Video Games: Answering the Call

“Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2”
Publisher: Activision
Developer: Infinity Ward
System: Xbox 360, Playstation 3, PC
ESRB Rating: M (Mature)
Released: Nov. 10, 2009

It only took 24 hours for Activision to sell 4.7 million copies of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 in North America and the United Kingdom. The video game publisher estimated first-day sales in excess of $310 million. That is a little more than $215,000 per minute, or $3,529 per second.

So Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 made a lot of money, but is it any fun to play?

Yes, it is a lot of fun to play, if you play online. It will keep you up into the wee hours of the morning. It will have you daydreaming at work. It will strain your relationships.

Infinity Ward built on the success of 2007’s widely acclaimed Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, considered one of the best multiplayer games ever. It sold 14 million copies, won more than 50 game of the year awards and has been recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records as the Most Played Online Video Game in history.

Players earn experience points for performance in multiplayer matches. As you level up, you unlock new guns, perks and equipment. Your arsenal can be further customized to match your style of play through attachments such as a heartbeat sensor or thermal scope.

There are a number of enhancements to multiplayer in Modern Warfare 2. Most notably there are more than a dozen “killstreak” rewards, which you can customize. New rewards include powerful predator missile strikes, a sentry gun, a Harrier Jet airstrike and even a tactical nuke (which kills everybody and gives your team the instant win).

On the flipside, “deathstreaks” will give players respite after being killed several times in a row. One of the more helpful is the Copycat perk, which allows you to steal the weapon outfit of your killer.

New equipment includes a riot shield that can be used to soak up bullets in diversions, throwing knives for stealth kills and tactical insertion smoke grenades that allow snipers to create their next spawn point.

Certain perks that were considered cheap, such as Last Stand and Martyrdom, aren’t unlocked until higher levels. Perks can now level up with use to provide additional benefit. The level cap, too, has been increased to 70.

Players can also further tailor their characters by unlocking call signs that identify a player onscreen with a picture and a nickname. Call signs are distributed based on how you play the game.

Infinity Ward also added an entirely new, cooperative mode called Special Ops. These are a collection of missions that include new missions and highlights from the single player game and even missions based on Call of Duty 4.

Between these two online modes, expect to spend dozens if not hundreds of hours with this game. If your system is hooked up to the Internet, Modern Warfare 2 is one of the best values in gaming.

November 10th was the busiest day in the history of Xbox Live. More than 2 million players logged on that day, undoubtedly many of whom were playing Modern Warfare 2. Many gamers who stood in line for midnight launches in Omaha relayed plans to stay home from work or school and dedicate an entire day to playing online.

Microsoft took advantage of the fervor by simultaneously banning from Xbox Live hundreds of thousands of users who had consoles modded to play pirated games. Microsoft has not released official numbers, but estimates have ranged from 600,000 to 1 million banned accounts. Without a doubt, the company was hoping to send pirates to retailers to purchase new consoles so they wouldn’t miss out on the biggest video game release this decade.

The story-driven campaign mode is not nearly as refined as multiplayer. But since multiplayer sells this particular game, Infinity Ward decided to take larger gambles in campaign mode, evident in the level called, “No Russian.”

In this level the player assumes the role of a deep-cover CIA agent. Your character infiltrates a Russian terrorist group and participates in the brutal slaughter of civilians in a Moscow airport.

There is an option to skip this level, presented at the beginning of the game. But that it can be so easily skipped by the squeamish betrays the fact that its true purpose is to shock and generate controversy.

If you don’t skip the level, you are forced to walk through the airport watching your terrorist comrades spray bullets into frantic civilians and inept security guards. While you don’t have to participate in the massacre, you can’t prevent it.

The level elicits grotesque feelings and immediate comparisons to tragedies like Virginia Tech and Westroads Mall. Anybody who lost a loved one in a mindless act of violence will surely be sickened and emotionally distraught by seeing the “No Russians” level.

The first-person viewpoint increases the shock factor. But while Infinity Ward could be condemned for being insensitive to victims of mass shootings and their families, it could also be commended for brave experimentation by forcing players into uncomfortable situations.

All great art must elicit an emotional response in the viewer, and the “No Russian” level does accomplish that. But it does so with the brutality of a jackhammer and visceral images compared to thoughtful nuance and introspection of higher art.

And while the presentation is alarming, the act is not entirely gratuitous. The airport massacre is a lynchpin in the plot, providing the Russians a motive for retaliation. Unfortunately, the rest of the plot is so discombobulated it minimizes any message Infinity Ward might have been trying to communicate.

None of the characters has anything that might be mistaken for a personality. Their motives are cloudy and irrational. Unless it is directly portrayed on screen, the larger plot is vaguely described and difficult to follow.

Video games as a medium are still discovering their narrative strengths. Movies are strictly passive experiences allowing for strict directorial control over presentation, but novels can sometimes deliver richer experiences by relying on the reader’s imagination.

Video games, on the other hand, are interactive, meaning that players can project their own motives on the character and effect changes in the narrative landscape. The games that are the most successful at spinning engaging stories are those that experiment with interactive aspects.

With the “No Russian” level, Infinity Ward is experimenting and pushing the boundaries of interactive storytelling. The attempt sadly fails because the effort is fleeting as chaotic action and a “shoot everything” mentality supplants plot in importance as the game progresses.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 is a brilliant multiplayer game that will reign supreme through 2010 and beyond. The addition of Special Ops cooperative mode offers new challenges for online play. But the single player mode is short and squanders opportunities for relevant commentary on war and conflict through muddied storytelling.

Let me know what you thought of Modern Warfare 2 and the “No Russians” level by logging on to cornfedgamer.com and commenting on this story.