MrNepathy's Blog

The day that Modern Warfare 2 came out, I was at work eagerly awaiting my time to leave and pick up the game. The whole day the phrase, “Spin them up” kept running through my head. For those that don’t know, it’s a phrase that pertains to mini-guns. A mini-gun is a six-barreled weapon where the barrels rotate as it fires. Because the weapon will not fire immediately upon pulling the trigger, the operators will frequently rotate the barrels with a light squeeze of the trigger prior to needing to fire. It’s a way to warm up the weapon and keep it ready. This process is often referred to as “spinning them up.”

When I first put the game into my system, I went to the campaign mode and started basic training. I ran the course a few times until I qualified for “hardened” difficulty. This was more of a sense of accomplishment than an actual desire to play on hardened. I’m not crazy after all. Basic training was relatively brief because the game developers probably figured if you don’t know Call of Duty controls by now, you’re probably Amish. Why mess with something intuitive?

From there I launched into the true campaign and within five minutes of my first battle, the troops were loading up into Humvees and I was commanded into the turret gunner position. As our column started to roll and enemies came out of the woodwork, the sergeant told me to “Spin them up.” It gave me a certain warm, fuzzy feeling. The fact that it was Keith David giving the order made it all of the better. If you’ve seen Black Hawk Down then you can imagine a group of Humvees going through a third-world urban warzone, people on rooftops, civilians in with combatants, RPGs and crazy turns. Our ride went about as well as it did in the movie, which is to say, not very well.

Before players even begin the campaign mode, they’re asked a choice, one I’ve never seen in another video game. A window pops up to say that there is a mission some players find one of the missions offensive and if you wish to skip it, you may. Skipping the mission does not affect game score or achievements. As I’m rarely offended in video games and am familiar with the franchise, I decided to take my chances and play the mission. It did not take long before I got to it. Without giving it away for those who plan on playing the game, the mission centers around an American Ranger embedded undercover in a terrorist cell. His commanding officer explains that in order to fit in with the terrorists, he may have to give up part of his soul in order to save thousands of lives. In other words, he may have to commit evil in order to serve a greater good. The mission then launches with you as part of the cell. What you take part in is, without question, evil. Players can choose to take part or just walk along and witness it. I figured I would take part. It’s not that I wanted to, but I felt I should get the whole experience. People that know me know that I have no problem with evil in games. I’ve done some awful things, but for some reason I’m more okay with evil when playing a character of my own creation. Playing an American soldier asked to do evil which is clearly against his morality made me uneasy. The mission ends the same regardless of if the player committed the act or just witnessed it. That ending is quite surprising and I think because I did evil, it was even more impactful on me.

Frequently the campaign mode confused me, like when I found myself in Brazil tracking down some thug. Unfortunately we were given the order that we could not shoot him, which is kind of my “go to” move in Call of Duty games. After all, it’s not like I carry pepper spray. I carry bullet spray. Anyone that has seen the commercials knows that eventually the game leads to the U.S. The Russians invade and you must go through various environments like the suburbs, Washington D.C. and Colorado. Appropriately enough the first of these missions is called “Wolverines.”

The campaign mode is as frantic as Call of Duty veterans might expect. You’ll be shot from all angles, told to run through horrifying conditions and sometimes told to hold your ground against overwhelming odds. In one mission armored vehicles would attack and Keith David would need someone (that someone will always be you) to pop smoke in front of them to get past and grab a predator missile guidance laptop from the burger place that was being used as a cover position. Then you’ll be told that helicopters are coming in and someone must get to the roof of the sports bar where a stinger missile awaits. Always do what Keith David tells you.

As in the previous Modern Warfare game, you’ll encounter some unexpected moments. There was one scene where I thought, “Here comes the rescue.” I was wrong. Very wrong. Watching one event unfold from the space station was also great. Great in a … large scale casualty, sense of helplessness kind of great. Completing the campaign does not unlock a bonus mission, but considering there are already 23 Special Operations missions included, I’ll forgive them for not throwing in another mode. The campaign is shorter than previous entries, but there’s plenty of other content to keep people busy.

Special Operations mode is a group of 23 missions that are meant to be played by two people. Most of them can also be played solo. Two that cannot be played solo are the AC-130 and chopper gunner missions. In those missions one player must run from one point to another while the other player is up in the air in a vehicle giving cover. Both the AC-130 and Black Hawk are on predetermined routes, so really the only job is gunning, and that will provide plenty to do. The AC-130 offers three weapons: the 105mm howitzer, the 40mm grenade launcher and the 25mm mini-gun whereas the Black Hawk only has a door-mounted mini-gun. But, can you go wrong with a mini-gun? No, you can’t. Other mission types include holding a position, defusing bombs, planting bombs and sneaking through an area with only silenced weapons, to name a few.

But the main selling point of most Call of Duty games is multiplayer. There are a lot of improvements over the previous Modern Warfare game. For offline players you can now create classes and level up just line online players. This experience is kept separate from online games, as it should be. The only crossover is that you can enable the stuff you unlocked online to be used offline, but you will not gain experience of any type. The perks system has been enhanced so that if you use a perk enough you can get the “pro” version. For instance marathon, which provides unlimited sprint, lets you climb over obstacles faster once you’ve unlocked Marathon Pro. Danger Close which adds extra damage from explosions adds extra damage from air raids when you get Danger Close Pro. Another enhancement is that weapon attachments are no longer perks. In the previous Modern Warfare, having a grenade launcher was a perk. Now it’s something you earn. This is a benefit in two ways. For the player with the grenade launcher it means you aren’t tying up a perk. For the player that kills the one with the grenade launcher it means when you take the weapon off of his corpse, you have a grenade launcher.

Killstreak rewards have also been enhanced. You still only get three rewards but you can now choose when to receive them and what they will be. Rewards range from the 3-killstreak UAV to the 25-killstreak game-ending nuke. There’s the 9-killstreak Pavelow or Stealth Bomber. The Pavelow stays on station whereas the Stealth Bomber flies over and unleashes devastation. While it’s cool to look up, see it fly directly overhead and stand between rows of dropping bombs, I don’t recommend it for your longevity.

Death-streaks have also been added as a way to help out players not doing well. Die a certain number of times in a row and you can get a health boost, copycat your killer’s class or several other options. Also if you have been killed, you get an XP bonus for killing the player that got you.

Perhaps the best addition is one that does not affect your combat performance in any way. They added titles for completing certain challenges and milestones. These titles have led me to try things I otherwise would not, like killing someone and myself with a cooked grenade without letting go, wounding someone with my main weapon only to finish them off with my pistol or killing someone by firing both barrels of the Ranger shotgun at the same time. There are over 500 titles in all.

There is a counter for nearly any strategy. The Ninja perk counters heartbeat sensors. Coldblooded counters drones and UAVs. Even the nuke has a counter in the form of the EMP killstreak reward. Sit Rep will reveal claymores and C4.

That is not to say that the game is flawless. Multiplayer needs a few tweaks, like where players spawn. Sometimes I spawn, run three feet and get shot by someone thirty feet away, or I’ll spawn into the blast area of a predator missile. And the requirements for Sit Rep are too high. There’s no tiny map like Shipment from Call of Duty 4. Rust is small, but just not frantic enough. The knife, while a cool way to kill someone, is a little overpowered. If I fire my machine gun into someone three or four times, it should at least slow them down. A successful knifing is always an instant kill. It even denies the player a Last Stand or Final Stand. With the Marathon, Lightweight and Commando perks plus a tactical knife for a pistol, would-be stabbers are sometimes unstoppable. I guess in Modern Warfare it is okay to bring a knife to a gun fight. It should be noted, however, I do like stabbing folk. I just hate when I’m in a game and I’m stabbed every time especially after emptying rounds into people.

Still, that all being said, it’s a great game. Before I started to play it, I wanted to pick something else for my game of the year choice. I wanted to pick something fresh and different. But after playing it, I did not feel like I had any choice. This game makes weekends disappear.

Stay frosty.