Previously, I had some pretty damning words to say about the gameplay of IW's games and MW2. But, after playing through this game, I think the most damning words I can say about this game relate to its story. As of this moment, I think I'm safe to spout off any spoilers since with the criminal length of the game, almost everyone should have beaten it already. So, I'll give my review of the game's story.
First, you know how when you go to an airport and you decide to go through the bookstore to get something to read on the long trip to wherever your going and you'll always see at least a half-dozen, dime a dozen techno-thrillers written by Tom Clancy wannabes on the shelves? I can tell you that the dust-jacket synopses of these books offer infinitely more intellectual stimulation than the whole plot of this game. In addition to the plot of Modern Warfare 2 having more holes in it than a fuselage of an A-6 Intruder after getting hosed by the Phalanx CIWS of a Ticonderoga CG (if Infinity Ward did their research right, they'd know what this means, which will be the subject of another post), the story is spectacularly brain dead and moronic.While the story of the first Modern Warfare was simply cliched and done in about 16 James Bond movies, the story of Modern Warfare 2 is simply plain bad. Okay, so maybe Infinity Ward figured out that the target audience isn't exactly the type that has developed a literary eye for the likes of Proust, and maybe they should be commended for boldly tossing any semblance of subtlety and methodical pacing out the window and embracing the farfetchedness and ridiculousness that characterize Michael Bay flicks, but that doesn't forgive the fact that the dialogue is painfully bad and the overall plot was poorly thought out and the characters have as much depth to them as a rain-puddle after a light drizzle.
The first element of the story that set off alarm bells in my head was the state of Captain Price. If I recall correctly, both Price AND Soap were rescued by the Russian Loyalists in MW1, yet Price is for whatever reason whisked off into a gulag even after the "decadent western imperialists" made nice with the loyalist Russians while Soap has never looked better. Then, there's the issue of the SSBN missile launch; did it not occur to the brain-dead boys of TF141 that they should have asked what Price's plans were with the boomer before he put a bird in the air? In addition, there's the niggling idea in my head that the effects of the EMP from the blast would have done more harm than good for the US military. From the look of things, practically the entire East Coast got taken off the grid. Sure that knocked out all the Reds' gunships, but what about all the civilian air traffic that was still airborne (not to mention the International Space Station)? In addition, the EMP would have rendered all electronics useless, probably resulting in billions, if not trillions, of dollars in damages and nearl ireparable damage to the US and world economy. Worse yet, since this was an airburst explosion in the stratosphere, wouldn't the fallout and prevailng wind effects be even more severe than a ground-based detonation?
And why was this whole war started? Because apparently, army recruitment offices complained to 'ol General Sheperd that not enough recruiters weren't getting their 2 enlistees a month quota bonuses.
Anyways, just my thoughts. I remember in an interview that the developers at IW said that including campign co-op would ruin the plot of their game. Yeah, might be hard to do that when the plot of your game is so god-awful terrible to begin with.
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