeable poly and texture boost, complete with excellent normals and proper specular mapping. This combined with well executed and fluid animations, you get probably some of the best visual representations of the weapons portrayed in games(except for for the enlarged rear apertures, and missing iron sights when scopes are attached). Additional points for managing to squeeze a Winchester 1887 in.
Now, character design I have to say is cleverly done. Main Piece characters like price and McTavish have been given full tailored designs dedicated to mostly only them (but still fitting whatever theme they're playing into), but piece characters, and enemies for that matter, follow a very clever modular design system. It allows for the artist just to make set number different pouches, helmets, faces, headgear, etc, and apply the variations in gear and camo ingame directly (saving hundreds of megs on texture and model data). Very Clever. Mostly it works, except for the Spetznaz/VDV in the US invasion levels, where it is right out of place (because it's all rigged up on mostly NATO gear).Camo was fine though.
Moving on Sound.
Sound, as usual, is fricking fantastic. IW once again one-upped themselves on sound design. Guns sound punchy and pingy, ambient sound has been ramped up again, and Foley. And everything. Is it realistic? Not painstakingly so. It's very hollywood sopund design, so take it as you will.
One pleasing little thing was the TMP and Mini-Uzi shooting. Now, if I had to onomatopaeia the sound for a Machine pistol, or a small sub-gun, it'd be BRAAAAP. Not a single game.. no wait, all games bar two so far... have managed to encapsulate that sound. Then we come to Modern Warfare 2, and suddenly, spraying a TMP and it just going BRAAAAP is the best experience I've ever got from sound in a game in ages.
So that's that then. Singleplayer is a very polished average shooter experience with the adrenaline valve jammed open and with a fun side coop thingy. I really with they'd made the game more like Spec Ops and less like the Campaign though, Ultimately that was too short, too over the top and just a little too.. convoluted.. all the time.It's fucked right up. Still a blast to play though and you should if you are planning on getting this game, just to say you've done it.
So that's it, get someone else to buy you MW2, because the two bits of game they give you aren't worth the retail + 10 they're charging...
..wait a sec...
Mul...ti...play...er? What's this?
OH fuck me with a brick I suppose I'd better talk about it, now I've sunk enough time into it (about 24 hours worth of game time in just under a month).
I really do think that this is a hard portion of the game to say whether I like personally or not, because I really don't know if I do or don't.
The first thing that strikes you about the multiplayer is is pretty much drops ALL pretense about realism. It's a pure multiplayer-driven game that is pat twitch shooter, part team-play. The visual and audio authtenticity is incredibly shallow, and for all intents and purposes doesn't mean much in the grand scheme of it. While it drops all pretense there, it makes up for it by being a VERY well designed experience, top to bottom. The Levelling system present in COD4 has been expanded and elaborated greatly.
Kills and points may be handed out a bit more liberally, but the level cap is proportionally much further away, and there are 5 levels of prestige. For those who haven't played the console version (like me) this was a change, PC players never received the Prestige system. But here it is now, which allows you to run the 1-70 leveling 5 times, each time resetting all your weapons and perks, but giving you some extra stuff unlocked initially (that were unavailable in the first run through). It's clever, and combined with call-signs and emblems , it makes the climb to the last prestige varied.
Oh there's callsigns and emblems. You unlock them through levelling, achievements, and just doing things the way you do them. You use them in a forum-like signature that people see when you kill them, or in lobbies. Just adds some personalizing, I do like that and it distinguishes it away from blandy-mcblands shooter number 5.
Let's see.. OH
Remember how Killstreaks used to be annoying? UAV was fine,but then Airstrikes were spammed, which led to Helo spam. Well, that's more or less irrelevant and/or a thing of a past. Modern Warfare 2 has customizable killstreak configuring, and it's effing brilliant. Not only does it give you that extra level of customization, you can ALMOST do away with airborne stuf if you want. Personally, I dig having supply drops and Sentry guns, so I usually rock them in my profile. That said, there's 15 killstreak unlocks, and even the ground-based ones (like the care package and sentry gun) get airdropped in. Don't worry though, there's a limit to 3 aircraft on the map at one time, and even stuff like Attack choppers can be countered, and very few of the killstreaks feel overpowered (except the AC130, and the nuke, one because it has cannons and the other because it makes for instant endgame where you win)
In fact, everything can be countered in MW2. That's probably the great thing. UAV can be countered by Counter-UAV and cold blooded, weapon perks balance, even the weapons do for the most part, and it all lets you tailor to your style of play, which is I must be honest, brilliant. The option to switch out your hand grenades for a Tactical Insertion flare is a godsend for team defensive modes like Domination, but the flares can still be shot or blown up to counter it.
Challenges return, and there are no shortage of them. Not kidding, there's hundreds. if you're a completionist, you'll be at them for a while.
Now, for the thing to take with a huge grain of salt.
IWnet. For those not in the know, IWnet was and is a huge source of contention with PC gamers, because of the lack of control over servers, matchmaking, especially regarding performance and bandwidth disparities. I am here to tell you that the fear of this IWnet is somewhat justified, at least Here in Australia.
The matchmaking is really odd I will admit. All the broadcasts for games are done via IWnet servers, which send back the list of games currently hosting, and your PC does a ping and filter through them until it hits one. Unfortunately, this leads to huge delays getting games up. and Unlike where in COD4 it was a 5 click job with minimal wait to get int oa game in your favourite server, now it's a 3 click process, with a potentially lengthy waiting period and a prayer. Lobbies seem to be quite volatile and players jump in an out sometimes by the second. It may work fine in the northern hemisphere where all the servers and players are within 100-200 ping of each other, but here where you've got to ping out to IWnet (which is a 400 ms round trip), then ping servers, it's somewhat nightmarish. Heck, Valve's matchmaking works better in L4D2 and L4D1. And host migration/Picking best host has a 50/50 chance of failing for whatever reason.
Once a game is Up though, generally it's fine, as long as the guy isn't an idiot running a torrent or something in the background chewing his bandwidth, or one of those exploiters doing that to farm levels (it's possible). So far, the game's been pretty clean of cheaters for me too, which surprised me considering all the oogie boogie people were screaming about.
Oh and there's no Offline LAN support. Forget it for LANs unless you've got an internet connection. IWnet, in short is the most disappointing thing about the multiplayer, and a huge frigging thorn in the side of the regrowth of PC gaming.
In short, the multiplayer is a blast, but the method of delivery is really letting the side down.
So, would I recommend you go out MW2?
NNNNNnnnnnnnnno.
Here's why - it's 10% more expensive than any other new release AAA PC game, and it's only about 80-90% worth the unmarked-up one, The SP is good but short if you put the blinkers on, and the MP is a blast, but is hampered by IWnet being a farce here in Australia. If someone gifts you it, by all means take it with both arms, or if it goes on sale, take it, but at $110 Australian, it's like Buying a Falcon for the price of a new Aston Martin-
Sure, they;re both decent cars, but the Aston is just that little bit more justifiable for it's price-tag, the Falcon jut isn't. MW2 just isn't. Almost, but not.
Here's a Bunch of pictars to go along with the review. Keep in mind, this is on a now-3rd-gen PC with shadows off (for whatever reason, my poor cassidy does not like to display the things AND keep a solid framerate)
http://tinypic.com/a/1jkuw/3
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