Good Game, Wretched Plot: Why Modern Warfare 2 Is More Terrible Then You Think

The Call of Duty franchise is so popular that reports of it’s record-breaking sales receive spots on the nightly news. It’s unique blend of adolescent gun-fetish and accessible gameplay practically print money for Activision-Blizzard. While players spend most of their time online in multiplayer battles, Call of Duty pioneered the idea of a heavily-scripted single-player campaign that pulls every thematic punch it can to create a cinematic roller coaster ride.

The story to the fifth installment of Call of Duty (confusingly called Modern Warfare 2) amounts to little more then a cold-war era wet-dream. The first game had you swatting down a Russian extremist who had it out for the west (because, I don’t, he didn’t like Kanye West or something). His followers now are out to avenge his death in the sequel, and they do it by framing an airport massacre (committed by them) on Uncle Sam. The next scene is a squad of marines fighting house-by-house in a DC suburb as Russian paratroopers rain down from the sky against a flame-red backdrop. Toss in a US general who allows the entire thing to happen because he didn’t win hard enough the first time around, and you have Modern Warfare 2. It only makes a little bit more sense then Axecop.

The game is viscerally gripping only because it instantly recalls 9/11. The plot mirrors the real-world, even if in reverse, where Russia invades ‘merica for a perceived terrorist attack. This could have been used for a thoughtful introspective into the patriotic attitudes surrounding the Afghanistan invasion, but that would be far too much weight for this GI-Joe plot to handle. Instead, we get a bunch of heroic meat-heads pulling every action movie clique in the book.  While the battles are breath-taking, they would be better played out of context, lest the seams (where narrative should be) show.

Call of Duty was the more innovative successor to Medal of Honor, essentially the video-game equivelent of Saving Private Ryan. It sudden made these historical events real. Black-and-white History Channel shows became relatable. Players will be hardpressed to forget that first level as a soviet conscript, pressed into service at Stalingrad with out a rifle. It showed the power of the interactive medium to convey meaning and respect, but the latest installment makes war into a childish Schwarzenegger flick. So much for respect.

Worse, there’s nothing modern about Modern Warfare 2. It’s so chocked-full of all-powerful super-tech that it might as well be a sci-fi game. It looks like a Popular Science cover story. Even current weaponry, such as the Striker infantry support vehicle, are worshiped as modern-day titans roaming the earth. The loading screens are mock-computer displays, showing wireframe diagrams and statistics in true Hollywood fashion. Is it meaningfully useful? No. Is it impressive if you don’t know anything about how the real world works? Yes. It’s the same thinking behind the army’s new ads, making service out to be a sci-fi video game. MW2’s writers spend so much time trying to impress the player with their magic-tech that they even show you what it’s like when it’s removed by an EMP blast  from a nuclear explosion in above DC. Subtly is not among their strengths.

Yes, that is  the Washington Monument

 This is what makes Battlefield: Bad Company 2’s story so much fun: it’s ridiculous and it knows it. The characters regularly comment on how outright silly it is that they, a team of rejects, somehow get stuck saving the free world from disaster. At no point does it try to pretend that it’s more then it is. The game winks at the player knowingly and plays out the same ridiculous antics tongue and cheek. The difference couldn’t be more striking.

The situation wouldn’t be so bad if the Call of Duty franchise wasn’t a symbol for gaming as a whole. Instead of a proper representation of the strengths of the medium, the public sees bad Tom Clancy fanfic. What if Braid made it to the nightly news instead?