Opinions over Time: Modern Warfare 2 (Initial Reaction)

At the time of writing this I have only played the tutorial and the very first level of Modern Warfare 2. The tutorial, while seeming fun and refreshing in Call of Duty 4, just came off as annoying this time around. Especially since how well you do is far more influenced by memorization than skill with the Call of Duty franchise. I didn’t really think much of it though, complaining about tutorials is kind of redundant. They are designed for newcomers and if I was a newcomer I probably would have enjoyed it. I suppose they could have included an option to skip it, but I wouldn’t have anyway. Hell, maybe there was an option, I didn’t check.

Ever since I played Call of Duty 2 on the 360 (primarily since there wasn’t anything else worth playing on my shiny new 400 dollar console besides Geometry Wars) I’ve loved the intensity Infinity Ward has managed to capture. During some of the more action packed battles I really feel like a tiny part of a much larger offensive. I think they took that intensity one step too far with this particular game however, or at least the first level. I understand they want to capture the insanity of war, but the first level has an on-rails section that is such a clusterfuck that I pretty much let go of the controller and let the fact I’m practically invincible on normal carry me through. I was getting shot and blown up from so many directions that it would be almost impossible to deal with it on a clear screen much less with all the vision impairing damage indicators covering the screen. I suppose that is a great way to capture the intensity and craziness of battle, but it wasn’t very much fun and taking three rocket blasts to the face and living sort of kills the immersion a bit. Maybe I should play on Veteran, but I don’t think I have the patience to even attempt to survive that section without the Normal settings huge cushion.

So I guess, as with my Assassin’s Creed 2 initial impressions, I’m once again still excited to play the game, but disappointed by the intro. I saw the beginning of level 2, which starts in the middle of what I think is Siberia. It is definitely going to be a much smaller scale level, possibly a stealthy one, so the game is definitely going to offer up plenty of changes to keep things fresh. That is something Infinity Ward did flawlessly with CoD4, so I’m going to tread on with cautious optimism. If the story and first person narrative techniques are even half as cool as their last game then I’ll be happy. I can’t imagine they’ll top CoD4’s ending, but here’s hoping.