Two years ago, I was first in line to praise the mature sentiment of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. Things have changed.
(The following contains strong spoilers for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.)
Almost two years ago, I wrote in praise of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare.
The game was, I suggested, about as close to an anti-war first-person shooter a videogame could get. Despite its surface of gung-ho militarism, there was a definite undercurrent of thoughtfulness.
Modern Warfare illustrated clear motivations for terrorists. It was hardly a simple case of ‘us versus them’. Things were difficult, things were complex. Our modern lexicon of images relating to the War on Terrorism was invoked, and twisted into a clever alternate meaning. War, said Modern Warfare, is not good. War, said Infinity Ward, is never good.
And despite the consequence-less appeal of multiplayer, and the cries of Infinity Ward wanting to have their non-violent cake and eat their violent fun too, I was able to argue that Modern Warfare held deeper meaning. In short, I was able to reconcile myself with the game; I was able to accept the images presented on the assumption that a greater and more important point lay underneath.
I am unable to do this with Modern Warfare 2.
Modern Warfare 2 is the gloss of the first game without any of the substance. It is a thoughtless enactment of militaristic nightmares; part Michael Bay, part Tom Clancy, all parts unintelligent and all parts self-unaware.
It is Infinity Ward having their cake and eating it too. It is the juxtaposition of selections from Gandhi with those from Rumsfeld with all the vision of a “famous quotes” website. It is a catch-all regurgitation of warfare from all media types: from scenes ripped straight from The Rock to commentaries on war so disconnected from their original sources that you wonder if Infinity Ward even knows where they came from.
And yet I know that Infinity Ward does know where they came from. The team, as far as I’m aware, is largely unchanged since the first game – the same team that had so much to say two years ago. Is there a deeper meaning in Modern Warfare 2 I’m simply missing? Or was I simply wrong when I praised Modern Warefare for its anti-war stance?
For much of the game, I was convinced that Infinity Ward were intentionally, reflexively overplaying the American Nightmare. The one thing that almost every player of Modern Warfare 2 will agree on is that it is overblown. Every sequence is intense to the point of distraction for the player. Barely a moment passes without a set-piece action sequence, a tense brush with death, or an aural assault on your ear drums. Couple that with a near-incomprehensible storyline that involves the Russians (who else?) invading and destroying much of Washington D.C., and you have large-scale elimination of subtlety.
I waited for the kicker, the point, like the first Modern Warfare’s nuclear explosion, that would reveal the game’s second-tier meaning and blow the game’s militarism into stark relief.
I did not wait in vain. Towards the end of Modern Warfare 2 it is revealed that your direct superior is evil. The reasoning behind it all is something I’m still struggling to grasp, but I suppose the point was meant to be that the US Military is not necessarily to be trusted; that the strange theme of “history is written by the winners” that pervades the game also applies to our own sacred cows of history. “Who knows what atrocities have been committed in our name,” the game wants to say, “and have been covered up by us – us, the victors?”
But it doesn’t say that. At least, not to me, even with its interesting museum end-credits sequence that perhaps rams home this theme a little too hard.
If Modern Warfare 2 says anything, it says something else entirely.
When the Sheppard reveal occurs, we go rogue. We become the last stand of the good guys. We become the last of the noble action heroes, the only soldiers on earth who know the truth.
And so, Infinity Ward, instead of making their – presumably – intended statement, muddy the waters with mistakes. Instead, they say this: that we will never accept wrongdoing on our own side. That whoever wrongs us becomes our enemy. That when it comes to protagonists in war, we see only in black and white. Everyone who is my enemy is the enemy, unless they are the enemy of my enemy. It is us or them. It doesn’t matter that “them” are only a rotating rogue’s gallery of villains.
Infinity Ward argue that it is only one-off lunatics like Sheppard that can turn a good fight into a bad one. They ignore the greater follies of war – the greater follies that they have highlighted in previous Call of Duty games. They ignore the everyday psychopath – Captain Price – for the cost of an “epic storyline”. They ignore the structural and cultural failings of the military, and the greater, more immediate tragedies of war and violence.
Perhaps I gave Infinity Ward too much credit the first time around. The second time, perhaps I give them too much scorn.
But here is a definite. With Modern Warfare 2, Infinity Ward step back from saying anything truly meaningful. Instead, we are left with only the dregs of violence, the dregs of what modern warfare means. We are left with the recycled jargon dialogue from a Generation Kill episode. We are left with the (surely intentionally) overblown action movie sequences and the nothingness associated with them.
We are left, ultimately, with nothing to reach out and grasp.
We are left with nothing but a sharp hollowness.
This is Modern Warfare 2. All parts unintelligent. All parts self-unaware.
Related posts:
Tags: Infinity Ward, Modern Warfare 2, terrorism, videogames, violence
Well said, Dan. I’ve never been a giant fan of the series, but after playing No Russian, while I realised the point IW were trying to make but it just didn’t work. It ended up being a shocking, controversial reason to talk about the game in the mainstream media.
I wonder if they’d have been so confident in their game’s emotional worth if it had of been an American airport
Actually myself and a friend were chatting about the story while playing it and both agreed that it was certainly less touching than the last game.
COD4 seemed to be more than just a war game, and I loved it for that. However, MW2 seems to have tried to do so much in so little time it is quite confusing. Price starts going off on one constantly, and even though he was my favourite character in the game, I was beginning to question what the developers were trying to do with him.
I thought MW1 was unmitigated tripe as well. Only the first Call of Duty had any semblance of thorough plot development and considered narrative construction. The rush to Stalingrad. The taking of the square. The rest have freely given up these impressions in favour of a melange of militarism and guilt. Guilt, these days, is part of the militarist’s cultural agenda. “Smart bombs”, “friendly fire” indicating a shift to sanitised war.
You were far too kind to the first game, and only mildly too kind to the second.
To see militarist masturbation in full flight, play Killzone 2. “This Autistic Imperium is Nihil Reich.”
Hey Dan,
I absolutely agree with your comments on the first MW. What I’ve found with MW2 is that it actually contains a great story – the problem is that they do a really bad job of telling it. I had to use Wikipedia and forum postings to piece it all together. Shepherd’s motivation is very poorly explained. From what I can gather, having been disgusted over the lack of reaction to the ‘nuke’ scene that wiped out his troops in MW1, he essentially instigates the war between Russia and America in the hope of being hailed as a war hero, as he feels he deserves to be.
To me, the most obvious ‘theme’ of MW2 is the role of the ‘invader’. Aside from No Russian, I think one of the key moments in the game comes after the EMP strike, when you’re walking the streets at night and come across those troops who don’t return your callsign. Even as an Australian, there’s a certain significance to taking the fight to American soil, seeing the Washington Monument wrecked and broken, and not knowing whether those guys walking down the street need to be shot at or not. And then, of course, in the early levels (the Favela, the one that goes through the school), you’re the invader in a civilian area – civilians can get in your way, and it doesn’t neccessarily stop you from firing.
If nothing else, plot wise, it gives you access to some new perspectives, even if the actual plot is delievered terribly and the blockbuster moments are oddly jarring.
Thanks for dropping by, guys. I appreciate it.
Christian – yes, you’re on to something with guilt being part of the militarist’s agenda. I’m beginning to wonder whether what I saw in MW1 was simply the guilt of the developers showing through more strongly than in other military-based videogames. It’s funny you should mention sanitisation though – if you’ve played MW2 then you’ll probably have noticed the briefing section late on in the game where one character (Sheppard, I think) says “We are not barbarians – we do not kill civilians.” Interesting.
Jickle – Yes, the story is told really poorly. I struggled to put all the pieces together, though even your comment here makes things a little clearer.
Though your comments about civilians again bring up one of the game’s most hypocritical aspects: where is everyone in Washington and Virginia? Clearly there would still be stragglers, even in an all-out warzone. The civilians are there when you’re an invader, but absent when you’re a defender. Pretty telling on what lines Infinity Ward were willing to cross.
Dan – I don’t particularly disagree with you on that last point. It would have been more interesting if there were civilians in those levels too, but I don’t know whether the huge American audience would agree with us.
[...] than the game On inclusivity What my television set can learn from videogames The year of thirds Modern Warfare’s hollow victory IKEA, and the logic of videogame design Arkham Asylum, and the space of traumatic memory Boring [...]