Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Review
Disclaimer: I got this game for free. I don’t think that fact has affected my opinion of the game but it would be irresponsible for me not to tell you.
I don’t know if there is a shooting game franchise more well-known than the Call of Duty series. I’m not saying it’s the best shooter franchise, but with a new game coming out every year, it’s hard to imagine any other series holding the same rank of public awareness that Call of Duty holds. But, putting out a game every year can leave developers stuck for new ideas, even with Activision’s rotating schedule of three development studios. So this year, Activision tried something all franchises end up doing: a reboot. Reimagining my personal favorite of the franchise, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, Activision released Call of Duty: Modern Warfare last week.
At this point in all my other reviews, I’d introduce the game’s protagonist and explain the basic plot of the game, but Call of Duty players are notorious for ignoring the game’s story mode in favor of the game’s multiplayer mode, so that’s where I’ll start too. I haven’t played a Call of Duty game in several years, so I was a bit taken aback when I saw all of the changes and additional menus that come with the game’s multiplayer. Alongside all the standards, such as editing loadouts and selecting which kill streak bonuses to use, there are a few things I didn’t expect. Of these, the one I appreciated the most was the Gunsmith menu. As players use a gun, they gain experience with it which unlocks new modifying components that can be applied to that gun, like new scopes, stocks, and barrels. This made me really happy, because in other shooter games players are often given mods and equipment on a set track, the same for everyone. But I couldn’t care less about a new sniper scope or pistol grip, because I never use those weapons. I want cool new stocks and magazines for my shotgun and assault rifle, and this system gives me exactly that. Further, when deciding how to modify the gun, players are explicitly told what these mods will affect in two different areas. There is an area that lists changes, separated into positive and negative, that are more situational, such as taking longer to aim down sights or player movement speed. And then there’s an area that shows how the mod will affect the six core stats of any gun: accuracy, damage, range, fire rate, mobility, and control. The cooperation between these two systems is wonderful for me because I love to tinker and I also need as many ways as possible to overcome my crippling inability to aim well.
Not every other menu was as good as Gunsmith. That’s not to say there were any bad side menus, but some of them were weird. The weirdest among them is the Operators menu, where players can unlock and select which characters they want to play as in multiplayer. However, none of these characters have special moves or different stats, only different voice lines that trigger every so often. This feels like an unnecessary addition to the game that doesn’t add much and almost certainly cost some development time and money that could’ve gone somewhere else. Stranger still, not all of these playable characters were unlocked at the start, requiring players to complete specific missions or challenges to play as them. I have to wonder why this is. If the different operators have no real impact on the gameplay, why not let players have their operator of choice right away, especially since all of the initially unlocked characters are men and two-thirds of them are white. It feels sadly emblematic of the world today that if you want to play as a woman or a non-white person, you have to jump through hoops.
After getting through all of this decoration bolted onto the side of the multiplayer, how is the actual gameplay? It’s good. Honestly, it would be unbelievable if it weren’t, considering the series’ pedigree. Grass grows, birds fly, and Call of Duty games play well. I think maybe this is a casualty of the extremely competitive shooter genre, where controls and gameplay are only noticed when they don’t function perfectly. Or perhaps the market is so demanding that developers don’t want to take big risks and have fans reject their tent-pole, so studios play it safe. The game modes, like the game play, are pretty standard and all well done, with a good variety to suit a player’s different styles. One thing I was actively delighted to see was the use of cross-play, meaning that players on PC, Xbox, and PlayStation can all play together. For a game that’s so focused on multiplayer, connecting these three audiences helps ensure players will always be able to find opponents and have a good time.
Because I’m a man who likes stories, I absolutely cannot end this review without first talking about the story of this game, even though I acknowledge it’s not the most popular facet. The stories in Call of Duty intrigue me, because I feel they are the only part of the games that dare to ask “What if war is actually bad instead of a time to shoot cool guns?” I’m not saying Call of Duty is training gamers to be soldiers or anything like that, but when a game’s victory condition revolves around committing more murders than the other side, it can feel a bit detached. That’s why, at least in theory, I value the story mode. But sometimes, I wonder if they take it too far. There are two scenes that stand out in Modern Warfare’s story mode because of their subject matter: a scene where the player controls a young girl and a scene where the player is waterboarded. In the mission “Hometown,” players take the roll of a young girl, aged probably 10 or 11, whose country is being invaded by Russians. After being dragged from rubble and watching her father be shot to death in her living room, players must sneak around and kill a Russian soldier with household implements. In “Captive,” players play a Middle-Eastern soldier who is being interrogated by the Russian military. Strapped to a chair, players have to move their heads out of the stream of water and control when to breathe to make it through the torture. Human pain and death on this personal level is extremely impactful, but at the same time it feels more like shock entertainment than actually saying something about war. In this same vein, each level gives the player a “Collateral Damage Assessment” rank but doesn’t surface this ranking unless the player goes looking for it, which feels like the game is trying to say something, but is trying to say it in the quietest way possible.
The last thing to say about the story is that it’s actually split between two different modes. After players have finished the campaign, there is a post-credits message stating “The Story Continues in Spec-Ops.” This is because once the main campaign is finished, players are informed that there is a new, different villain to defeat, but this can only be done in the co-op mode Spec-Ops. I liked this idea at first because I prefer cooperative game modes to competitive ones, since I usually lose the competitive ones, and it gives me opportunities to hang out with friends while playing a video game. Unfortunately, Spec-Ops might be the hardest video game mode I’ve ever played. As of writing, there are four spec-ops missions, and I have yet to beat one of them. And what frustrates me even more than my lack of success is the way these missions are difficult. There aren’t any clever challenges, complex enemies, or interesting mission parameters. Instead, the difficulty comes from having to face a horde of apparently unlimited foes. I get that this is a mode where players are going up against a world-wide terrorist organization, but having no moments of quiet or downtime makes for a game that’s stressful and grating instead of an interesting challenge. I hope this is all a programming error so this can be fixed, because right now I never want to play another game of spec-ops in my life.
Taken as a whole, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare is a totally fine video game. The story mode isn’t very long or especially great, spec-ops is a slog, and the multiplayer is as solid as ever. It has its flaws but at the end of the day it’s still a good way to spend a few hours, thanks to solid game design. I think the $60 price tag is too high for what you get, but if you can pick it up on sale, I say it’s your best option for multiplayer shooters.
Get this game on sale
It’s worth playing, just not at the price they’re asking
