"@Godites: Agree to disagree, I suppose. I thought I felt the same way you did about the relationship between the two. But after having gone back through them both consecutively, Call of Duty 4 feels two hours longer. That's probably where your Casino Royale analogy is the strongest. Because, dude, that movie feels ten times longer than it really is.
Saying things like "x was overdone" is kind of hollow, and I don't think it was a blatant attempt to attract some nebulous 'naive' audience. But if that's how you felt then that's how you felt. Call of Duty 4 is pretty important for being the first game to really nail the first-person perspective in narrative since Half-Life 2, but first doesn't always translate to finest, and stating the reasons why a narrative is structured the way it is doesn't necessarily make it more effective. Again, the number of characters in Modern Warfare 2 that have significant detail help push that game along some. And by the end, once you've gotten to know both Soap and Post-Gulag Price, who is a different, more vindictive character than the Price of old, there's a palpable tension in that final confrontation.
Regardless, Modern Warfare 2 shows an improvement in the quality of the dialogue, how much of the different characters you're getting out of it, as well as a lot of deftness in storytelling. The reveal of D.C. in ruins, the shock of seeing Shepard's betrayal, the knife-in-the-chest moment. Maybe you and others find these moments overwrought or predictable, but I'm not sure it's any less predictable than Call of Duty 4's "hey-there-is-a-countdown-going-here-are-the-codes-go-stop-the-countdown" level. Personally, the way Modern Warfare 2 blends realism with fantasy is pretty unparalleled in gaming. I mean, of course it's ludicrous that Communist Extremists could ever successfully invade the United States on such an absurd scale, but that's the fun of it. Medal of Honor is a hum-ho experience because it's trying to be so photo-realistic. It's too serious about itself. Modern Warfare 2 still takes itself seriously, but it also knows where to bend the rules of war-sim and where to avoid them completely. The bottom line here: I'm not trying to denigrate Call of Duty 4. It's an important game for a ton of reasons. And, really, it all comes down to the multiplayer at the end of the day. But I tend to prefer Modern Warfare 2's tighter action and rounder characters and thoroughly narrative-driven campaign over its predecessor's heavy-handed atmospherics and its loose narrative. New analogy: Modern Warfare 2 is to Call of Duty 4 what Terminator 2 is to Terminator. Besides. We're talking favorites. Not what we think is best, objectively. So, you know, chill. Bears. Beets. Battlestar Galactica. "
As you may or may not already know, as this garnered a lot of media attention, there is a level entitled “No Russian” that honestly enters into the realm of bad taste. In it you play a deep cover C.I.A. agent attempting to get close to Vladimir Makarov, a former protege of COD4 antagonist Imran Zakhaev. You supposedly achieve this by helping him and his associates gun down hundreds of innocent Russian civilians in an airport. Now I am a firm believer in freedom of artistic expression and graphic acts of violence can be used to underline a very strong message that really could not be captured without it (think of the first 20 minutes of Saving Private Ryan and how it redefined how the public thinks of war). However Modern Warfare 2 does not attempt to make any bold statements other than “this is a kick ass action game” so any pushing of boundaries is done solely for the purpose of pushing boundaries instead of trying to drive a worthwhile point home (think Hostel's torture porn). Yes other games are violent as well, especially Grand Theft Auto but that game functions as a satirical comedy. Even when people are bleeding to death in GTA they will make humourous comments to make it clear that the game is not reality. “No Russian”, in contrast, depicts people crawling in the floor writhing in their own blood and in incredible pain as graphically as I have seen in any video game. Again, in Saving Private Ryan you had the same thing but it served a purpose: illustrating that war is hell and what the veterans had to go through is something that non-veterans will never be able to truly imagine. However, to close my critique of single player on the validity of violence in art doesn't seem right. Rather I'll just say that overall the single player is great but flat out too short.
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