Are We Being Too Harsh About Modern Warfare 2's Story?
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I didn't really find it that bad - sort of like if an action movie was written by someone who wanted to write something a little deeper than the average action movie.
Honestly, the people going on about how unrealistic the Russian invasion was don't make much sense to me. The same thing happened with Homefront; hordes of people complained that North Korea could never invade the US and so on. It looks to me like a lot of people are very quick to point out why their country (or just the West in general) could never ever be invaded, no, we're safe; that's ridiculous. I'm sure I'm just reading silly things into people's reactions but still - of all the plot holes and badly written sections of MW2, the one that gets all the rage is the one that sees the country of half the target audience portrayed as far less invulnerable than it is in real life. Though 'your group/country/species gets steamrolled' plots are a little annoying, looking at you, alien invaders.
On an unrelated topic, as a Brit I think ME3's plot is completely ridiculous. The Reapers could never get that close to London and honestly we'd have an evacuation plan and...
On an unrelated topic, as a Brit I think ME3's plot is completely ridiculous. The Reapers could never get that close to London and honestly we'd have an evacuation plan and...
I realise that it just irritates me when people say folk dislike a game "just to fit in".ZeroMachine said:
I'm not saying CoD are shit games I just don't like them personally. Nothing against CoD itself it's nearly all FPS games that have been released of late, they just all feel the same to me.
Except Borderlands .... that was fun .... cartoony shooty fun.
It's probably just me I just can't seem to get into the whole CoD/Battlefield type of shooter.
The last "similar" type of game I enjoyed was Ghost Recon. Every time I play a "realistic" shooter like CoD/Battlefield it just feels like the same old thing i've seen before.
Ahh well i'm probably just getting old and miss the point of them entirely though.
The point i'm so irritatingly dragging out is, some people dislike those type of games for their own reason, not for wanting to "fit in".
As others have mentioned,how the hell can Russia manage to transport an entire army through the Baltic and Atlantic without anyone noticing or intervening? And what happened to NATO? With so much of their army now on US soil, you'd expect the EU to mount a counter-attack towards Moscow. And what happened to the theory of MAD, especially when the US gets EMP'ed?
I admit, the story is gripping and the gameplay is fun. But if you even have a slight idea of how the world works, it's hard not to poke holes in the plot for MW2.
1) Price died in CoD4, it's a fact. You see the medics trying to revive him, desperately giving him CPR, but in the end the medic gives up, just as you're hoisted up to the helicopter.
2) Assuming price was alive, there is no way he'd be put in a Russian gulag. His body would have been brought back to Britain for burial, or (assuming he magically lived), they would have brought him to the hospital with soap).
3) How can TF141 identify where a spent shell was created from CCTV footage, but the Russians can't use that same footage to identify a well known terrorist? Have they been drinking too much vodka while on the job?
4) How can Price reprogram a nuclear missile in a matter of minutes while under fire. How did he even get in the submarine, I'm pretty sure the hatches can lock. The whole thing is just ridiculous.
5) How the hell did the Russians get past the US air defences simply by taking an ACS module from a satellite? Assuming they could hack all of America, there is still the US air force and SAM site that would shred their planes apart. F-18's and F-35's versus fat, slow cargo planes and a few outdated Russian MiGs? Hmm... Hard call guessing who would win.
6) Why did Russia attack America anyhow?! Not only is there the threat of nuclear retaliation, and the reality that they will get slaughtered, but there is no reason for it. So a terrorist was an American, lets attack their country! Wait, what? You think that doesn't make sense? Me neither.
7) Where the fuck is the rest of the world? Living in huts and wacking off, according to MW2, since none of them join the fight on either side. Yes, I'm sure Canada would stand by as the US is attacked by Russia. We're too busy huddling in our igloos trying to hunt beavers to take notice of a full-on invasion of our neighbour. Or the EMP that destroyed our electronics... oh wait, Canada has none, I forgot. There is something called the UN that might take issue to the war.
8) Why does no one wonder how the so-called American terrorist hired by the CIA got shot? None of the police did it, so they could surmise he was killed for a different reason, maybe he was trying to kill the real terrorists, as far as they know.
And that's just off the top of my head, I haven't played the game for a few months. Don't get me wrong, it's a fun game and all, but still, is it REALLY that hard to make a decent story? Something at least somewhat plausible.
1) Price died in CoD4, it's a fact. You see the medics trying to revive him, desperately giving him CPR, but in the end the medic gives up, just as you're hoisted up to the helicopter.
2) Assuming price was alive, there is no way he'd be put in a Russian gulag. His body would have been brought back to Britain for burial, or (assuming he magically lived), they would have brought him to the hospital with soap).
3) How can TF141 identify where a spent shell was created from CCTV footage, but the Russians can't use that same footage to identify a well known terrorist? Have they been drinking too much vodka while on the job?
4) How can Price reprogram a nuclear missile in a matter of minutes while under fire. How did he even get in the submarine, I'm pretty sure the hatches can lock. The whole thing is just ridiculous.
5) How the hell did the Russians get past the US air defences simply by taking an ACS module from a satellite? Assuming they could hack all of America, there is still the US air force and SAM site that would shred their planes apart. F-18's and F-35's versus fat, slow cargo planes and a few outdated Russian MiGs? Hmm... Hard call guessing who would win.
6) Why did Russia attack America anyhow?! Not only is there the threat of nuclear retaliation, and the reality that they will get slaughtered, but there is no reason for it. So a terrorist was an American, lets attack their country! Wait, what? You think that doesn't make sense? Me neither.
7) Where the fuck is the rest of the world? Living in huts and wacking off, according to MW2, since none of them join the fight on either side. Yes, I'm sure Canada would stand by as the US is attacked by Russia. We're too busy huddling in our igloos trying to hunt beavers to take notice of a full-on invasion of our neighbour. Or the EMP that destroyed our electronics... oh wait, Canada has none, I forgot. There is something called the UN that might take issue to the war.
8) Why does no one wonder how the so-called American terrorist hired by the CIA got shot? None of the police did it, so they could surmise he was killed for a different reason, maybe he was trying to kill the real terrorists, as far as they know.
And that's just off the top of my head, I haven't played the game for a few months. Don't get me wrong, it's a fun game and all, but still, is it REALLY that hard to make a decent story? Something at least somewhat plausible.
That's...actually not true.Zhukov said:
If we're really gonna go by 'video game standards' (considering how the most common video game plot tends to be something along the lines of 'bad guys bad, good guys good, good guys kill bad guys!') then MW2 did actually have an alright plot by video game standards (it wasn't quite Second Sight but it was still passable, anyone complaining about plot holes needs to remember that we give praise to the writing of games like Half Life 2 despite it having pretty bland storytelling).
If we're gonna compare it to the storytelling of other mediums then we need to compare it to it's nearest counterpart (which would be summer action blockbusters, which it seems to have drawn a fair amount of inspiration from). I personally say that MW2 was a tad more intelligent than most summer action movies, again, it doesn't compare to the complexity and emotions of films like Schindler's List or The Godfather but it sure as hell doesn't sink down to the levels of stupid of stuff like Transformers and Fast and Furious.
As a general rule I've found that a lot of 'intellectual' people (namely the 'plot at the expense of all else' and 'artistic' crowd) tend to be extremely biased against games like CoD and Halo (which actually had better writing than we give them credit for) and in my experience I've usually only found three explanations behind this.
1) These games tend to be more popular than the cult classics they favour.
Call it being threatened or jealous or defensive or whatever but as a general rule I believe that this rabid hatred of these series tends to come from a feeling that the widespread popularity of games like CoD will somehow threaten or harm their beloved favourite genres and styles or result in them dying out (much the same as point and click adventure games did after a while).
2) These games tend to be more popular for their multiplayer.
Again, even the presence of multiplayer in a game appears to be a cardinal sin from the perspective of quite a few people although being more famous for your multiplayer than your campaign now appears to be something that will gurantee your place in gaming history as an ignorant beacon for the douchebags and idiots of the world.
Maybe it's the lack of a story in multiplayer (so the players can just get straight into the action) or the fact that multiplayers inhernt simplicity and task oriented gameplay makes it more approachable and conveinient for people who don't have hundreds of hours to sink into a major RPG that makes it seem like the 'junk food' version of video games.
Both of these options suggest a certain form of elitism coming from the people who turn their noses up at games like CoD or Halo, said people often talk about these games as if liking them automatically means you're their intellectual inferiors.
3) They're 'typical' first person shooters.
I personally get the feeling that a lot of the ire that army shooters generate stems more from what they are (army shooters) rather than what happens in them (the plot or narrative). Let's compare the story from MW2 (widely considered to have a stupid plot with little effort) to the story from Half Life 2 (a game that is frequently praised for it's writing and characterisation).
Modern Warfare 2:
The game takes place a few years after the events of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare and follows the actions of Task Force 141 (an international special forces team) and a U.S. Army Rangers squad as they attempt to foil a plan masterminded by a underhanded colaberation of a Russian terrorist cell and a jaded and cynical American General (who lost many thousands of men during the nuclear detonation in CoD 4, the apathetic reaction from the American people at the loss of his entire force made him snap and desire a situation that would make the people care).
Their plan? Make it look like the U.S. conducted a cold blooded terrorist attack in order to enrage the Russian people and force a decleration of war.
In the end, the actions of the Rangers and Task Force 141 aren't enough. America is devistated by an EMP, casulties are implied to be great and the Task Force is reduced down to two men.
All of this and the war between America and Russia is still raging on.
Their plan? Make it look like the U.S. conducted a cold blooded terrorist attack in order to enrage the Russian people and force a decleration of war.
In the end, the actions of the Rangers and Task Force 141 aren't enough. America is devistated by an EMP, casulties are implied to be great and the Task Force is reduced down to two men.
All of this and the war between America and Russia is still raging on.
Half Life 2:
An alien invasion changes the world from how we recognise it today to a global dictatorship complete with public beatings and apartment raids. Within the first few minutes of you getting off the train you're immediately recognised and recruited into the human resistance before being told to run for your life from the police (despite not having done anything criminal by this point).
After a brief chase you escape to the newly founded Black Mesa and are about to resume your work as a scientist but (because your scientst protaganist can never actually engage in anything pertaining to science) the lab is shelled with Headcrab artillery and raided by the Combine forcing you to flee throught the (literally) dead town of Ravenholm.
After escaping the makeshift Necropoilisyou have to walk, drive and otherwise travel to the enemy prison to liberate an important scientist (who was captured off screen), your liberation attempt successful, you use a teleporter to escape only to find that (for some unexplained reason) you have been placed foward in time into the middle of a civillian uprising and must lead it to victory all by yourself (no other rebel leaders are established or even implied).
Finallaly, you manage to storm the Citadel, stronghold of the Combine and office of Dr. Breen, the man who sold us out to them and is a representative(?). After letting yourself get captured (in a fairly stupid way) the gravity gun you obtained earlier is superpowered by....science(?) and you battle your way up to the main reactor of the Citadel and destroy it. The resulting detonation of a fusion reaction while standing 15 feet away from it doesn't kill you beacause the enigmatic G-Man stops time and whips you and your sidekick out of danger at the last moment because...fuck you?
After a brief chase you escape to the newly founded Black Mesa and are about to resume your work as a scientist but (because your scientst protaganist can never actually engage in anything pertaining to science) the lab is shelled with Headcrab artillery and raided by the Combine forcing you to flee throught the (literally) dead town of Ravenholm.
After escaping the makeshift Necropoilisyou have to walk, drive and otherwise travel to the enemy prison to liberate an important scientist (who was captured off screen), your liberation attempt successful, you use a teleporter to escape only to find that (for some unexplained reason) you have been placed foward in time into the middle of a civillian uprising and must lead it to victory all by yourself (no other rebel leaders are established or even implied).
Finallaly, you manage to storm the Citadel, stronghold of the Combine and office of Dr. Breen, the man who sold us out to them and is a representative(?). After letting yourself get captured (in a fairly stupid way) the gravity gun you obtained earlier is superpowered by....science(?) and you battle your way up to the main reactor of the Citadel and destroy it. The resulting detonation of a fusion reaction while standing 15 feet away from it doesn't kill you beacause the enigmatic G-Man stops time and whips you and your sidekick out of danger at the last moment because...fuck you?
By comparison, Modern Warefare 2 isn't that stupid when you take into account what we call a 'good' story.
Everyone complains on the story because they want to piss on activision, as far as shooters go, its below average. Nobody knocked on bad company 2's story even though it was trash. It's gameplay was fun, and as long as its fun I couldn't give a shit about an action games story.
It deserves all the shit in the world, largely because of being the scourge of FPSes and the No Russian mission.
There are things you just don't write, I don't care that they let you skip it without penalties (AND make a point of there being no difference to the mission if you even shot the civvies).
There are things you just don't write, I don't care that they let you skip it without penalties (AND make a point of there being no difference to the mission if you even shot the civvies).
I think this is becoming a big problem in many of the games today that are multiplayer orientated. The same problem plagued Halo 2 (cut content ruined the games ending and removed a lot of in-game story development) and Halo Reach (One of the main characters leaves and is never heard of again, turns out he died off-screen, but you had to read a tie-in, sold seperately book to find that out.) and several other FPS games have been given jarringly short campaigns because the dev. team were focusing on the multiplayer (Black Ops and Homefront).The_Fezz said:
Most of MW2's plotholes can be adequately filled in if you think about them for a while, but you shouldn't have to. It is the stories responsibility to tie up loose threads and explain itself, especially as most of these problems could be dealt with in a throw-away line in a cutscene or even shouted during gameplay.
Plotholes are a sign of inadequate stoy development. They should be explained in the story, not rationalised by fans of the series after experiencing the game.
MW2's story wasn't neccessarily bad, it just lacked intimate details and fleshing out.
My theory is that the new Ultra Nationalist government didn't give a shit and was just looking for an excuse to show their might. Though by invading the US that means they are just completely and utterly, balls to the wall retarded.RuralGamer said:
Its a retcon. Simple as that. Many other mediums do it as well. We are never told, explicitely, that he is killed. Therefore, he didn't HAVE to be dead.Slayer_2 said:
The battle wasn't over just because Soap shot Zakheav. Whichever chopper was carrying Price could have been intercepted and shot down.
They know its Makarov from the beginning. They just have no idea how to find him. They chase down Alex Rojas in Rio because they think he might give them some lead on where to find Makarov. Which he does, that is how they find the Boneyard and the Estate.
He's awesome, that's how. Its not a plothole, just an informed ability we didn't know about. For all we know, all he had to do was press a few buttons, or rewrite a few numbers, or just point to a different place on a map. Maybe he took an officer hostage and made him do it at gunpoint. They can't make those systems TOO complicated, because you wouldn't want someone doing something wrong and accidentally wiping Switzerland off the map.
The SAMs may very well work on the same information provided by the military's satellites. As for the Air Force, remember, the U.S. is still committed in the Middle East in MW2. Most of our forces would be deployed there. I'm pretty sure that the National Guard doesn't have a lot of access to that sort of material.
Remember Zakheav's group of terrorists in MW1? By MW2, they are running the country. That was the whole point of the intro cutscene, that the "victory" in MW1 didn't change anything. The Ultranationalists still take over Russia, and now they have a huge chip on their shoulder in the form of a matyred leader. They just use Allen's body as a very loose excuse to go to war.
Well, 141 is multi-national. And if the trailers for MW3 are any indication, Europe's been having its own trouble with the Russians and whoever else. We'll likely find out what they were doing then.
They'd have security footage of Allen participating in the attack. As for why Makarov would shoot his own man, why not? Can you really claim to understand all the stuff that goes through a crazy guy's head? And, once again, the government is run by the Ultranationalists. ANYTHING that linked the U.S. to the attack would be an excuse for war.
It all makes perfect sense if you actually bother to think about it for a few minutes, or accept that some things can only be explained by that magic that is "fiction".
I would agree, actually. It's not the most intelligent story, but it's interesting nonetheless.
Here's the deal. Call of Duty is a war story. If we take a look at most war stories told in film, we see they are very simple; after all, most of them are true to some extent, and most real battles simply are a matter of taking a certain location, killing a certain person, or obtaining a certain item. So they become compelling by including a lot of character development, including quite a bit that is based on (or at least contextualized by) the fact that people are dying all around and main characters can sometimes be intensely injured.
There are two problems with this approach when it comes to video games, at least as we tend to make them today; first, war games are generally not able to pause the action for significant character development. Or rather, while the game and genre themselves are capable, the general audience is not welcoming of those elements. And there's only so much that can effectively be done during battle sequences. So the character-centric approach does not work all that well. Secondly, to make matters worse, the inevitable scene where soldiers bond over an injury or death in the squad would likely feel out of place in a game where you take multiple bullets and magically heal after a few seconds (and no, healing with a little first aid kit does not fix this problem). So really, the character-centric approach only works so well.
So they go with still a tightly-focused storyline, but base it more on the overall events of the war than the specific people who are doing things.
The other thing to consider is that, while Infinity Ward has never really told a particularly good story, they always tell it well. Their use of the first-person perspective for storytelling purposes is in full form both in Modern Warfare and its sequel; those of you who have played them hopefully know exactly what I mean.
Also, Modern Warfare 2's story is definitely art. Because storytelling is art. Telling a story is artistic; if the story's not good or it's told poorly, perhaps it is bad art, but telling any story is a creative process of skill and imagination, and is art inherently.
Here's the deal. Call of Duty is a war story. If we take a look at most war stories told in film, we see they are very simple; after all, most of them are true to some extent, and most real battles simply are a matter of taking a certain location, killing a certain person, or obtaining a certain item. So they become compelling by including a lot of character development, including quite a bit that is based on (or at least contextualized by) the fact that people are dying all around and main characters can sometimes be intensely injured.
There are two problems with this approach when it comes to video games, at least as we tend to make them today; first, war games are generally not able to pause the action for significant character development. Or rather, while the game and genre themselves are capable, the general audience is not welcoming of those elements. And there's only so much that can effectively be done during battle sequences. So the character-centric approach does not work all that well. Secondly, to make matters worse, the inevitable scene where soldiers bond over an injury or death in the squad would likely feel out of place in a game where you take multiple bullets and magically heal after a few seconds (and no, healing with a little first aid kit does not fix this problem). So really, the character-centric approach only works so well.
So they go with still a tightly-focused storyline, but base it more on the overall events of the war than the specific people who are doing things.
The other thing to consider is that, while Infinity Ward has never really told a particularly good story, they always tell it well. Their use of the first-person perspective for storytelling purposes is in full form both in Modern Warfare and its sequel; those of you who have played them hopefully know exactly what I mean.
Also, Modern Warfare 2's story is definitely art. Because storytelling is art. Telling a story is artistic; if the story's not good or it's told poorly, perhaps it is bad art, but telling any story is a creative process of skill and imagination, and is art inherently.
... Can we be friends? I'd like to be friends. I like people that pay attention to what's going onOrdinaryundone said:
Thank you, dude (lady?). I couldn't have said all that better myself.
I think I know what the issue is. So many people assume the story in an FPS will be stupid, so they shut off their brains and don't pay attention. Everything is explained in that game, and it doesn't require any real stretch of the imagination to understand what's going on in it.
It downright pisses me off. MW2 is far from my favorite game or story, but when I see people pointing out plot holes that don't exist, I practically pull my hair out.
MW2's story wasn't terrible (God knows there's a lot worse out there), but in comparison to the first one it is very poor. CoD 4's story mostly concise and down to earth, exactly what you want from a 'realistic' thriller. This also meant that the few moments where the shit really hit the fan were genuinely shocking. By contrast MW2 made a wrong turning at retarded conspiracy avenue and the narrative was driven forward by so much balls to the wall action there was no time for any of it to sink in and gain much depth or significance.