Quick Look: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare

Funny how this seems to revisit the Battlefield-y elements they introduced in Call of Duty 3 but then scrapped when the original Modern Warfare came around. Almost seems like the sequel to Call of Duty 3 that Call of Duty 4 wasn't.

Seems like all the improvements to the game come straight from Battlefield 3, the parts that are still Call of Duty aren't to my liking though. I thought the visual/mechanical mismatch between the single player campaign and the multiplayer was a thing from the past, but it was really weird to see how differently sights/scopes were rendered in the campaign vs the multiplayer.

Is it just me or did the civilian with the bomb vest kinda look like George Bush?

I feel uncomfortable watching this. This is too realistic. Won't be picking this one up.

This is the first Call of Duty game I've bought since Modern Warfare (2007) on PC. I got this one on PC too and the single player has some issues at the moment, the cutscenes (FMV ones, in-game ones are fine) jack the CPU usage to 100% and then turn into a slideshow and you have to just skip them. I've had a few other little bugs, but it's fun otherwise.

I played the multiplayer for a couple of hours today and I was about to give up on it, because it's exactly how I remember modern warfare (2007) being and I played that to death, then I chose the warfare mode (I can't remember what it's called) and that mode is really fun!

All that said, if I didn't get it free with my graphics card and had actually paid money for it, I'd be quite disappointed, the single player is a nice original story so far but multiplayer (except for the warfare mode) is identical to every other CoD game I've seen.

this is a pretty amazing technical showpiece- but i'm realizing i have no appetite for this kind of story.

Call of Duty games have used dedicated servers since Advanced Warfare, it's not P2P.

All about the US fighting along side the Not-Kurds just as we abandon the real Kurds

I wonder if this will make anyone go "hmm." Probably not.

Great post. The lack of introspection in military shooters has only become more jarring over time. It's a shame that the MW devs were aware enough to try and do something different with Farah, but without the care and attention needed to pull it off (combined with everything else that remains bad about the way these games present warfare and the ME). There are so many interesting stories that could be told in that part of the world that don't necessitate boosting US imperialism, but I guess this is what sells.

Comment section is real bummer. Constant hate. You'd think this game was complete trash and made by a first year designer student. Anything with political overtones rubs people the wrong way these days but dang. COD has always involved politics. COD comes out and sells well and people hate it cause it does michael bay or is just old school again. COD does serious real life parallels and people hate it cause its too close to real life. What exactly do people want. Are the people judging it just...not ever gonna buy a COD game. If that's the case...why do they critic it. If COD did what you all want it would alienate all their fans. Like dark souls all of a sudden following the hate train and putting in a easy no death mode with checkpoints and loot boxes. This game has a solid foundation. COD shooting is good. Updated graphics. fair story. Straight forward no long story. i don't need 20 hour campaigns with side missions that lower the threat. World will end soon but can you find 3 tags for my cat. Also who needs to care so much that they don't represent ____ well. Its all fictional. If we need to make everything realistic and inoffensive then we might as well do the whole clancy breakpoint thing and use fake countries and nothing matters cause were fighting aliens or robots....wooo. I'm sure COD didn't have the intention to stick it to those nasty ____. they did this game cause idk they felt like it.

Idk everyone wants changes but they really don't. they want Star wars force awakens over again not something they don't expect but still ask for.

Price's voice-actor is not the same as it was in the earlier games.

The Spec-ops mode was not in COD4:MW.

I really wish videos played better on this site. I never have any problems with watching anything else online, but this site constantly stutters and chromecast is often unusable.

When our entertainment is "ripped from the headlines," we ought to ask the question, Which headlines? And equally important: Who chooses the headlines from which these stories are taken?

For whatever reason this video just fails to load to me. Other videos work.

Have these games always had an in-your-face Mature Content Notice disclaimer when you click the Campaign button? Considering this is an M-rated game, it seems really weird to also have a disclaimer that essentially says "BTW this M-rated game has mature content in it."

I can't think of any other M-rated games that do this. But maybe I'm just being forgetful.

EDIT: Also, Yuri Lowenthal's voice is so distinctive, I'm surprised they didn't pick it out. Even when he's trying to sound gritty, as he's doing here, he has a very noticeable voice.

An interesting homage to the long forgotten 'Rainbow 6 Patriots' during that first scene with Price. This game looks interesting so far.

The campaign seems like a huge step back from Infinite Warfare. I get that people want the real shit but my least favourite stuff in these games involves watching and waiting to be told to do something very simple (not doing so resulting in a failstate) and it seems like this has a lot of that.

The wringing of hands of a video game's use of WP is a gaming journalist exclusive phenomena.

@colourful_hippie: The Turks are our allies.

@bloody_skirmish: So are the Kurds.

Well the Turks were first, and one of the only nations in the region to sign onto NATO. We have no such agreement with the Kurds. The Kurds and Turks conflict predates our country's existence. The Kurds were occupying space within Turkey's borders, and were not pushed out due to the presence of our troops. When we left, they chose to stay and try to hang onto that land. Our presence in Syria is illegal, as in, Syria is a sovereign state, and we were not invited to that state. Kurds are actively telling their civilians to fight and put themselves in harm's way. What's on CBS Evening News and MSNBC isn't everything.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CSeXtdZAO4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWQmjKbJg3A This may help you.

@bloody_skirmish: This will be my last comment on this because we've already strayed far away into the weeds.

My main news sources are The Economist and The Wall Street Journal, but nice try there. I much prefer them vs biased nobodies off of YouTube. I'm well aware of Turkey's NATO status, that doesn't obligate other members to look the other way when they're being assholes.

Syria only still has a resemblance of a nation state thanks to Russian intervention, otherwise it would have fallen apart from rebel factions and the hard to miss massive land mass controlled by ISIS. I'm of a mind that the US is being in the right when it comes to intervening into a country's affairs when said country is on the cusp of total collapse and at risk of being further torn apart by a large terrorist organization that can threaten both us and our allies.

The Kurds have given 11,000 of their lives to help the United States avoid huge potential bloodshed in erasing the ISIS threat. It’s not much to ask in return for us to be sure that they don't suffer ethnic cleansing by the hands of the Turks and not only that, if you want to take a cold analysis at what's going on over there, we have also risked deep investments made there to reduce the ISIS threat only to see so many of those prisoners run free because of rash decisions.

It was a huge mistake for us to invade Iraq all those years ago but it's our responsibility to handle the long reaching consequences of that choice the US made instead of leaving behind a festering wound that may come back and hurt us directly.

@colourful_hippie: This will be my last comment since it's replying to your last comment and you won't be commenting further.

My sources range from independent journalists on Youtube, The Hill, Fox, Al Jazeera English, and sources from Eastern media more located near the action and less influenced by domestic politics and sponsors. It should also be noted the "nobodies on Youtube" are either people that have worked at these places you and I read (Ms. Iversen is one such person) and have struck out on there own, or are simply people that compile information places, not just American, and present to people like you as I am trying to do now.

You said in your second paragraph that you are essentially for American interventionism. I'll let that stand on its own, and state that's a fundamental difference that won't be bridged. No matter what the conditions on the ground in Syria are, we are there illegally. Assad is the internationally recognized leader of that country, and if he threw in with Russia, not the US for aid, then it is Russia who has business there, and not us. Spin how you want, our presence in Syria is unasked for, and illegal.

Russia's interest in the region is to prevent a pipeline of natural gas from being built in there that would compete with their own sales to Europe. It is in our interests to see that that pipeline is built, and is much of the reason we are there. We have also been funding and supplying weapons to terrorists in the region in an effort affect regime change.

Lastly to the Kurds. Turks have had historical trouble with the Kurds (covered in the videos you probably did not bother to look at), and have reason to not want them setting up their own de facto sovereign state within their own borders, or near their borders. There was a benefit to us fighting a mutual enemy in ISIS with them, but that has past. Most of the retained prisoners, while "ISIS", are the women and children of the fighters that were killed in the conflict. The Turks, who we've essentially betrayed, were not going to wait around forever for the Kurds to leave. They've fought before us, and will fight after us being there. And the Turks fighting the Kurds occupying their territory (with our weapons) is not "ethnic cleansing" either. Nor are civilian casualties caused the Kurds calling upon their civilians to fight and essentially be human shields.

There is no reason for us to be in the region.

I would encourage people here who havent to play the Battlefield 4 campaign. I think it still holds up and would be an interesting counterpoint to this. Especially the sound design. I know that sounds crazy because that game is so old but trust me on this.

I'm not gonna bring titanfall 2 into this because it is still the #1 undisputed FPS campaign king imo but also a different kind of subject matter so yeah

@bloody_skirmish: "Turks have had historical trouble with the Kurds" is a really weird, dismissive, and reductive way of talking about the history of the Kurdish people in the region. The PKK are no saints, but neither are the Turkish (or previously, Ottoman) governments.

The Kurds are a stateless people whose military forces have aided US interests in the region for decades. The Turkish government, like many in the region, is oppressive and is increasingly ideologically opposed to stated US values. The US government's relationship with the Turkish government is one of convenience.

What shocks me isn't how political this game is, but how numb we are to it. We just accept these horrible yet realistic stories as part of a game. Not to go all Lyndon LaRouche tinfoil hat... but I am starting to agree more with -some- arguments about video games I used to laugh off. I used to think some of these conspiracies about game companies working with the military industrial complex to push propaganda was nonsense. I don't think it's some organized plot, but there is some notable themes in these games that fall in lock step with what the US government wants people thinking. To be fair, they need to work with the military to get access to material they need to make the games. And to we who play video games, it's just common place now. It's just another modern military shooter. Sure they filed off the edges and didn't use a real country here and there. It still molds young minds into accepting messy real world conflicts.

Eh. Enough about politics. Clearly we need more games not about politics... like Metal Gear Solid.

I agree, the Kurds were instrumental in helping us fight a threat in the area that should not have existed in the first place due to our presence and exploiting our "interests in the area." The Kurds have also broken alliances, committed acts of terror, done things to antagonize (and don't mistake this as an endorsement of) the Turks. ISIS is defeated, the Turks do not want Kurds on their land, their conflict is not ours, waiting for a "peaceful" time in their conflict to leave is futile, and we're not going to get our pipeline. Our interests in the area have evaporated, we never should have been there, currently are illegally, and it is more than time to leave.

@ DasaKamov

Wow. That's amazing and awful. These idiots couldn't even research the language a whole country uses correct in their multi-million dollar video game. Well. They're still making millions of dollars on these games. So I guess they aren't idiots. Just goes to show the false reality and "fake news" that mass media feeds Americans and others around the world. Not to mention how much of our military action is actually directed by rich Arab royalty against poorer Arab and surrounding groups so it's funny that Arabic is the generic bad guy language.

I guess I never had actively boycotted these games, but I just never bothered. I kept to more cartoony less plot driven stuff like Country Strike, which I guess could be considered just as bad. I recently picked up Rainbow Six: Siege on sale and that seemed to be somewhere between CoD:MW and Counter Strike.

Videos like this Quick Look are kinda surprising to me. I forgot these games delved into so many things. I also forgot how used to it we are as gamers.

I should just add as a final note that I don't mean any of my comments to be against the men and women serving in our military. I just worry about what we make them go through and the conflicts they get into. I do remember back in college having to stop watching bits from one of these games a friend was playing because a cousin had enlisted. It was too surreal seeing this stuff in a game when I knew similar things were happening to our military men and women overseas.

Funny. That's featured in today's This Day In GiantBomb History.

https://www.giantbomb.com/videos/random-pc-game-police-quest-swat/2300-5130/

Of course they are. We can trust them. Tell that to the Greeks and Armenians. It's easy to help deny genocide happened when you want military bases near the middle east. Heck, tell that to the moderate Turks in Turkey who are being driven out by growing radical forces in government.

Until they aren't and we leave them to die again like when we let the Iraqis gas them to death (with weapons of mass destruction we totally didn't help them get). Funny how a PS1 game like Metal Gear Solid has more informed views of the history leading to current events than the nightly news.

Wait, The Killers are supposed to be the bad guys here? Those first 3 albums were pretty great, i'm def on their team.

This looks really pretty. Especially the lighting & the smoke does a lot to make it feel harrowing. I also like the third person storybits. Like the argument is often that when you see things from the eyes of 1 person, you get immersed more because it's like you're really there in the room, but i never felt like that was the case for me. When i think about my time with Half Life, i remember spending a lot of time humping boxes and trying to press buttons in the environment while a 'cutscene' was taking place. We have all these amazing ways to tell a story and to show it in a cool way, yet stick around in first person, which prevents us from using a lot of those techniques. Glad they opened up to that.

I do think it's sort of funny / sad that Infinity Ward came up with the solution to make the audience on board with helping the middle eastern folk by letting you play as an American dude there. Also, is it me or is there a huuuuge gap in visual fidelity between the singleplayer & the multiplayer? I get that maps occluded by smoke & reflections is probably pretty annoying for a fast-paced multiplayer game like COD, but i went from being really impressed by the visuals to thinking it looked kind of flat & grimy.

@onemanarmyy: The American dude helping the Kurd--err, freedom fighters, in this game is essentially a continuation of a decades-old narrative in American foreign policy that paints the Kurds as "the good Arabs." They're the Muslims that Americans can feel good about being allies with. Kurdish women can drive! They don't cover their faces! They wear jeans and t-shirts! Kirkuk has functioning traffic lights!

I stated in an earlier comment that the Kurds are a stateless people who've been fucked over by the Turkish and Iraqi governments for decades--and some Kurds have reacted to this violently, like the PKK. The Kurds in Iraq have consistently aided US efforts in that country, and they're well-liked.

This American love affair with the Kurds above all other people in the region isn't just rhetoric and political discourse, though. Ask anyone who deployed to Iraq since 2003. Even if they weren't in the north and even if they never worked with the Peshmerga, American soldiers all have stories about the Kurdish interpreter with their unit who was just a cool dude. Well-spoken, probably better hygiene than most of the other interpreters, funny, and just as willing to talk shit about the average Iraqi as the soldiers were.

This relationship with the Kurds has been so powerful that American ex-military personnel have gone back to Iraq, not as contractors making $80+k a year, but just as fighters who want to take down ISIS.

Yeah, these characters aren't Kurdish, but they sure as hell seem coded that way. Which is all just a really long-winded way of saying, yeah, you're right. Putting an American character in this role is hilarious and sad and 100% what I would expect the writers of CoD to do.

While it may be kind of a nitpick there are some pretty blatantly inaccurate things going on in the first 2 minutes of the intro. The members of the strike team going after the gas are supposed to be Marine Raiders, yet all of their ranks are completely inconsistent with that. To qualify for the Raiders you have to be a Cpl at minimum, and after the extensive training is completed you will almost certainly be a Sgt. The idea that a Pvt would be in the Raiders is laughable, you really don't see that rank outside of bootcamp and your very first MOS school in the Marines. Maybe he got NJP'd and busted down in rank but he wouldnt be on a mission like that if he was. They also have a SPC on the team which is an Army rank and completely inaccurate. It would take maybe five minutes of research to figure this out and really makes me question who was in charge of making sure things were accurate and consistent in the story. This just reads as incredibly lazy. Basically they should all be Sgts and above being lead by a Capt.

I haven't dived into the campaign yet, but I am having a great time with multiplayer. The weapon-feel is much more weighty than previous entries, but everything still moves at Call of Duty speed. The maps feel much less lane-y and gimmick-driven (I get why you have a map set in a skate park after making these games for 12 years, but it still looks weird), and the perk pool strikes a good balance between utility (everything is useful and not super boring to use!) and balance (nothing feels broken right away!). Also, the Destiny player in me loves how much they've gone in on leveling up your weapons; I only have so much time to play per week, and I like having smaller levels of progression on top of your overall rank. This is probably the most fun I've had with a Call of a Duty multiplayer since Modern Warfare 2, and I may actually pick up whatever season pass or year-long DLC rollout that Infinity Ward has planned.

it's not the same voice actor for price, it's some other dude.

A terrorist attack on London. For when Americans want their stories to hit close to home, but not too close.