Hey!,
So I'm sure I'm not the only one who loves playing the call of duty campaigns. Sure they are short, but they are exciting, really well designed and super fun to play. My one complaint about them is that moments can be so memorable that I won't be able to replay the campaign for at least a year because I can remember it all! After just replaying MW2 on veteran i thought I'd enjoy opening up the debate on Giantbomb about which story is better, the Black Ops one. or the Modern Warfare Trilogy (parts 1 &2)
So lets ignore multiplayer and petty arguments about this in relation to halo or battlefield or the fact that Timesplitters needs to get in on the action (just had to mention that) and discuss what we loved and what we hated about the campaigns; was the story believable, was it fun?, where the "moments" exciting! What I think will be interesting is to hear about how everyone's own personal circumstances effected their experience. Since this is my thread I guess I'll go first!
MW2 -
Right off the bat I'll be very different to most as I never played COD4. I'd seen it played and knew the story but not played it myself. I was relatively excited to play MW2, but had recently started my first year at university so the hype parade was somewhat overshadowed by a billion other new experiences. I played the game over the period of about a week and a half and I really enjoyed it. But i wasn't blown away. I'd played older cod games so the set piece campaign concept wasn't exactly new but done to this standard was really fun to play. The guns felt super super powerful and I enjoyed the variety of locations. The SAS squad missions felt far more exciting and varied than the standard soldier missions but it was cool to fight in suburban america....This however was also one of the down points of the game to me. I'm British, not american. And whilst I'm certainly capable of empathy seeing america be invaded by the Russians just didn't have that heart hitting thwump that I imagine it was intended to. This leads me to my main criticismMW2 relied alot upon voluntary suspension of disbelief. Which I gladly offered. I'd paid £40 for a game and was perfectly happy to invest myself emotionally in the characters and environments, despite there absurdity. But the game never really pulled me in, more I happily walked in and let myself be shocked at the twists. But even so I felt like the game never made it easy to just believe in it. even the airport level didn't really affect me. I just found myself wondering what I was intended to take away from it. Probably my own fault at spending so much time on damn video game websites! The added separation of being British playing what really is an american fight just made it a cool game. A good metaphor is that MW2 is very much the Michael Bay movie of videogames. The story was enjoyable enough but i played it for the bangs and action. Oddly enough that's why I'm excited for the MW3 campaign but not so much the multiplayer. In MW2 it was just too easy to kill and be killed...but hey, now im breaking my own rules.
Black Ops . - Personally i came to this game in a different place. I asked my parents to buy it me for Christmas, meaning I was at home for the holidays, essays finished, Christmas lunch over, grandma asleep and snoring. Black ops. So in a way this already makes me bias because my surrounding emotions where already nicely happy. Right from the off the fact that this wasn't a sequel in a trilogy was awesome. Sure it had hooks from the world at war universe but they were more for the nerd to notice. Its needless to say i went into this game with the exact same amount of willingness to be hooked as MW2, but this time It took less pushing from my part and i felt the story hooked me well. The opening cinematic with the numbers and the fact they entire game revolves around the centre point of an interogation worked fantastically. I was constantly wondering and trying to work out why i was being interogated, who by. and above this was the constant numbers. This game played excellently through surround sound headphones because through a lot of key moments you can hear these faint numbers at the back of your own head. It was very clever sound design and it worked well. I loved the mission variety again and felt that treyarch had really evolved into their own. One complaint was that the colours were extremely brown, it was a very muted game which was to its own detriment. But the jungle missions were welcomed nicely.
The plot of brainwashed agents was exciting and i didn't see the twist of that guy not existing past the prison escape (think his name was resnov) but i faced the similar issue of seperation from the kennedy assassination and american fear of communism. But luckily enough I a history A Level, in which I studied american modern history, and the cold war so this time round I was far better placed to put myself in the mindset of the time.
So all in all I think i enjoyed black ops more. But does this mean i disliked MW2? Not at all, and i can't wait for the explosion filled part 3. and Heres hoping the story really kicks up a notch.
Wow what a long post!
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