Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (2019)

I will start off with a complement, Activision/Infinity Ward seems to have finally, after a decade of backsliding and watering down, finally committed to ‘No Russian’ and a presentation of war with actual consequences. I remember my first time playing through Modern Warfare 2, walking out of that elevator and freezing in shock at the realization of what that game was asking me to do. Surprisingly, for the first time in years I’ve felt trepidation again as Modern Warfare 2019 drops you in dimly lit apartments and leveled homes that feel (felt) lived in, against men and women who feel (felt) cared for at least at some point in their abruptly shortened lives, asking you, with your government issued assault rifle in hand, to end them. It’s bleak, it’s morally reprehensible as all depictions war should be, but I fear it commits the same sin all war films, and books, and games have committed before it… it’s entertaining.

Francois Truffaut - ‘There is no such thing as an Anti-war film’

It’s amusing how Americans, with the deadliest military force ever assembled, always manage to depict themselves in a conflict as the underdog, like ‘what if Goliath was actually the victim?’ In this case though the net is widened a little by putting a face on the insurgency with Farrah and her brother Hadir, Muslim freedom fighters trying to protect their home and their countrymen by any means necessary. You could choose to read this as a step in the right direction, giving a voice to the downtrodden and fighting with them, the good clearly distinguished from the bad, with you conveniently, always on the right side by credit roll. You could be forgiven for the adrenaline rushing through your body as Piccadilly is turned to rubble and a gun is put in your hand with one simple objective in mind, ‘Fix It’, justifying the hell you rain on all who come your way, rationalizing the choices you make and or are told to make, patting yourself on the back as you win and everyone who isn’t you loses.

…but none of this is rational, no matter how many voices of whatever number of sides there are to a battlefield. The choice to end another human life is the height of absurdity, specifically in the case of war as that choice justifies any and every response from the enemy, which in turn justifies any and every response from you and yours and on and on the logical fallacy of seeking peace through acts of war gets gleefully played out, turned into a ‘morally righteous’ power fantasy.

It’s been a while since I’ve played one of these games, and as I slowly trudge towards 30, my country’s authoritarian leader seeking a seventh term of 'presidency', the world slowly sliding towards unprecedented levels of shitty as acts we couldn’t have imagined 5 years ago become normalised, as I settle into my role in my community and reckon with the role of that community in the world at large, I cant help but feel conflicted with Call of Duty. I do think these games are still fun, I think their spectacle is still unmatched but with each new addition to the franchise pushing us closer and closer to the violence, I cant help but wonder if next year they’ll just send out enrollment papers instead.

The ray-tracing looked good though. Makes you really feel like you just witnessed a war crime. :)

FPS - Follows C.I.A. Officer Alex & S.A.S. Sergeant Kyle Garrick as they team up with rebel leader Farah Karim to stop a terrorist organization, Al-Qatala, from using chemical weapons.

PROS:

++ Grounded gunplay. Moves away from the fast movement-centered gameplay of past CODs and leans more towards tactical/realistic gunplay. It's obviously not a true tactical shooter like Siege, but it's the closest COD has been to that style of gameplay. The player can only get hit a few times, but the enemy also gets taken out in 1 or 2 shots which makes the gunplay feel satisfying. The two gameplay additions they made was the ability to mount your gun on surfaces to peek around corners and provide stability, and the ability to reload while continuing to aim down sight. These two seem like minor additions, but they actually contribute well to making the game feel more tactical. Overall, I really liked how the guns handled and the pace of the gameplay.

++ Stunning visuals. The visuals are absolutely stunning. Locales had great atmosphere. Lighting was often phenomenal. Fires and explosions looked especially great. And the cutscenes were beautifully done!

++ Powerful sound design. Every shot fired sounds incredibly powerful. No gun sounds and shoots like a peashooter.

++ Solid campaign. Even though there was a lack of memorable set-pieces, I actually appreciate the campaign's more somber tone. "Clean House" was very memorable and I wish there was more of this in the series. "Defending the Embassy" was quite thrilling. The sniper mission in "Highway of Death" was great. And "Going Dark" was a solid stealth mission. But the most memorable mission for me was "Hometown" which surprisingly made me teary-eyed. I think this mission did a great job of showing the sadness, loss, and cruelty that is caused by wars.

++ Multiplayer. I enjoyed the time I spent in multiplayer. Even though I have bad internet, I still had fun. Ground War really reminds me of the days I used to play Battlefield 3.

++ Good reboot. The return of past characters was great to see (Price, "Gaz", Nikolai, Kamarov, Griggs) and the cliffhanger ending that teases the return of more old faces (Soap, Ghost, Zakhaev). I'm excited to see how the reboot fleshes out Task 141.

CONS:

-- Installation process. It's annoying and unnecessarily complicated. I understand that they wanted to make it so that you can download only the parts you want in order to save space, but they could have made this process simpler. It took me a long time to start actually playing the game.

-- Weak story. The campaign was solid overall, but the narrative behind it all was quite forgettable. None of the antagonists were all that great or memorable. There weren't any cool plot twists or anything. I feel like the story could have been so much more .

-- Spec-Ops. Hard to find lobbies for most spec-ops missions. You can play offline but the bots are near useless so it's incredibly difficult to play solo. All in all, it also lacks the charm of past Spec-Ops modes.

-- Campaign movement. Movement in the campaign is painfully slow. It feels like you're running in slow motion. However, I'm glad movement is fast in multiplayer. It just feels weird that they decided to exclude tactical sprinting for the campaign.

-- Prevalence of microtransactions.

INCOMING RANT

The installation process of this game is horrendous.

I put the disc in and leave my PS5 on overnight so the game can finish copying. That's fine. I get home to get ready for a good session of Saturday night gaming so I launch the game.

Made my coffee, prepared my snacks, and was ready to get some gaming on! Went to the campaign and I find out that I have to download and install 5 MORE things which total about 90GB just so I can play!!

Why did Infinity Ward make it so difficult to play this game???

This is by far one of the best single player campaigns in a Call of Duty. There is a point however where I'm feeling uncomfortable when in 2023 there are so many modern wars going on and I'm sat playing this for entertainment when there's people living this.

Played this on the PS4 as I picked up a cheap copy ages ago but not got around to it, even though I have the new Xbox it's surprising how much they got to push the PS4. It's a good looking game few years on still stands up.

Note: This is a review of strictly the campaign, not the multiplayer or battle royale components.

Note entirely sure what I expected the campaign to look like going in, but I definitely didn't expect something quite like this.

The most noticeable thing compared to the other Modern Warfare games is the inclusion of actual cut scenes with cgi models of characters talking to each other, rather than just a radio transmission with some vector art showing while the game loads. They look really good and besides Price making some unintentionally hilarious faces, it works pretty well due to the fact that they are kept brief and are sparse enough to not be annoying.

What does hurt these cut scenes though is the boring writing and familiar story. Our main cast consists of 4 forgettable heroes, each with a few missions dedicated to them and none feel particularly cool or interesting. Kyle's missions were probably my favorite just because they were the most unconventional and unique to the series. Alex is the complete opposite with missions that play out like some of the worst missions this series has to offer, including boring turret segments and a seemingly infinite amount of enemies. It also doesn't help that Alex's personality is as interesting as his missions' structure. Even Price, who is outfitted with a new look and voice actor, is nowhere near as cool or interesting as he was back in his og Modern Warfare days. He is written as another veteran old man military type guy and the lame attempts to have his new voice actor try to redo iconic Price lines during missions just feels hollow.

The decision to "redo" the timeline of the series is an interesting one, but I can understand it to a certain extent since it has been nearly a decade since the last Modern Warfare entry. However, they do absolutely NOTHING with this new timeline. Before the final cut scene, it isn't even really obvious that this doesn't take place after Modern Warfare 3. Instead it's a setup for another game that name drops some familiar people from the PREVIOUS Modern Warfare games, but those games are in the future in this timeline, even though this game takes place in 2019 (as evidenced by the missions themselves at the start) so where does this all fit in?

But that's enough about the actual story. It's a fuckin Call of Duty game, so how are the missions and gunplay? Well, both are a mixed bag. The first mission, while nothing amazing, is well-done and an interesting start to the story. The second mission might be my favorite of the entire game where you play as Kyle trying to stop a terrorist attack from breaking out on the streets of London, and it's really well-done, if not a little short. After those first 2 missions though, things go downhill fast. Everything after feels like a retread outside of a few standout missions (namely with Kyle). A lot of people have discussed the missions in the game where you are with a special forces unit and you conduct a siege on a house, and while they are cool, especially for a CoD game, they felt like a streamlined SWAT 4. Not that I was expecting SWAT levels of depth, but it would've been nice to see some sort of additional tools to counter balance the lower amount of enemies. Even simple team orders or an appropriate breaching method would take this missions a lot further. Overall, I'd say the missions in this game are definitely above average thanks to the standouts, but it's really only 4-5 out of about 14 missions that grabbed my attention.

We also have the issue of Modern Warfare's combat. Combat feels really really good in multiplayer but here it just feels off. Your player character has a pretty low movement speed and a laughable sprint, plus there are no real good ways of advancing reliably. Playing on hardened, most of my deaths were from my character moving too slow or not being able to effectively move from one piece of cover to the next. It actively discourages you from taking risky moves ahead since it punishes you so heavily for it, and instead prompts you to sit statically behind some cover capping whoever is unfortunate enough to wander into your cross hairs. This is a real shame because this is the most BORING type of way to play a shooter. I'm all for slower paced shooters, I have nothing wrong with carefully moving my way around a map, but CoD isn't that. It's an arcady shooter with pinpoint accurate guns and regenerating health, so why does the campaign insist so heavily on not letting you partake in that?

Outside of the game's literal combat design, we have guns and animations that feel good to shoot and look damn good at doing it. Recoil kicks back hard and sound design gives the guns a lot of power. Overhead planes are a particularly pleasing sound to hear in game. We also get a lot of nice reload animations, with the ability to stay aiming while reloading; a welcome feature.

It may sound like I'm coming down hard on the game but I couldn't help being disappointed after hearing so many good things from my friends. Honestly, my issues with the game might be more to do with how poorly CoD mission structure has aged, which is why I'm excited to see how Modern Warfare 2 campaign holds up when it launches at the end of the month.

3 modes like old times: Campaign, Multiplayer, and Spec Ops.

Campaign is pretty good in what seems like a good time since Infinite Warfare. Levels can be pretty intense (especially raiding the house mission). Overall, it's pretty good.

Multiplayer is multiplayer. Welcome to the first edition of COD store, spending COD points to get weapon packs or character packs. I'm glad their battle passes gave free COD points, but obviously the grind will be fun.

Poor Spec Ops, how you've fallen from your MW3 days. It's pretty much the game just throwing a bunch of gun-shooting baddies until you either die or push little by little.

Overall. the campaign carried the game hard.

The days of me having COD all-nighters are long gone, my love affair with the series peaked around the MW2/BO era but I still had an enjoyable time with this compared to some of the other recent entries. Campaign was shocking, jaw dropping and most importantly gripping with some epic cinematics and tight gameplay. Sadly my time with the multiplayer only lasted a handful of hours, I enjoyed the return of boots to ground but the maps were so uneventful I'd had enough by the time I'd hit around rank 20.

I'll admit it. I'm a COD fanboy. Ocarina of Time was my first true love as a gamer, but the original WW2 CODs were my second. I love all sorts of genres to open world adventures to RPGs and platformers, but I still feel passionate about this series even though it's been "cool" to hate on COD for the last decade and I, for the most part, have agreed with the criticisms of the franchise over the latest console generation. For so long now this series has been a shadow of its former self, so watered down and desperate to revive itself that it's almost become a parody of itself. When this reboot was first announced I thought "here we go again. COD is still just trying to throw stuff at the wall to see what sticks. Now they're really scrapping the bottom of the barrel, slapping a title from the golden age onto the box to shamelessly try to sell games.

I only bring all this up because it's impossible for me to review this game objectively.

Anyway, my initial reaction was wrong. This is easily the best COD of this console generation. It's not even close. A COD so good it would fit snugly among the games that made up the golden age of this franchise in the late 2000s. I want to give this game a 5-star review (which I give out very sparingly) but to do so would be to ignore some very legitimate gripes. I also think a 5 star review is a bit of an overreaction, a result of me just being so giddy to have a legitimately good COD again. Not a "by comparison to Black Ops 4 or Infinite Warfare" type of good but a genuinely really freaking good first-person shooter.

So what's so good about it? Campaign: I'm going to keep this spoiler-free and just talk vaguely about what works. Despite my misgivings about taking characters from the original Modern Warfare trilogy and re-imagining them in a completely different universe and story, this campaign really gives the previous MW series a run for its money. I don't want to declare one better than the other, but this one definitely holds up. The characters, particularly the rebooted Captain Price, are phenomenally acted and written. These are nuanced characters being put in extremely difficult ethical circumstances and we see their decisions and how those decisions effect them. Some of these ethical circumstances have drawn the ire of the media (and we'll get to that) but for the most part, these scenarios, these characters and this story feels like a genuine attempt to discuss the state of modern warfare, in which the two sides aren't clearly drawn and defined. In previous games civilians are largely never shown unless there's a specific plot reason to show them. Here they are littered everywhere in almost every mission. It's genuinely stressful to avoid hitting them and this is the strongest part of the campaign. And who exactly is or isn't a civilian is incredibly difficult to distinguish. It may be dark with chaos everywhere as you make your way through a crowd trying to separate the hostiles from the civilians. You try to see who's holding a gun and you only get a split second to make that distinction. Like the original Modern Warfare, so much of this game's plot is directly inspired by real world headlines. Many from the outside looking in have written this campaign off as just trying to provide shameless shock value, but I'm here to say the game's intent with its narrative is genuine. Now whether or not they succeed in having a nuanced discussion about these issues is up to each individual player. For me, I say yes. They succeed.

Spec Ops: Have barely played, but I love what I've played. This is not a mode people will sink a ton of time into and it won't really stand out compared to the other offerings, but it's good for what it is. Like the original Spec Ops mode in MW2 and MW3, these are a series of cooperative missions. Unlike the original mode, these missions take place on HUGE maps, are not linear and have one difficulty setting. That difficulty setting is extremely hard. Basically you parachute into a huge, open map with several objectives that you can tackle in any order. Vehicles are also available for use. Complete those objectives, and new objectives pop up until you are done. What makes it difficult is the sheer number of enemies. This mode is nothing ground-breaking, but still fun to play with friends. I see it as a nice bonus in addition to the other offerings, but not something you buy the game specifically for.

Multiplayer: The bread and butter of COD and the main reason most people buy the game. In short, it manages to bring back the feel of the classic, golden age games while also being completely new and unique.

There are essentially 3 categories of ways to experience this game's multiplayer, each with their own maps specifically built for it. There's the small 2 v 2 gunfight mode, featuring 7 tiny maps. This is perfect for you and a buddy to jump into for a quick, round-based match that tests your teamwork and reflexes. A similar mode was included in Modern Warfare 3, but had since been abandoned until now. I'm glad it's back. It's not complicated but it's a cool, change of pace game-mode and the fact that they built maps specifically for it is pretty cool.

Next is the standard multiplayer we all know and expect from COD. These are game-modes like Domination, Team Deathmatch, Search and Destroy, etc. with a few new ones thrown in. These take place on the standard, medium sized maps (although there are a few larger maps for 10 v 10 TDM and Domination sprinkled in).

Third is Ground War, which is a game-mode that has technically been in COD for a long time, but never like this. Ground War now has 2 huge (battlefield sized) maps to play a 64 player conquest type mode. These maps include vehicles, bullet drop and tons of verticality. In a way, it's a direct rip-off of Battlefield but imitation is the best form of flattery. Battlefield has certainly borrowed aspects from COD so as someone who plays both franchises, I find this stupid to get upset about. It's a great mode. And COD, with its generally smoother game-play, definitely adds its own flavor to this larger game-mode type.

The guns are the best part of the multiplayer. They've been completely reworked. In the past, COD guns have been laser pointers that you just need to point and shoot. No longer. Guns buck and recoil like crazy, which creates the need to master each weapon and also makes the new "Gunsmith" customization system completely necessary. Each weapon has over 50 attachments and 5 can be equipped on any weapon. Each one actually makes a difference and has a set of Pros and Cons. Some might improve accuracy, but decrease mobility, etc. Playing with all these attachments has been so fun, and the system is so extensive you practically create completely different weapons with it. An AK-47 with the proper attachments can be made to function as an AK-74 (its SMG variant). Does this create balancing issues? Not that I've seen so far, but possibly.

This best exemplifies what I mean by the game bringing back the feeling of golden age COD while also being completely new and unique. Old COD made a living on the idea that you should be able to deeply customize your load-out to perfectly fit your play-style. The gunsmith feature is what that idea should look like in 2019. It's a deep system that's like legos for your weapons that encourages experimentation, tailoring it to your specific play-style and, of course, progression.

The map design brings the series back to the map structure used during the older games. No more contrived 3-lane structure maps that had taken over COD over the last decade. These are natural looking and feeling maps with plenty of stuff to climb up and jump to. If it looks like you should be able to reach an area of the map, chances are you can. I love it, but newer fans who are used to the more restrictive and clearly laid out paths of the more recent games have not.

So what's bad? Well in attempting to be a more mature nuanced depiction of modern war, the game has also stirred up controversy. Some of which is dumb, some of which is not. So much of the game's plot revolves around chemical weapons and the campaign gives a pretty strong condemnation of them. Yet there is a white phosphorus kill-streak in multiplayer. That's extremely tone deaf and certainly a legitimate gripe.

The other legitimate controversy is the "highway of death" reference in the campaign. To keep this spoiler free, I will talk about this very vaguely. At one point in the story there is a highway littered with corpses and burned out vehicles, civilians among them. A character says the Russians bombed the road, earning its nickname. The problem is there is a real road in Iraq called the "highway of death" which was also a highway full of vehicles that was bombed with civilians among them. Only it wasn't the Russians who bombed it, but the Americans during the Gulf War.

Now this part of the game takes place in a fictional Middle Eastern country so its not the exact same highway, but to make a real world reference and then pin it on the Russians is very troubling.

These issues aren't enough to keep me from loving this game and my loving this game is not me condoning these issues. I think it's important to use these opportunities to have a discussion and I hope that happens without people just taking tribal sides and hurling insults at each other without actually learning from the experience.

These issues prevent me from objectively giving this game a 5 Star rating. But in my fan-boyish, super nostalgic point of view I really want to give this game a 5 Star review. If you love the COD series, this is a no-brainer. If you used to love COD, but grew frustrated with it over the years, this is a no-brainer. If you're a first-person shooter fan, but are a COD skeptic I would encourage you to give this game a try. If these issues I mentioned above are enough to make you dislike this game, I understand.

They managed to capture the uncomfortable-level of tension that Kathryn Bigelow's military movies make me feel. It's different from what I get from other Call of Duty games. I don't think I ever played any game that made me feel this way. There are several moments where there are civilians in the line of fire. I can't shoot at the enemy because I'm afraid I will hit a civilian, but if I don't fire back, the enemies will gun down the civilians. I can't save everyone. Innocent people will die. I've played through this situation in other games including past Call of Duty games, but I never felt the weight of it until this game. This game captures the horror of war.

Infinity Ward's previous game surprised me with its characters. I got to know just enough about them to care. As character's died leading up to the game's finale, I got emotional. I usually don't feel that way when it comes to characters in Call of Duty games. That same effort in writing has carried over to Modern Warfare's characters. Even with the returning Captain Price who never felt like anything other than a badass elite soldier. I got to see another side of him here. He can get the job done, and the game doesn't shy away from some of his more troubling methods of handling an objective. He's not a soldier just mindlessly following orders though. He will step out of line when he finds a fight worth taking on and his government isn't doing anything about it. Farrah is another compelling character as the only character here who isn't fighting for a government from the start. The game had me play through her life story from surviving a Russian attack when she was a child to leading a rebellion against the Russian occupation of her homeland. The Modern Warfare games have always been great at immersing players in large battles and covert operations. It makes it easy to role play as a soldier. This new game is more about the people who are fighting these battles in a way that makes me more invested in the fight.

This game keeps up the tradition of ending Modern Warfare with an up-close and personal fight with the main villain. It felt so fucking good.

Top 8 Call of Duty "controversies":

• Black Ops 4 doesn't have a single player campaign
• Oliver North in Black Ops II
• Infinite Warfare becomes one of the most disliked videos in YouTube because of reasons
• Gamers failing to boycott Modern Warfare 2
• Press F to trivialize military funerals in Advanced Warfare
• Ghosts has advanced fish AI
• White Phosphorus in Modern Warfare
• No Russian

Anyway, I wrote an article (in spanish) about the 'serious' ones (Oliver North, No Russian and White Phosphorus) so you can read that if you want.