Modern Warfare 2’s Campaign Is A Masterpiece, In The Worst Way

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    Modern Warfare 2’s Campaign Is A Masterpiece, In The Worst Way

    In an effort to be as objective and schematic as possible, I feel that it is in the spirit of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 to begin with outlining the campaign’s 17 missions. There are six good ones. Five of these are what we may call “OK” in casual conversation. Of them, three are awful. And the remaining three are some of the worst Call of Duty games ever made by Infinity Ward, Treyarch, Sledgehammer Games, or other developers.

    This forensic analysis concludes that Modern Warfare 2’s campaign is typically, verifiably good—neutral. Modern Warfare 2 would be a “buy” recommendation if it were a new and all-around capable electrical gadget, like a pair of Bluetooth headphones or an 18-button mouse. I thus certify that the Activision product you receive is worth the exchange of your $70, or $23 if you roughly divide Modern Warfare into thirds and consider the campaign alone as a separate product.

    Writing about Modern Warfare 2 in the spirit of the game, which is schematically, dispassionately, and edgeless, also means writing about it in a way that, throughout many of its 17 missions (at a cost of about $4.11 per mission, again excluding multiplayer), is to be duped or deceived; to cooperate with the game’s developer, Infinity Ward, which repeatedly tries to convince you that its game is unobtrusive, without conviction, and not attempting to It curses.

    Every playable character, protagonist, and ally in the game repeatedly congratulates, encourages, and supports one another as a strategy used by its writers:

    “How do we get him back?”

    “By breaking in.”

    “And that’s why I love the Ghost.”

    Or, in the same cutscene, some 60 seconds later:

    “While Rudy finds Al, I’ll use the cams to help Ghost plant charges in key areas.”

    “Diversions and sabotage. Nice, Johnny.”

    “I learned from the best, L.T.” 

    Rudy remarks during the rescue operation that Alejandro is the toughest guy in the regiment. Then Price shows up and detonates a chopper to allow Rudy, Alejandro, Ghost, and Soap to flee. Alejandro enquires, “Who’s that? “A friend,” Ghost responds. Alejandro declares, “I already like him.” It appears that all the characters in Modern Warfare 2 are members of some sort of modern man’s emotional support group because of the tagline from all the teaser trailers, “The ultimate weapon is team,” which states that they will always boost one another’s self-confidence and offer encouraging words. The shining beacon of the protagonists’ camaraderie and teamwork becomes this kind of beard or a smoke grenade to hide, or at least mitigate, and make acceptable and innocent-looking anything the game does that might be considered controversial or distasteful, which may seem silly, facile, and just like bad writing, but I think it’s actually a really shrewd technique on behalf of Infinity Ward.

    See, Modern Warfare 2 will do all this friendly, cooperative teamwork stuff, but then it’ll go the other way and seem to stamp on these Meaning, Theme, and Imagery pedals, and suddenly you’re crossing the Trump wall over the U.S.-Mexico border, or you’re playing as the actual missile that kills Iranian general Qasem Soleimani. However, whatever you believe you just experienced that might have been significant or thematic or related to any kind of real-world image becomes transformed and weakened by a reversal or refraction. It’s almost brilliant.

    Although the general is Iranian, has white hair, and a white beard, and was killed by a missile, his name is “Ghorbrani” rather than “Soleimani.” The mission where you just destroyed a Mexican town that the characters all say was packed with civilians is followed by one where you have to redo the mission if you unintentionally shot a person. The border mission mentioned earlier is the best example of this type of narrative deception, this amazing trick of making you believe you have seen something and then saying that you haven’t, somehow without actually eliminating the thing you believed you had seen. As Mexican special forces, you enter an area of the United States where residents yell at you to leave their yards. American police eventually apprehend you, but after realising who you are, they let you go, commenting, “It’s hard to tell you boys apart from the cartel.” And for a little minute, it appears as though Modern Warfare 2 is making a statement on racism and prejudice that would take a lot of time to explain. However, when you enter a different home, Hispanic residents are screaming and shouting at you to leave their yard.

    Do you see the genius in that, I mean? Do you see how Modern Warfare 2 says something, then unsays it, but in a way that you might not notice, while simultaneously giving the authors, developers, and the Call of Duty entity a way out of any allegations of intention or subjective belief? I believe Modern Warfare 2 is a kind of masterpiece in a postmodern world of alternate facts and the end of the metanarrative, where it appears like there are no solutions, truths, or anything you can fully believe in or trust, and everything evolves all the time. And now I can see that statement—”Modern Warfare 2 is a kind of masterpiece”—being used someday on a billboard or other item, and everything else won’t matter.