The biggest release of the video game world so far in 2009 has hit the shelves: Infinity Ward's Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (MW2) dropped Tuesday, setting the 24 hour sales record for a video game easily. The record was previously held by Grand Theft Auto (GTA) IV, which sold 3.6 million copies in April of 2008. Modern Warfare 2 blew that measly record out of the water, selling an astounding 4.7 million copies in 24 hours. That's just under 3,264 copies per minute, or 54 per second (http://ow.ly/BHiH). MW2 is already (after only two days!) the 5th highest selling Xbox 360 game (http://ow.ly/BHp3) of all time.
Craziness.
In the age where remakes of World War games are beat out only by sports games in numbers, Infinity Ward made an excellent call when they shifted their focus to a modern first person shooter and away from the festering Call of Duty World War franchise. But the release of MW2 has been surrounded with controversy and a mixture of feelings from both reviewers and users.
The gaming community is, in general, torn over the gameplay presented in MW2. Critic reviews, on a whole, have been fantastic, praising the game for Spec Ops, the new multiplayer mode, the depth and pace of the story, and the overall polish set on top of the original Modern Warfare. Critics commended the realism of the game, with comments like "I see everything on the screen as though I were actually doing the killing myself, as though I was a soldier and there was a man breathing his last breaths in my arms" (Wendi Benedetti, Citizen Gamer http://ow.ly/BIaH).
The intimacy of some moments in the game have been compared to much more artistic
games. Several close encounters with the enemies of the have the potency of artistic leaders
as Bioshock, Assassin's Creed, and similarly artful games. The few professional critics who did try their hand at the multiplayer knocked it for dismal PC matchmaking systems which offer no random skill mixing, meaning one can only play with people at one's own skill, comparable to the ranked system of Halo's matchmaking system. Critics also repeatedly mentioned the brevity of the solo campaign. But honestly, the CoD franchise runs along the lines of Halo with respect to the campaign mode. Who buys them for the campaign? Not many would buy either of these franchises on a claim of amazing solo campaign, rather the campaign is a nice story and filler to the dominate multiplayer.
Those who bought the game are also less than satisfied, especially on the PC side of the spectrum. Console users on a whole are generally more pleased with the game, but MW2 is still not receiving the stellar gamer reviews it was hyped to have. Infinity Ward has not given MW2 any dedicated servers, giving the average PC gamer the inability to "rent" a server to host games, which again does not allow random skill mixing, which is no problem for the console users out there. The multiplayer capacity has been slashed to half of the previous Modern Warfare, dropping the maximum number of players from 32 to 16. The graphics are nothing exceptional, just a slight improvement from the last game. The gameplay is is not even remotely different from the original MW. Yes, there are new guns and new maps. But new guns and new maps with no substance underneath is just a rehashed version of the previous.
***SPOILER ALERT BEGINS***
The meat of the controversy in this game is in the second level. The player, infiltrating a terrorist organization, is ordered to open fire on civilians in an airport. The moral decision comes into play here versus the tactical one. If the player refuses to fire on the civilians, he/she risks being exposed as a intruder in the terrorist group, while blindly killing the civilians will not only affirm the trust of the group, it will solidify it.
Is this type of gameplay TOO modern? The terrorist attacks of September 11th still shadow the international community, as does the Bush-era "War on Terror." Infinity ward took an enormous risk by including a mission of this type. Of course, the mission is completely optional, as the player can refuse to take any action against the civilians. but the question is, does the context of the game justify a player-controlled terrorist attack on civilians in the era we live in? The group is, after all, order to kill as many people as they can, meaning the civilians crawling to safety or pulling others to safety. The faces of the civilians are even realistically terrified, and looking down onto them and pulling that trigger/clicking that mouse is a conscious decision that is realistically disturbing. Gore and blood I can take, but the professional critics around the world thought this scene was a little over the edge even.
***SPOILER ALERT ENDS***
Overall, the critics seem to believe the hype was fulfilled in this game, but gamers see quite the opposite. With the upcoming release of highly anticipated Assassin's Creed 2, Left 4 Dead 2, Mass Effect 2, and Splinter Cell: Conviction, the sales of MW2 are sure to thin, but the numbers say it already-the game is selling at an absurdly fast rate. Hopefully Infinity Ward will rectify their differences over the game with the PC world, but for now, the mass majority of the console consumers are relatively pleased, or at least not unhappy, with Modern Warfare 2.
(Critic and user reviews http://ow.ly/BIhc, http://ow.ly/BIhW, http://ow.ly/BIEa)
