By Kieron Gillen on November 19th, 2009 at 10:21 pm.
It’s bullshit, isn’t it?
The big problem is – like a big chunk of anything that manages to be controversial – the debate shakes down to “they shouldn’t be allowed to do this” versus “they should be allowed to do this” while entirely neglecting the more important “Is this any good?”
It’s not any good. It’s bullshit. It’s a lie. It means nothing.
In terms of craft, Infinity Ward are… well, joint top of their field. The idea of turning a progression through a linear, scripted environment into a storytelling experience had its moment of apotheosis with Valve’s Half-life back in 1998. Specifically, its opening. The first people to really grasp the implications of Valve’s innovations were Infinity Ward, in their previous life at 2015, whose Medal of Honour: Allied Assault was the first game to not entirely ignore Half-Life and hope the lessons would go away. They (with Valve) have had a duopoly on the form ever since. Everyone else is frankly, second best, at best. So while it’s easy to pick holes in the illusion of a scene of No Russian – oh! The shirts repeat occasionally! – it doesn’t change the fact moving through it is like walking through a living painting. It’s a clockwork machine. In the seconds I managed to step back from what was actually happening, I felt a lot like I did when playing its opening scene in a military base – as in, I was scared to look anywhere, because there was so much stuff happening everywhere. No matter where I lay my eyes, there’d be something I’d miss.
“No Russian” positions you as an undercover agent, trying to infiltrate an evil terrorist’s group. By doing this, you’re helping out at a massacre at an airport. You walk in. People look at you. Your four comrades open up at the crowd, and they fall. People run, cry and die. You walk slowly through the airport, slaying those who haven’t run. Eventually, a military response arrives via chopper. You fight them and then… well, spoilers.
It’ll be foolish to deny it doesn’t provoke a response. Of course, the level and nature of that response isn’t solely about the game, or even the person playing it. So, yes, merely talking to my friends, I find people telling stories of leftist political radicals and pillars of the community mowing down people while cackling while bar-room thugs dismiss it as exploitative war-porn. Like any work of human creativity, the seriousness you bring to the game impacts upon your experience. But it’s more complicated than that. People’s response seems to change depending on who you play with or in front of. It’s like an inverse of the ErotiSim reaction I talked about previously. Playing with friends, we all fucked around with the Sims. Playing by myself, I took the emotional turmoil more seriously. Conversely, with No Russian, with someone standing behind you and judging you, even the most sociopathic may feel a little twinge before pulling that trigger.
But it’s bullshit.
It’s bullshit because, like a whole lot of Modern Warfare, it’s bad writing. By which I stress, I don’t mean “the writer can’t write”. Because the real nature of writing in games (“Everything which appears in front of your eyes with which we create the story”) rather than the responsibilities of the word-dude (“Whatever you can write quickly on freelance which the team ignore and/or present badly”) is what matters here. As others have noted, the most disturbing part of No Russian is its context. A few seconds previously you’re involved in a high-speed James Bond chase involving snowmobiles. A few seconds later, you’re mowing down civilians. That tonal shift isn’t brutal. It’s laughable. At best, you’re comedy. At worst, you’re cheap exploitative trash. Modern Warfare leans towards the latter. You have to earn the right to shove an audience’s face in that material. Before it, Infinity Ward do nothing to earn it. Afterward, they do barely anything with it – by which you can read there is slightly more than “nothing” there, which I’ll get to eventually – to justify the leap of faith you’ve taken with them.
And then there’s the matter of realism… oh, shit.
Yeah, realism is a tricky thing with Call of Duty. It’s clearly ludicrous, unless you’re the person in Alec’s Wot-I-Think comment thread who somehow thought that 24 was a documentary or something. But it lives of the sense of authenticity. It wants you to believe in its techno-thrillerness, at least on its own terms. The problem comes when you introduce this attitude into something like five dudes strolling into an airport and opening up.
Because as accurately, as disturbingly rendered as the slaughter is, it’s not convincing. The beat where people try to surrender… yeah, that’s impressive analysis. People would assume they were taking prisoners, even if they weren’t. But the rest is simply ludicrous. Machine-guns are loud. People are gone the second they start firing. Anyone anywhere near doesn’t hang around. They certainly don’t find themselves hanging around to be gunned down in lobbies. Rent-a-cops with pistols – and fuck me, if you’ve been in a Russian Airport, you know you get guys with SMGs, not pistols, walking around – don’t charge guys with hefty-machine-guns. They get the people hanging around OUT OF THERE. And crucially, SWAT-or-local-equivalent response isn’t a wall of men walking slowly towards you with riot shields. It’s snipers on the rooftops taking down these psychopathic shits.
In other words, Infinity Ward have taken great effort to render a scene of a massacre which bears no relation to any massacre that could ever happen. It’s nothing more than that moment of revulsion (or, for those sort of gamers, excitement) when you open up on civilians. It means nothing human because it’s about nothing that’s human.
So it’s exploitative and pointless. But its real failing, ironically enough, is one of cowardice. Let’s assume you accept the warped reality of their airport slaughter. It’s their universe. Let’s roll with it. Well, the idea that you’re an undercover agent who can walk alongside your homicidal comrades without you firing a shot, without them realising or caring, is openly stupid.
(I’ve heard people say they take notice and call you a coward. I’ve played through it three times and not had it once. C’est la vie.)
For the level to matter – to be the true Jack Bauer ends-justify-the-means statement – you must be forced into joining in. You’ve got a chance to skip the level. Great. But to play the level, to accept it on its own terms, you must open up at those people. That’s the cowardice of Infinity Ward. They realised a level where you had to kill the innocents is more offensive than a level where it’s your choice… but choosing the latter is the single thing that stops it ever being some manner of effective artistic statement and rendering the whole thing laughably pathetic.
There is – AND SPOILERS ARE NOW – a twist to it, of course. Your terrorists comrades shoot you at the end and pin the attack on the yanks. Which, if you look at it, could be an excuse for them not caring that you’re not mowing down people with them. Except it doesn’t matter when you get shot, as long as they can pin the attack on you – so having someone who’s coming along and not helping is merely someone who could open up at them when their conscience cracks.
(Why you don’t just shoot this terrorist leader now that you’re close enough to him isn’t really explained. Why infiltrate the cell to stop an attack when you can just kill the ringmaster now?)
Part of me likes to think that the whole section – in fact, the whole game proper – is actually a statement that the blind following of orders leads to the death of the world. The one irony of the twist in the plot is never commented on in the game – that being, the Russians are entirely justified in being phenomenally pissed off. An American organisation knew there was a serious attack wiping out dozens of Russian citizens… and rather than warning, they sent a man to join the attack. They were complicit. You were complicit. Imagine what the US response would be to the tables being turned, and there was real evidence that a foreign government helped out a 9-11-esque attack on US soil to infiltrate a terrorist organisation. Throughout the game you’re forced into performing tasks which only lead to worse devastation, because you’re following fucking brain-dead orders.
You could see Modern Warfare 2 as the sister of BioShock – as in, mocking the player for being stupid enough to follow this linear string of events. Giving up your morality to a higher power and obeying those orders only leads to World War 3.
Well, you could if they’d only actually made their statement clear. As it is, it’s just a mess of sound and fury signifying jack-shit. The final half of Modern Warfare 2 is the sort of thing which Wikipedia entries were made for flicking through and catching up on. Clarity never hurts. Rambling purple prose sections about the nature of war do. If the above is actually what Infinity Ward were trying to say they should have made sure they fucking said it loud and clear.
That’s the most annoying thing about “No Russian” though. It’s not that the ideas are necessarily bad – I wrote a hell of a lot to defend Super Columbine Massacre RPG, after all. It’s that the execution is weak. If you’re going to do this, you do this. You make the move knowing that you’ve thought it all through. That you’ve considered everything. That you know what you’re saying and what it means. The sickening thing is that communicating simple yet powerful messages is what Infinity Ward have excelled at (Cross Ref; Call of Duty’s River landing missions, with you forced to progress with no gun due to Soviet supply problems). That clarity is missing. Instead, we’re left with a dumb shock.
That’s the problem. That’s what sickens me. It’s that they had the balls to try to do this… and they blew it. They fucking blew it. Anyone else who tries it will be living in their diseased shadow. If you want to try to do this thing you have a responsibility to do it properly, or not at all. Infinity Ward failed the medium and failed themselves with No Russian.
They’ve always cut levels which weren’t good enough, arguing for a concentrated, higher-quality experience. They should have cut this one. It’s bullshit and they should be ashamed.
19/11/2009 at 22:27 jsutcliffe says:
The first line is all you need, really. Well said.
19/11/2009 at 22:35 jsutcliffe says:
I should note that I’ve not actually played it, but I’m yet to see a compelling reason why you have to have control, or even be on the terrorists’ side for the massacre.
I may have mentioned in a previous comments thread that this scene could be just as powerful (possibly more so) and certainly less offensive and ham-fisted if, similar to the opening of Modern Warfare, you are a bystander watching the massacre — one of the civilians, trying not to get shot while watching his friends/fellows be cut down.
19/11/2009 at 22:33 Torgen says:
Yes.
19/11/2009 at 22:34 Vinraith says:
Very interesting analysis Kieron, thanks for writing that up.
I think LewieP’s take on the issue may be the best I’ve read, though:
http://savygamer.co.uk/2009/11/14/glitch-in-modern-warfare-2/
19/11/2009 at 22:36 reindall says:
Exit the elevator, shoot the XXX and a few XXX, go out, kill a few XXX, and at the end get XXX in the XXX. The only nice thing was the scripted XXX thrown in the XXX, which then falls. I’ve censored my summary of the level, so I don’t spoil it to anyone – but there’s not much to spoil as it is boring as hell, even more than the favelas.
19/11/2009 at 22:38 Lewis says:
I’ve neglected to comment on whether it’s any good or not because I’ve only witnessed the scene out of context, having not actually played the game through. So my argument tends to be that, whether it’s any good or not, it has opened the doors for developers to do this sort of thing and get it right in the future. Y’know? Does that make sense? Is that a bit of a blinkered viewpoint?
19/11/2009 at 23:15 qrter says:
Was that really a door that needed to be opened, though, I wonder. I mean, hasn’t that door been standing wide open since shooters became visually more realistic?
It needs someone to walk through, in a brisk, determined and assured pace, knowing where they’re going. Sounds like Infinity Ward ran for it, shouting “WOOH! LOOK AT ME!”, and smacked headfirst into the doorframe.
(Allright, I’ll stop torturing your metaphor now.. ;) )
19/11/2009 at 22:38 Optimaximal says:
That’s the best analysis of the level yet. The final paragraph sums the entire ‘No Russian’ saga up and Infinity Ward as a whole – they’ve gone from being a developer respected on the same level as Valve to a cash-cow money hungry shock-pit.
You know 24 is scraping its barrel whenever they roll out a plot involving a (s)nuke too shock the audience – IW are no better.
19/11/2009 at 22:39 Caleb says:
Great article. There’s no justification for being complicit with the attack so why force the player to do something that is stupid at best?
19/11/2009 at 22:39 Adam Bloom says:
Yes. Just yes. Well said Kieron.
19/11/2009 at 22:40 Jocho says:
Been following the discussion around this mission (as in, “hearing what my friends and classmates, who are all gamers, thinks”) and it seems to be two camps, very like the solo-vs-in-a-group camps described in the article. Some seem to care, because they *are* civilians after all, while others happily fire away because “it’s just a game”. This article sure gave a more thought-through picture of it, even though the conclusion is a bit sad (for the medium). =/
Good article, though! :)
19/11/2009 at 22:40 Jake Mix says:
Thank you for writing this! Playing through this section, I was offended the most by how absurd and improbable the situation is.
19/11/2009 at 22:44 Arsewisely says:
I find it more chilling to read an astute analysis of what it could, and perhaps should, have been than I do playing the actual level.
19/11/2009 at 22:45 ste says:
This is really good.
19/11/2009 at 22:45 Daniel says:
Well said. The first (and only) time I played this, I felt pretty revulsed at the whole thing. That revulsion stayed with me for the first of the level, which probably gave it a bit of gravitas that it wasn’t deserving. Considering the level on its own I’d say that, verisimilitude issues asside, it does a pretty good job of shocking you. However, you’re right. Especially when considered with the other narrative.
The betrayal in the second half is a particularly stinging indictment of the tone of the plot, Price’s purple rants upon the nature of war aside. Why did he betray you, what was his cause? It felt contrived and obtuse and wholly out of step with their seeming desire to make a proper point with their game.
At the end of it all, I think Infinity Ward just need to hire better writers.
20/11/2009 at 00:32 PleasingFungus says:
Games writing as it is, it’s more likely that, rather than hiring better writers, Infinity Ward just needs to listen to the ones they’ve got.
19/11/2009 at 22:45 Darkelp says:
When I first played it, I thought it a very ballsy thing to do and commended the level.
Then I read this, and you pointed out some flaws that I hadn’t really thought about. So I feel my opinion is rather changed now, thanks for that.
I feel its the same with the little sisters in Bioshock, with the ability to harvest them. It was made out to be a big moral choice, but there wasn’t enough of a backlash upon you to not do it. I mean, they didn’t even show you harvest the Adam, they showed a black screen. They took away any kind of visual aid to get any kind of feeling of revulsion or guilt for your actions.
These kinds of situation in games need to have the ability to make you feel your guilt. I felt none after playing No Russian as there was no real consequences to my actions.
I came, I murdered and I went onto the next level.
19/11/2009 at 22:47 Shitflap says:
As Jake Mix said, Thank you.
It was almost as if no-one was going to get to the root of the problem amidst all the moralistic hand wringing and you totally fucking nailed it.
19/11/2009 at 22:48 Ludo says:
This post and Alec’s has provided the best writing on MW2 to be found anywhere. A one-two punch of win for RPS.
19/11/2009 at 22:48 jack in a box says:
Another butt-hurt PC gamer. How surprising….
20/11/2009 at 10:44 Rich says:
Gotta love them trolls. Do you just Google ‘Modern Warfare 2′, ‘That Level’, ‘No Russian’ etc. and spew bile at anyone who dares to say anything other than “OMG THIS GAME IS TEH SHITS”?
19/11/2009 at 22:50 Pijama says:
This post, above all, is why I read what you chaps here at RPS write.
Sir Kieron Gillen, bravo. Keep up the high level.
19/11/2009 at 22:50 Rob Zacny says:
Great write-up. Still, I’m not sure I’d even grant that Infinity Ward have ever excelled at “simple yet powerful messages”. The River Landing in the original game isn’t Infinity Ward’s statement. It’s a scene they cribbed from Enemy at the Gates. They added nothing except an idiotic ending. And it culminates with your soldier helping call in some artillery on the German positions, which grants the Soviets an instant victory. Only in a Call of Duty game could a human wave attack end in glorious victory.
Infinity Ward have always cribbed from pop-culture sources, and whatever their prowess as developers, they’ve never had an original or interesting thing to say about the world or its wars.
19/11/2009 at 23:13 scoopsy says:
This is perhaps the best single-sentence summarization of IW’s pedigree, ever.
19/11/2009 at 23:18 Alexander Norris says:
I don’t know; I’m not sure the AC130 mission in CoD4 was taken from pop culture (at least not anywhere I noticed), and I thought that was a fairly neat way of going “war: it’s not very nice, is it?”
Of course, it may have made that statement entirely by accident.
19/11/2009 at 23:41 manintheshack says:
I don’t know; I’m not sure the AC130 mission in CoD4 was taken from pop culture (at least not anywhere I noticed), and I thought that was a fairly neat way of going “war: it’s not very nice, is it?”
It can be taken that way for sure, except I remember at the time something PC Gamer said/wrote about the developers slightly wonky attitude towards it and how it may have been implemented simply because it looked REALLY COOL. I played that level again recently and listening to the air crew’s in-game commentary and imagining that their lines may have been written without the slightest hint of irony is a really unsettling thought…
19/11/2009 at 23:43 Rob Zacny says:
@Norris
Don’t underestimate the degree to which “war porn” had permeated the Internet prior to MW. Especially on things like LiveLeak, you can watch tons and tons of gun camera footage from military aircraft. The gunship sequence was merely a playable version of something that a lot of people had seen before.
20/11/2009 at 11:14 Sunjammer says:
The AC130 mission made me want to throw up at the time. There was an attack video circulating the time prior to MW, and i had quite enough of a lambs-to-the-slaughter fix without having it put in front of me as something Totally Awesome. Nothing like bombing the shit out of opponents without any chance to fight back. I still think IW were tremendous cockbags for exploiting that video (“Don’t hit the church”? It’s a straight ripoff).
I’m not particularly sensitive to this kind of thing, but the whole thing just struck me as this kind of weird jingoistic Superiority Of American Tech thing
19/11/2009 at 22:51 Drug Crazed Dropkick says:
I ended up writing something about this in my blog, but not a lot. I was starting to foam at the mouth. You’ve hit the nail on the head though. Its not a good level. I think it could’ve been done in an FMV, Yes, its less effective, but would it have caused as much outrage?
You also make a good point when you say Infinity Ward didn’t earn it. I don’t think anyone has earned it yet. The industry is too young in the eyes of the mainstream media, and thus it just gave them a target. Well done Infinity Ward for pushing the boundries. Not so well done for making us seem like psycopaths.
19/11/2009 at 22:52 A-Scale says:
I don’t think that the fact that the scenario is not 100% true to life makes it bad. I think it still had a lot to offer emotionally. Secondly, I don’t think we can claim that a SWAT operation would go this way or that way because such a large scale massacre hasn’t happened in Russia, and their doctrine is probably either hidden or otherwise to be ad libbed. While a line of police behind riot shields is a bit silly, it was a strong gameplay wise.
Secondly, I also don’t think we can say that people would just run and be gone by the time the shooters got there. This is an airport, not an open field. People were indeed running, but they were often slowed by the confused crowd around them. That probably would happen. Further, where do you run to? Airports definitely aren’t the most easily navigable place in the world.
What struck me about the scenario was the feeling I had from playing out both sides of the situation in my head. I often do this sort of thing when considering such massacres. If someone came into my school with a gun, well I’d break this window with that object and get out of there. That’s because I’m smarter than the rest of those sheep, you see. The emotional hit for me was seeing people in the airport doing things that I would have done to hide from the shooters. I saw the rows of books in the bookstore and immediately thought “I’d hide behind those!”. Only we pushed past the bookstore, and I shot everyone hiding behind those rows. I was shooting myself. I was both the hunter and the hunted. That’s a very strange feeling; one I’ve never had before. And that’s important.
20/11/2009 at 20:12 TeeJay says:
“…such a large scale massacre hasn’t happaned before…”
Beslan 1st September 2004
Armed terrorists took more than 1,100 people (including 777 children) hostage at School Number One (SNO) in the town of Beslan, North Ossetia-Alania, an autonomous republic in the North Caucasus region of the Russian Federation. On the third day of the standoff, Russian security forces stormed the building using tanks, thermobaric rockets and other heavy weapons. A series of explosions shook the school, followed by a fire which engulfed the building and a chaotic gunbattle between the hostage-takers and Russian security forces. Ultimately, at least 334 hostages were killed, including 186 children. Hundreds more were wounded or reported missing.
The Moscow theatre hostage crisis 23 October 2002
Armed Chechens took 850 hostages. After a two-and-a-half day siege special forces pumped an unknown chemical agent into the building’s ventilation system and raided it. Officially, 39 of the attackers were killed by Russian forces, along with at least 129 and possibly many more of the hostages (including nine foreigners). All but a few of the hostages who died during the siege were killed by the toxic substance pumped into the theatre to subdue the militants.
More recently, in 2008:
Ingushetia – Armed groups carried out numerous attacks, often fatal, against members of law enforcement agencies, including a failed attack on the republic’s Minister of Internal Affairs.
Dagestan – Armed opposition groups killed several high-ranking law enforcement officials.
South Ossetia – 600 people died in hosilities (more than half of them civilians).
Also the general murder rate in Russia is about three to four times higher than in America (and about 10 to 15 times higher than the UK) and the police often supplement their pistols with Kalashnikov assault carbines.
19/11/2009 at 22:53 Delboy says:
Completely agree with everything in the article. It’s so laughably “not involving” in any way that it makes me think that IW must’ve had an internal debate on whether to include it. If they did … it would seeem that the marketing guys won the argument ….. and not the product/quality manager.
19/11/2009 at 22:53 subversus says:
cool analysis, thamks
and BTW they should hire a proofreader to read all russian words and phrases in the game, because they are hilarious. I can’t immerse myself into the seriousness of situation if I see that departure table in Moscow airport feature flights to Moscow. And why walls in Favellas feature drawings from Pripyat? Reuse of assets? 50 million dollar game? C’mon IW you can do better than that (also russian obscenities on the same walls in Rio).
19/11/2009 at 22:56 Pijama says:
Gameplay wise, it FAILED.
As it was said by the immortal Bill Hicks… Don’t get your mind clouded by such trivial pointless bullshit. Look at it, relax, take a deep breath, point your finger and you will say: “Hey, it’s a PIECE OF SHIT!”
19/11/2009 at 22:56 Noc says:
Re: Cutting the level.
I’m trying to remember now, though, what the context was when we first heard about this. I mean, the internet’s been buzzing about The Level for a while before the game came out; did they demo it or announce “Oh hey, guys, there’s going to be this thing . . . ?”
Or did it get leaked? A quick check suggests yes, though considering that was the subject of the very first audio trailer, whether it was intentional or not is debatable.
But what I’m wondering, though, is if it wasn’t intentional, or at least if it was intentional by someone other than the design team. (‘Cause nothing quite helps sales like stirring up controversy.) So once the controversy’s been stirred up and people are all talking and debating and conjecturing, and people are expecting The Level to be in the game, cutting it may have been less of an option.
Not that this’d make it not an example of a lack of ballsiness and artistic integrity, but it’d be one of executive meddling not wanting a “IW cut controversial level from game!” headline and overriding requests to scrap an unfinished level. As opposed to the apparent one we’ve got now, which is of IW’s creative team uncharacteristically going “Eh, it’s good enough, lets throw it in.”
I’d actually be fairly curious to know the story behind this level being in the game and in its present state; you know, who’s idea it was, why it’s the way it is and why it’s included in the game, and all that. I think it’s spectacularly unlikely that we’ll ever find out, but I feel like there’s probably a story there.
19/11/2009 at 23:08 ascagnel says:
The teaser trailer (GameTrailers link) for MW2 was pretty much the elevator scene.
20/11/2009 at 00:34 El Stevo says:
It was leaked. ‘No Russian’ is CoD6′s equivalent of the nuclear bomb detonation from CoD4. It was supposed to be a shock for players when they first encounter it. Robert Bowling made references to it in pre-release interviews, and gave the impression that Infinity Ward were incredibly proud of it.
19/11/2009 at 22:58 Thrawny says:
Everything i read about the game makes me want to avoid it as if it’s some sort of rabid dog.
19/11/2009 at 22:58 Jrosenstock says:
Here here.
This was plain old fashioned bad art by a bunch of people who we’ve given entirely too much credit to until now.
Well said.
19/11/2009 at 23:01 tapanister says:
Holy shit, Gillen’s really pissed. I’m not a KG fanboy or anything, but this is the best article on MW2 I’ve read since it came out. And there’s been a shitload of articles on that game.
20/11/2009 at 02:26 Bret says:
I, on the other hand, have become something of a Gillen fanboy of late, thanks to Beta Ray Bill: Godhunter and S.W.O.R.D., and I agree.
So, good to know others share the opinion. Good stuff from Gillen.
19/11/2009 at 23:03 ascagnel says:
The guys over at GiantBomb put up a MW2 spoilercast on Friday where they went through the entire story in excruciating detail.
In general, the storyline, and that mission in particular, is full of plot holes. You’re told that you can’t attack Makarov, because he’s being bankrolled by some bigger bad guy. At the same time, who fed Makarov information that you’re the American? The general? Would he be crazy enough to attack the continental US? He doesn’t come off that way, to the point where his double-cross is completely wasted.
Why was Cpt Price even in this? He went from shot by Zakahev in CoD4 (and the game ended with his attempted rescue by the SAS) to in a Russian gulag? How?
The only really interesting part of the game, at least for me, was the “Wolverine” level. I’ve lived in American suburbia (and right off I-95, the invasion vector of the game), and the scene of running between a diner, a chain restaurant, a burger joint, and a taco place (facimilies of your local diner, a US fixture, TGI Friday’s, Burger King, and Taco Bell). Granted, there’s no particular reason to defend these points, but the next time I go to grab a burger I’ll wonder whether or not the booths could stop bullets.
Also, what’s happening that the rest of the world doesn’t notice a massive Russian invasion? Nobody in Alaska was eyes-on during the flyover?
I think the worst part of “No Russian” is that you have to play it through to the end. I decided to only shoot the dead, and was shocked at the betrayal the first time through. On my second playthrough, I didn’t fire at all, without comment or recognition. If Makarov is as bloodthirsty as they make him sound, wouldn’t he yell at me for being so hesitant? At the halfway point, wouldn’t he just dispatch me in the same manner as his other victims, seeing that I’m not hardened enough for his mission?
Why would Makarov even bring someone he knows is a double agent on such a reprehensible mission? Why would Makarov physically turn his back on someone that he knew wasn’t working for him?
19/11/2009 at 23:05 ascagnel says:
Sorry that was so long, I needed to rant about the story being so iffy. Also, here’s that SPOILER-TASTIC BombCast where they discuss MW2.
19/11/2009 at 23:13 Dethgar says:
I personally wonder why the Russians would even bother to invade, when they could simply do a nuclear attack on a lot of key area’s and be done with it. This was an attack of vengeance, not justice. You don’t invade a fight a long drawn out war when you can just as well carpet bomb the place with nukes. ESPECIALLY considering they hacked/jammed/duped the NORAD recon system.
Another thing that bothered me, why in the hell did Price bomb the ISS? That made little to no sense to me. Maybe I missed something in the story.
19/11/2009 at 23:33 ascagnel says:
Price didn’t bomb the ISS per se, it was collateral damage. A nuke emits an EMP burst, but normally you don’t notice since everything else got blown up too. By detonating in space, the EMP burst can reach DC, but not have all the other problems with burning everyone up and destroying the buildings.
Also, another point, how many times was the President saved?
20/11/2009 at 06:00 Dethgar says:
I’m kind of curious about that too now that you mention it. I also thought that the secret underground bunker was poorly placed and way too obvious. Yes the one under the real white house is fake, I’ll give them that. But the real one would not be so easily identified or accessed — at least that’s not how I’d set it up.
20/11/2009 at 17:20 Fatchap says:
Is the point not that actually Makarov is being double-crossed himself by the General? Makarov is being bankrolled and fed info by the General so that he gains support for his jingoistic ambitions of a strong US military.
It is a far fetched story yes but hey one person basically took on the whole army and one so that is one of the more credible parts of it.
19/11/2009 at 23:05 Dethgar says:
I agree with most of what you said. The game didn’t really need this level in order to tell the story, and the fact that he mission is doable by doing it yet just watching, takes away all the expression that is given to the entire campaign. It’s a good story through out, but the more I look back on it, the more I believe it to be reach for a simple shocking and controversial reaction. The end of the level makes the level itself pointless, especially considering the vague nature of your orders to begin with. Personally, I think Marakov and Shephard set the thing up together. That’s really the only logical way to make the story believable.
I’ll be honest, I mowed down as many civi’s as possible. It’s a game. I wasn’t going to do the mission and just tag along. I committed.
19/11/2009 at 23:06 army of none says:
Yes to this entire post. Well done Kieron.
19/11/2009 at 23:08 Flappybat says:
I would have loved this to be the message but like you say the game swings too much between seriousness and snow mobile chases for it to be true.
I had problems with a lot of the game, Afghanistan seemed to be tacked in purely to be topical and the levels on US soil just felt like it was played to the US crowd who would be shocked at playing on their home turf (compared to the 100th fall of berlin/stalingrad). And like Rob Zacny, Infinity Ward seemed to have no overall vision for the game. The story feels like a 14 year old who has watched too much 24 writing down all the cool things he can come up with but can’t come up with any greater meaning than shoot the bads, which would be fine if it was all snowmobile chases instead of wild swipes at realism.
19/11/2009 at 23:09 Karry says:
Whats actually bullshit, is that in other games you are never really allowed to kill US citizens and/or soldiers. Thats whats bullshit. I think in one of Delta Force games (could possibly be another game) you could potentially shoot allied russian soldiers, but the targeting icon changed into cross when you aimed at USian.
In most games if you shoot a USian the game your mission ends right there. Thats whats bullshit. But thats okay, i kill them anyway, even though i have to load afterwards. There are hundreds of games where you kill russians, i want “torture and kill a USian” game too, tis only fair, dont you agree ?
19/11/2009 at 23:14 Oak says:
Yeah, I mean, that’s only reasonable.
20/11/2009 at 00:06 Vinraith says:
“There are hundreds of games where you kill russians”
There are? The only one that springs to mind is World in Conflict, but of course in the Soviet missions you kill US soldiers (and citizen resistance elements) so I’d think that would balance itself out.
19/11/2009 at 23:11 Rayme says:
There is this exchange, early in the game, between your character and Shepard:
==========================
“So Makarov is the prize?”
“Makarov is no prize; he’s a whore. A mad-dog killer for the highest bidder.”
==========================
There’s further talk on that. But it should be clear that your character, at least, thinks that Makarov is just a means-to-an-end.
** spoiler **
And as it turns out, that’s all he is. Makarov, willingly or not, is a puppet and a decoy.
19/11/2009 at 23:15 nayon says:
Infinity Ward want to thank you for promoting their game by putting it up on your front page. No publicity is bad publicity. Also, yes, it’s not a classily designed level and it kinda sucks, but why so much anger? What is achieved by such a post? It makes good points, but still. This post stinks of angry internet man rage.
19/11/2009 at 23:18 Stupoider says:
I’m not quite sure what the aim of the post was, but it did manage to convey what I was thinking in a handy, readable format.
19/11/2009 at 23:28 nayon says:
As much as IW are riding the “WE ARE CONTROVERSIAL” bandwagon, games jorunalism right now is riding the “IW IS TRYING TO BE CONTROVERSIAL AND FAILING” bandwagon. I mean, this issue has been discussed to death in the last few weeks, and it’s starting to get just as annoying as IW being IW. I hope the rage will be over now that someone “of authority” has focused their rage in one post where everyone will discuss it and not move it over to every single comment thread.
20/11/2009 at 00:08 Alexander Norris says:
Oh my god, someone has an opinion on something beyond “BUY BUY BUY SPEND MORE MONEY CASH BUY!!1!” Surely, this must mean that they are an idiot and a fool.
20/11/2009 at 11:37 Chaz says:
That’s pretty much what I was goig to say. I think this level has done exactly what IW wanted, and that’s to get people talking about the game, and articles like this just play right into their hands and only serve their cause greater. As you say, in the world of entertainment, there’s noo such thing as bad publicity.
20/11/2009 at 20:22 TeeJay says:
Not true. There are loads of things (films, TV, books, games, music etc) people avoid because of the weight of negative press.
19/11/2009 at 23:17 One F Jef says:
If you want artistic integrity from a game-maker, don’t expect it from a money whore like Infinity Ward. If you want an answer to why they did ANYTHING in this game, the answer will always be the same: Profit.
19/11/2009 at 23:19 darthpugwash says:
Yes, very well said Kerion. I haven’t played the section because I’m one of those spurned PC-gaming types, but having watched a playthrough on Youtube, this seems to be a good analysis. It is BS, really.
Prior to all this controversy business with the dedicated servers and now *this* level, I counted Infinity Ward as one of the very best developers around, but they have made rather a bad mess of this, haven’t they? It’s a shame.
19/11/2009 at 23:22 TotalBiscuit says:
Bravo, hit the nail on the head right there. It was a golden opportunity to advance the medium and their hamfisted immature method of storytelling torpedoed it.
19/11/2009 at 23:33 medwards says:
Alright, that was a pretty solid critique. As a leftist political radical I’d like to mention that I didn’t shoot any civilians, and the part I was looking forward to (killing cops, something I’ve learnt to take pleasure in primarily thru Mirror’s Edge) brought me no pleasure at all after the massacre. In fact thats part of why my gut reaction was to give the game the benefit of the doubt throughout. I was also looking forward to the Russians invading the states, and while there are humorous beats with fights in fast food outlets and the ‘oh-so-sorry’ destruction of an affluent community (if you have a problem with me not caring about that, consider what happens to the poor community in the first Afghan level), but the later levels around monuments and trying to buy time for evacuation convoys brought me precious little malicious glee and just a sense of deadened horror. Essentially the game managed to fundamentally usurp my intended perspectives on play and feed me a different experience, and that subjective experience is what I’ve mostly judged it by.
19/11/2009 at 23:33 cliffski says:
Whether it was artistically good or not, it was a crap business move. There is nobody who was on the fence about this game but bought it because they saw this level, but there are people like me who bought the last 4 games and skipped this one secifically because they didnt like the sound of this.
I bet the game would have done better without this level in it.
19/11/2009 at 23:35 ascagnel says:
It would have worked better with some role-playing/branching storyline elements. Or, when saw what the terrorists did, let me open fire on them, have them kill me, and end the level immediately.
19/11/2009 at 23:44 A-Scale says:
I don’t think you understand how controversy works.
20/11/2009 at 00:09 TotalBiscuit says:
War is not very nice. The previous games are rather unpleasant too, this is no different.
20/11/2009 at 01:30 ascagnel says:
@TotalBIscuit
The nuke was unpleasant, but it felt reasonable. The game did a good job of explaining how that character was a coward and backed into a corner, plus it would be what he thought of as a reasonable response to America invading his country.
On the other hand, there was nothing building up to “No Russian” — instead, it was the flashpoint for the game.
19/11/2009 at 23:35 Jeremy says:
I think one of the frustrating aspects of the whole discussion is the group that speaks out against those of us who think That Level was utter garbage. Saying things like, “it’s about time that a scene like this happened”, or “some people just can’t handle things like that” and are completely avoiding the issue at hand. It is NOT about time a company used sensationalism to try and sell a ridiculous plot point upon which an entire game barely hinges. And maybe they’re right, I can’t handle it when a company has the chance to make an important statement, and squanders it on a poorly thought out and contrived scenario. Sure you kill innocents, or you don’t. It doesn’t matter either way. I’ve been killing innocents since Baldur’s Gate 2. Just because I’m killing an innocent with a gun in an airport doesn’t suddenly make this a deep and thoughtful development. It’s just killing zeroes and ones, at least in BG 2 I became a Fallen Paladin, which is infinitely cooler and has more impact than your decision to kill innocents in No Russian.
19/11/2009 at 23:43 A-Scale says:
I’d rather play an ambitious failure of a level than a well executed but dull level.
19/11/2009 at 23:51 invisiblejesus says:
I don’t know about you, but I’d rather not play either one. Saying it’s more interesting than a well-executed but dull level is pretty faint praise, especially for a company that’s set the bar as high as IW have.
19/11/2009 at 23:52 Sagan says:
No this is different than in other games. The scene actually still works, even if you don’t kill a single person. This is about more than just killing innocents. This is about you empathizing with the innocents. In Baldur’s Gate or other games where you are simply playing an evil character, you are always very detached from the victims. Here you cannot help imagining yourself in the shoes of the victims. So saying “well I have eradicated entire planets in other games, so this shouldn’t affect people” doesn’t count.
20/11/2009 at 03:32 Wulf says:
It really depends on what kind of ambitious failure you’re talking about. Whether it’s a Robinson’s Requiem sort of ambitious failure, or the far more appealing Boiling Point: Road to Hell sort.
From everything I’m reading here, it’s a Robinson’s Requiem sort of failure. There’s usually a redeeming, compelling element in the latter sort of game, something that endears, something impressive, perhaps the storytelling, something that shows the game has soul, something truly new…
The scene, from what I understand, was:
A.) Sensationalistic and nothing new to videogames, we’ve been doing this since GTA.
B.) Had plot holes one could slip the Titanic through.
C.) Had limitations on player choices, which punched asteroid sized holes in one’s suspension of disbelief.
D.) Was pretty average as far as gameplay goes, when looking at gameplay mechanics alone.
At the end of the day, it seems like it’s a soulless piece of sensationalistic pap that’s there for no other reason than to get a rise out of hte player. It’s there to be controversial, that’s one thing you said earlier that I agree with, but also so damned sensationalist, and it’s there to sell copies of the game. This is idiot food, that’s what it is. It’s utter garbage, gore, and revulsion that appeals to people who don’t actually bother to sit and think about it.
Because you can either sit there and get a kick out of slaying the innocents (thanks for painting us all as sociopathic killers, IW), you can sit there and feel ill and actually get a kick out of that instead before continuing to play the game… or… or… you can think about it, maybe finding it repulsive or not, but if one really thinks about it, it sounds like it was there just for the cheap shock value. Just like a newspaper feeding on schadenfreude. In fact, it sounds like it’s exactly like that.
I’ve seen mainstream games pull this nonsense before, and it wasn’t big or clever of IW to do it again. In fact, it’s actually kind of getting old now.
And the sad part? Today, the most shocking thing would be to see true, quality storytelling in a console game, that would get more of a shock reaction out of a console audience than this level could ever hope to. For the only people who’ll be shocked by it are the people who it was marketed to.
I made the point about the lowest common denominator before, and here I smugly make it again.
20/11/2009 at 03:41 Wulf says:
Oh and for the record, I watched it on YouTube, which is how I know anything about it.
Were I to show this to a film buff, they’d probably roll their eyes and say “Good lord, are videogames still cranking out such poorly conceived scenarios? Then again, they probably never stopped, eh?”
That makes me seethe, because there are intelligent games out there, but it’s hard to see that through the mist of games like MW2.
Talk it up all you want, but at the end of the day… I still call it as idiot food.
20/11/2009 at 04:23 Hmm says:
Watching mainstream games on a mainstream site like youtube. You’re so mainstream.
19/11/2009 at 23:41 Sagan says:
Well said. I wish we could get the inside story about this.
But this just showcases again the problem with the games media nowadays, in that there is unlikely to be an interview about this with Infinity Ward. When Modern Warfare was released, Shawn Elliott got to interview Vince Zampella, and got him to talk a little about the AC 130 gunship mission. But back then Shawn Elliott was working for GFW magazine, so they could get interviews like that. I don’t even read magazines anymore, and none of the blogs I read could possibly get an interview with Infinity Ward. Gamespot or IGN probably could. But they wouldn’t ask the right questions. Maybe Eurogamer could get a proper interview. But then again it’s hopeless, because the game is already out, so Infinity Ward is probably not even available for interviews. Except concerning DLC.
But on the other hand we would probably not have half as intelligent a discussion about this topic a couple years ago.
19/11/2009 at 23:49 DJ Phantoon says:
I heard you automatically lose if you try to shoot the terrorists in said level.
If I had bought the game, I would’ve stopped right there. Talk about shoehorning a game.
20/11/2009 at 01:51 A-Scale says:
Do you hold every game to this standard? I can’t think of a single FPS that lets you murder necessary NPCs. I bet you quit out of most games in disgust within the first ten minutes.
Or are you only holding this particular scene to that high standard because you find the alternative morally repulsive?
20/11/2009 at 14:09 Mark says:
Play Deus-Ex.
19/11/2009 at 23:49 kwyjibo says:
I agree with your comment about the piece’s quality. I believe that games can tell this story, even with the context given, but the execution is weak.
Maybe I’ve just played too many games, some were aghast, but I just felt the thing was too poorly implemented. It was too far away from the reality of such a situation, which, given that the greatest success of Modern Warfare, was that it was first to convey the intensity of 21st century warfighting, was a shame.
I too couldn’t help but pick up on the ridiculous civilians. Whole groups of them hanging around, waiting to be massacred. As soon as you clear the first room, you’d have thought that everyone would have legged it, but no, they’re waiting for you at the top of the stairs. The top of the stairs that you’re forced to walk up.
I wanted more intensity, more pleading eyes, more pleading screams. I wanted the horror. I wanted Mumbai. What I got, was more whack-a-mole. Whack-a-mole that Infinity Ward thought was irrelevant enough to skip.
19/11/2009 at 23:50 manveruppd says:
Aren’t you contradicting yourself a little bit, Kieron? First you say “oh, sure, you can pick holes in the fiction, but it still provokes a response” and then you go on to pick holes in the fiction. I haven’t played the game, but watching the video did make me feel a bit upset, so it can’t be TOTAL bullshit, can it? I think you’re right in every comment you made about it, but, surely, the problems you identify couldn’t have detracted from your experience that much if it still had an effect, as you admit it does. They’re more the type of thing that you think about and get annoyed at afterwards.
I get pissed off with “bullshit” as much as the next guy. In fact last week I saw a horror film where the heroes were in a Ferrari and were being chased by the villains, who were in a 4×4, and, for some inexplicable reason, THE HEROES COULDN’T GET AWAY!!! That 4×4 should’ve been eating dust, but that would’ve ended the movie half an hour early. :)
Anyway, I’m surprised virtually no-one has written anything in defense of that level’s shock-value. I would’ve thought people would be keen to prop it up as an example of a game that not only does not glamourise violence, but deliberately makes the player feel aversion towards the violence which he/she either wittnesses or participates in. It’s not only indicative of the strength of the medium but a good argument against ignoramuses accussing games of trivialising violence and desensitising players to it.
20/11/2009 at 00:02 Adam Bloom says:
Provoking an emotional response isn’t art. Provoking a response that makes you think is. The problem with this level is that as soon as you start thinking about it, the whole thing falls apart.
20/11/2009 at 00:16 manintheshack says:
I would’ve thought people would be keen to prop it up as an example of a game that not only does not glamourise violence…
I don’t think people play Call of Duty in order to benefit from any underlying message. I think that’s the big issue here. If pulling a *blank* out of your *blank* and throwing it in somebody’s *blank* isn’t glamorising violence then I’m not quite sure what is…
20/11/2009 at 12:59 manveruppd says:
First of all, be fair, I never called it art. The point is that although it may well be that it does fall apart under scrutiny (as I said, I only saw the video, haven’t actually played it) it’s still quite rare that an FPS tries to make you feel revulsion at the site of violence.
Regardless of its merits in itself (and within the broader context of the game, which both Kieron and Alec said is far too popcorny for you to be able to take that level seriously), this level is a good counterargument to the luddites in the anti-gaming lobby claiming games are harmful because they treat killing with levity and desensitize people to violence.
It’s fair enough to say “it’s a bit shit really”, as this is a website for gamers after all, but just a little nod in the direction of what it tried to do would be nice.
19/11/2009 at 23:51 andreadst says:
You know, although I agree that there are some faults in the execution of the scene, when I played it I felt compelled to shoot above the civilians to fake shooting at them.
Now, I’m not the role-play kind of player, but this scene really triggered a mix of repulsion and understanding of the horror happening in front of my eyes. IW had the balls to try this, and I believe my reaction to it proves (to me) that their execution of the matter is effective.
This is mass-market entertainment, the one that usually delivers controversy-free products; In my opinion, IW set out to trigger an emotional response from the player, like the one you experience in the Metal Gear 3 torture scene or in that one mission in the original Modern Warfare (the one where you’re stuck in the car and are inevitably carried to your execution), and it succeeds in doing so.
This is creative freedom. It might not be perfect, but at least it dares to try and bring new emotions (repulsion, you don’t see that very often in games) and it succeeds in getting us talking about it.
And as always with provocative creations (games, movies, art…), it’s ultimately only a matter of subjective choice as whether you want to see as a simple and very marketable provocative content or as a genuine attempt at trying something new in the gaming medium.
19/11/2009 at 23:54 kwyjibo says:
And Makharov was a shit villain with absolutely no motive.
Later on in the game, I assume he was under the General’s employ, but that meant for the first half of the game – I was chasing this figure who I absolutely didn’t give a shit about.
The first game was about a fucking attempted coup-d’etat in Russia with a Middle Eastern nuke as a distraction. MW2 was about catching a mercenary with no actual aims.
19/11/2009 at 23:55 no says:
The level had a lot of potential. When I played through, my instinct was to kill the bad guys, even if it counted against me. But it wouldn’t let you. My second instinct was just not to shoot anyone, which felt miserably unrealistic due to their lack of response to your not participating and just “faking it”.
If that level only had a little more wiggle-room, it could have been very memorable in an expanding-the-genre sort of way. It wouldn’t have even muddled their plot, either. Since you die in the end of the level and they find your body — does it really mater if you die because they find out who you are and kill you at the end after you participated in the massacare (even passively)? Of course not. You could have turned on them or refused to shoot anyone and instead of just letting you walk through to the end, they could have yelled at you and threatened you and then killed you near the beginning or if you turned on them… and had the same plot result (dead american agent body to blame for the killings).
Because of that lack of choice and lack of interactivity, it feels like a gimmicky device that should have simply been a cut-scene. It’s manipulative and the way in which they fail to capitalize on its true potential leaves it feeling like a giant step-back for all gamers.
Of course, the real question is which of Activision and IW’s stupid moves set gamers back the most? The “FAGS” commercial or the meaningless and poorly handled airport massaccare?
19/11/2009 at 23:55 The_B says:
Honestly, I think No Russian is the gaming equivalent of Jedward within Modern Warfare 2′s The X Factor in every single way;
It divides public opinion, very little technical ability, no use for anything but being showy, famous enough to gain notoriety even if you don’t follow the game/watch the show.
MW 2 is clearly The X Factor as it’s absurdly popular despite adding nothing to the development of the field it is in.
– I can seriously run with this analogy through a good few pages of words, come to think about it. But that’s a general gist of my viewpoint on it.
19/11/2009 at 23:58 Vitamin Powered says:
I’m not quite agreeing with Karry’s wonderful desire for an American killing sim (wasn’t Postal enough for you?), but I think we should wonder about IW’s use of Russians as massacre fodder. Why not place the massacre at JFK, if controversy is your goal?
It also seems to be going straight for 24′s These are Evil, Evil Men approach, as versus giving us a more nuanced look at “the other side”. Surely there’s more to be gained by letting us play, for instance, a hopeless Iraqi insurgent, than a spy amidst cliched muscled thugs.
Anyway, thank you Kieron for an amazing read. Well said.
19/11/2009 at 23:58 Ryan Richards says:
I have these (seemingly) odd pangs of guilt when playing these games. When it came to playing “No Russian” I had no idea about this level before hand. I found myself trying to fake my way through the level purposefully missing civilians and quickly discovered you can’t take out the other terrorists. So after a few minutes of shooting between civilians and unloading into the already dead I found it refreshing to blow away the security forces. After the final shot of the level I just muttered to myself “Well, that’s instant Karma”.
I, for one, enjoyed the unsettling nature of the level and the taint that it flavoured the rest of the game with. While not the classiest writing in a game, it was effective.
20/11/2009 at 00:00 Brer says:
Karry, you spend the last few levels of the game killing dozens of US soldiers.
Speaking as an ex-army guy with a bit of an intelligence background, there are so many holes in the plot that it’s hard to know where to start, but a good place would be on the plausibility of grabbing a PFC out of 1-75 and within -days- dumping him as a deep cover agent. The CIA doesn’t work that way, and even the chairman of the joint chiefs does not have the kind of unilateral unsupervised authority that Lt. Gen. Shepherd seems to have (plucking up PFCs for top secret missions, requisitioning submarines from the -Navy- with no one batting an eyelash…). Second, the “we can’t take him down now, we have to get the whole organization” is a patently absurd excuse that exists only to serve as the good guy counterpart to “No, don’t Shoot Secret Agent 69, throw him in the elaborate death trap after I’ve explained my secret plan to him”. It’s a 100% artificial plot device meant to explain why the show/movie/book/game doesn’t end early.
In real life we are quite willing to take our best shot at terrorist leaders even if we don’t have their boss, and even if we’re not 100% sure we’ll catch them. Witness all second, third, and fourth tier AQ leadership we’ve taken out over the past eight years (including a couple failed attempts at getting Ayman Al-Zawahiri). A more realistic controversial scene would be to have information that you THINK that the terrorist leader is in place X, to be given a mission to help execute an airstrike or similar indirect attack on place X, and find out that while you got a few bodyguards and such that the leader got away and oh by the way there were six civilians killed and 16 badly injured by the attempt. One of the reasons we’ve used predators and airstrikes and so on rather than boots on the ground except when there were little to no risk of negative consequences, by the way, is because in many countries it’s still safer than sending in an agent or agents with guns. Witness what happened to Israel in Lillehammer in 1973. We’ll still occasionally raid terrorist camps with military forces (there was a SEAL raid in Somalia earlier this year for example), but we’re very leery of using those sort of techniques outside of places like Somalia, Afghanistan, etc.
Finally, the whole invasion thing is ludicrous, not because America is invincible, but because the techno-babble they use to justify it makes no sense at all. Neither the US nor Russia has the capability to launch a lasting invasion through air power alone. You can start by dropping airborne troops and special operations teams to destroy or control key infrastructure, seize and hold airfields for the heavier transports to land at (which is one of the primary missions of the Ranger regiment by the way), but the bulk of the forces will need to come via sea. To speed that up the US has the Maritime Pre-Positioning Force, for example, ships at Diego Garcia pre-loaded with all the vehicles, ammo, fuel, spare parts, and so on that a Marine Air Ground Task Force needs to operate for the initial 30 days of combat operations. In any case, the point is that while the initial phase would quite possibly be a heavy air attack to clear the way for a massive drop of airborne and SOF, that would have to be followed by the landing of an invasion -fleet-…and that sort of thing is pretty much impossible to hide. Blinding NORAD wouldn’t blind our acoustic sensors that cover the atlantic and allow us to identify when foreign naval vessels have entered the atlantic and in most cases which ships. That’s without all the other indicators of preparation for massive military action: cancelling leaves, changes in readiness postures of strategic forces, mass movements of troops to railheads and ports, all manner of logisitical effort that we would pick up through both satellite surveillance and more terrestrial SIGINT, ELINT, and HUMINT sources, and on and on.
20/11/2009 at 00:10 Radiant says:
Blimey
20/11/2009 at 00:15 Kieron Gillen says:
Brer: Thanks for that one.
(It’s odd – my favourite stuff in MW2 is the most ludicrous stuff which is so far beyond what makes sense that it becomes mental poetry. The invasion of the US is the best of that. Just this sort of fever dream of America Burning and all that, rendered with all the craft they can bring to bear.)
KG
20/11/2009 at 00:18 Alexander Norris says:
Clearly lacking in torture, though.
And yes, as someone whose degree was partly in security studies, the plot to the game is maddeningly stupid. Sometimes, I’m glad that IW went and never released this on PC, or else I’d've been significantly more annoyed about the idiocy of the single-player plot.
20/11/2009 at 00:55 Dorian Cornelius Jasper says:
@Brer:
That’s a lot of stuff to think about! And worth thinking about, actually.
More people ought to take on consultants for this sort of writing–especially if they’ve got the time and the budget.
20/11/2009 at 02:48 Slaphead says:
Your reference to the Lillehammer Affair seems weirdly non-squitur. Or are you saying that the biggest operational failure in Lillehammer was that the Israeli agents got captured after they murdered an innocent man in cold blood?
20/11/2009 at 04:52 Brer says:
Slaphead:
The point I was trying to make referencing Lillehammer was that that sort of fuckup (-BOTH- the mistaken targeting and getting caught) is a diplomatic and PR nightmare for most countries, and it serves as an excellent example of why only countries that feel like they’re facing genuine existential threats (Israel) or countries who don’t give a shit about both international and domestic opinion (The USSR during the cold war, say) have regularly allowed their intelligence agencies to operate as aggressively as it’s implied is standard in MW2 (planting an agent inside a terrorist organization operating on the foreign soil of a non-hostile power without any coordination with that power, etc). Domestic security agencies, on the other hand, are more likely to have undercover agents penetrate an organization because they’re far more in control of both the agent and the environment the target organization is operating in.
TL;DR: Even after its leash was lengthened post-9/11 the CIA has far less black ops capability (both in operational terms and in terms of its freedom of action with regards to political oversight) than is generally believed, and that’s something that’s been the case ever since the leash started progressively tightening in the late 60s, leading to the Church Committee, the axing of most of our HUMINT resources under DCI Turner and the Carter administration, etc. Operations like Lillehammer are textbook examples of -why- that leash got yanked in good and hard.
20/11/2009 at 04:59 Brer says:
Slaphead:
The point I was trying to make referencing Lillehammer was that that sort of fuckup (-BOTH- the mistaken targeting and getting caught) is a diplomatic and PR nightmare for most countries, and it serves as an excellent example of why only countries that feel like they’re facing genuine existential threats (Israel) or countries who don’t give a shit about both international and domestic opinion (The USSR during the cold war, say) have regularly allowed their intelligence agencies to operate as aggressively as it’s implied Shepherd/The CIA is in MW2 (planting an agent inside a terrorist organization operating on the foreign soil of a non-hostile power without any coordination with that power, etc). Domestic security agencies are more likely to have undercover agents penetrate an organization, but that’s because they’re far more in control of both the agent and the environment the target organization is operating in.
TL;DR: Even with its increased capabilities and freedom of action post-9/11 the CIA has far less covert action and even clandestine HUMINT capability than is generally believed, and that’s something that’s been the case ever since the leash started progressively tightening in the late 60s (the Church Committee, the Halloweeen Massacre under DCI Turner, etc). It’s never been in the same league as Mossad, the Soviet-era KGB (I can’t say how much of that has been retained by the modern SVR), and so on when it comes to stuff like assassination, penetration agents, and even basic HUMINT collection.
20/11/2009 at 07:30 subversus says:
Thanks, that was interesting.
20/11/2009 at 12:23 Casimir's Blake says:
This is why I read RPS.
20/11/2009 at 00:06 Reiver says:
I didn’t shoot a civy once in that level. Call it role-play or whatever but i just fired above their heads. I don’t think i shot someone until the swat teams arrived and tbh i’m not even sure i hit many of them as my allies did a bang up job of doing for them while i cowered behind a pillar waiting for my face to top bleeding, occasionally stabbing the wall as i reflexively tried to lean.
20/11/2009 at 00:08 Radiant says:
Has anyone from Infinity Ward spoken about the level?
The aim of it seems clear [shock the player and provoke controversy] and they do it throughout the game [they kill you twice and immolate you once]. But what is their take on it; internally?
I actually really want to know more about Infinity Ward.
I mean in terms of execution [badoom tish] they’re on par with Valve for sure but talkative wise and play wise they’re the polar opposite.
We need a post mortem interview RPS stat!
20/11/2009 at 01:17 Kadayi says:
I doubt after this justified savaging, they are likely to want to speak to RPS tbh. Still they’ve never really had a strong public face like Valve.
20/11/2009 at 00:10 Anthony says:
One of the things I adored about COD4 was Death From Above, because the guys in the crew around you are completely detached from the efficient and nasty methods by which you’re disposing of tens of bad dudes every shot. It gave the strong impression that this is exactly how it is on an AC-130 lobbing howitzer shells at brown people. I never figured out if that was intentionally the case or just bad writing meeting great execution.
This whole deal with No Russians has got me thinking that maybe I gave IW too much credit.
20/11/2009 at 00:17 Walsh says:
You seriously haven’t seen the AC-130 video from Afghanistan? The level is basically interactively playing that video. Even the commentary is basically ripped from the video.
Look up AC-130 on Youtube.
20/11/2009 at 00:12 Staggy97 says:
I consider myself very tolorant to violence and scenes of a disturbing nature, yet this level infuriated me. Not when I was playing it however, but when I had completed the game.
After what felt like a non-stop Hollywood blockbuster, the final credits roll and I could finally catch my breath and think about the whole experiance of the game, and in hindsight – ‘No Russian’ adds NOTHING to the experiance of the game. It’s not enjoyable to play, it’s not deep, thought provoking or in any way presents any valid attributes that it can defend itself with in or out of context. It is inexcusable, and I regret not taking the option to skip it, as the end result is the same.
What this is level? This is a controversial badge to get the game noticed and to boost sales, nothing more.
“Makarov is no prize; he’s a whore. A mad-dog killer for the highest bidder.”
“Makarov” is interchangable with “Infinity Ward” it seems; big budget, massive hype and profit hungry at whatever cost. Integrity is even for sale (price hikes/platform delays/dedicated servers included).
Which is a shame, it hurts a perfectly competant and well polished shooter from an uptil now, consistant developer.
QFT KG.
20/11/2009 at 00:15 kyrieee says:
I love reading pieces like these
I think I’m going to have to subscribe
20/11/2009 at 00:23 Dominic White says:
Watching a video of the level in question (I’m waiting until the game is £20 or less), I can only agree that it’s tacky as hell.
It also made me kinda want another Terminator game, like an update of the super-ancient 3D one, where you play as a Terminator. Let me be an evil killbot from the future, and let me rack up points for causing as much havoc and mayhem as possible in my attempts to track down and murderize my target.
MW2 tries to dress up senseless violence as a statement about *something*, and comes off like Tom Clancys most paranoid fever-dream. A Terminator game, you just take for granted that it’s going to be messy.
That, and I just like the idea of playing as a stompy great evil killbot from the future.
20/11/2009 at 00:27 Cedge says:
As if it hadn’t already, the series has absolutely irrefutably officially jumped the shark, at this point.
20/11/2009 at 00:59 richmcc says:
I’m most confused by the complete media non-event of the shocking allusion that occurs straight after No Russian – spoiler: the next scene has you in a favela in Rio, having caught an informant, whereupon Soap, your companion on the mission, closes a grate with the captive tied to a chair, while warming up some nasty looking jump leads.
Has 24 made torture acceptable? Has Taken made it fine to do whatever it takes, as long as it’s in your interest and it’s only baddies that get it? As far as I can see, criticising No Russian for a callous, badly-skewed vision of an atrocity needs to be followed by condemnation of this next scene, but none seems to be forthcoming.
It’s the South Park humour defence – either all is fair game, or none is. We can be shocked by all shocking things in our games, or cherry pick those that have been selected for us by others.
20/11/2009 at 01:11 Saul says:
I haven’t seen that part of the game, but it is interesting that not one of the commentators I’ve read or friends I’ve spoken to have even mentioned it. I guess the fact that it’s not a first-person, interactive sequence makes quite a difference, but yeah, it should be included in the discussion, for sure.
20/11/2009 at 01:26 richmcc says:
It either means that a) torture has become at worst, an acceptable facet of small-scale warfare, or at best, something to be quietly eye-rolled over when it appears in mass-media, or b) people are outraged because they’ve been told they should be outraged.
Both are a little scary.
21/11/2009 at 17:20 Buemba says:
For me the craziest part of the whole Rio de Janero sequence is the fact that the game outright states in one of the loading screens that Soap’s secret supersoldier group operated entirely without the knowledge of the Brazilian government.
The fact that a group of foreign armed men snuck into a neutral country, turned a densely populated area into a warzone, killed hundreds of locals and got out while the local authorities just scratched their heads bothered me a great deal, but the fact that the good guys are the ones doing that bothers me even more. That they also tortured one of the locals is just the cherry on top.
And I thought 24′s glorification of torture was already extreme enough.
20/11/2009 at 01:02 Arg says:
Kieron you are my hero
20/11/2009 at 01:07 Saul says:
Pretty much spot on, Kieron. I haven’t played the game myself, but I watched my brother play this and several other levels. When I first heard about this level in the press, I was actually pretty intrigued. I though perhaps that this could be a watershed moment in gaming. That, although it would be controversial, a game developer might actually be making an unforgiving and powerful statement that could be made in no other medium.
How wrong I was. While the mission itself was exactly what I’d heard and expected, the complete lack of a plausible context appalled me. It was like:
“Do this horrific thing. Don’t kill the bad guy because… well, just don’t”
[you do the mission]
“Oh you died and started a world war. Oops.”
The issue is not whether the mission provokes powerful emotional responses (it does), but what those responses are in the service of, and here they’re in the service of pure nonsense.
20/11/2009 at 03:46 Unlucky Irish says:
“Oh you died and started a world war. Oops.”
Someone really needs to make a game about the Franz Ferdinand; the Duke not the band.
20/11/2009 at 13:54 Mark says:
Ooh, an idea! Your superior gives you a mission to assassinate a political personality giving you various reasons to do so. After a tough mission, when you finally succeed to do so, you learn your superior was acting rogue and the assassination leads to unrest and eventually war.
IW: you can have that one for free.
20/11/2009 at 01:08 LordCraigus says:
Not to mention that the scene from the film/game is pretty ridiculous from an historical standpoint.
20/11/2009 at 01:11 Jimbo says:
I don’t think Infinity Ward had an obligation to anybody to handle this scene in a meaningful way. They certainly haven’t harmed the medium or whatever. The usual suspects whined about it for about five minutes and then went onto the next thing – and every one of them would have whined regardless of how the scene had been handled.
It’s a relatively weak level in an otherwise-solid popcorn FPS campaign. There are elements of ‘No Russian’ that are a little ridiculous, but no more or less so than any other part of the game. I don’t believe you should expect this one scene to have a totally different tone to the rest of the game, just because of the nature of what is happening in it.
From your character’s perspective you are there to prove yourself to Makarov and figure out who he’s working for. From Makarov’s perspective you are there solely to be the smoking gun, with the intention of triggering a Russian response against the US – and given that a dead US agent is integral to that plan, I think it’s likely that Shepherd orchestrated the whole thing. The scene may not be ‘deep’, or even particularly good, but it achieves everything it needs to achieve for the plot, such as it is.
The closest Call of Duty ever gets to artistic merit is the content of the load screens, which is to say, not very close. This scene is no more deserving of outrage than all of the other scenes which are equally lacking in artistic merit. Thinking it’s ‘not any good’ is fair enough, but it isn’t much to get worked up about either. If you are as angered by this specific level as some of you seem to be, I suspect it’s because you – rather than IW – set yourself up for something which was never coming.
The ‘laughable’ tonal shift is, I think, actually an imagined tonal shift. It’s an assumption on your part that the super-serious subject matter of ‘No Russian’ will be handled in a super-serious manner – it isn’t, it’s handled in the same OTT, ridiculous Clancy/Bond/24 manner of every other level. Infinity Ward’s intention was just to make a blockbuster techno-thriller campaign – you are fishing for an artistic statement that doesn’t exist, and which they aren’t trying to pretend does exist.
20/11/2009 at 01:46 Saul says:
Putting you in the shoes of someone perpetrating a terrorist attack isn’t a tonal shift? It’s a complete reversal of the role you play for the rest of the game. And it clearly provokes a strong emotional response in most people who have played it. So yes, it is a massive tonal shift, and a very poorly executed one.
20/11/2009 at 17:47 Jimbo says:
No, it’s a material shift. The tone remains as ridiculous as the rest of the game, for all of the reasons stated in Kieron’s original article.
This seems to me like playing GTA and then getting upset that the part where you ran over the little old lady wasn’t handled sensitively enough. I think most people had a similar ‘emotional response’ the first time they knocked somebody down, handbraked over their corpse and got blood marks all over the road – now nobody thinks twice about it
Kieron is absolutely correct that the scene doesn’t mean anything. Where I feel he’s mistaken is in singling it out and suggesting that IW had an obligation to us or the medium to handle this specific scene any differently to the rest of the game. It’s a popcorn scene in a popcorn campaign, and IW never tried to build it up as anything more than that. We might have done, but I don’t think they did.
20/11/2009 at 01:16 Nimic says:
I yelled “fuck you!” at the game when they shot the guy. Oh, don’t get me wrong, he deserved getting shot, but it made the whole level feel incredibly pointless. The fact that it was a key part in a clearly mental plot doesn’t help.
And it annoyed me greatly that they didn’t just take this terrorist out when they had the chance. By everything they knew, he was his own boss, he didn’t have someone ordering him around. So why not just shoot him and his cronies in the back and cackle with glee?
20/11/2009 at 01:18 Web Cole says:
This is why we read RPS. Bravo.
20/11/2009 at 01:26 ChaosSmurf says:
I thought it was awesome and I really enjoyed the single player campaign as a whole.
20/11/2009 at 01:27 Dagda says:
You’re setting a higher standard than I am, Mr. Gillen; while I share your dim analysis of the ‘writing’ to a degree, I’m still inclined to respect the moment as a legitimate piece of storytelling. I suppose I’m cutting it the same slack that I cut Pathologic (yes, sorry, I did just go there): They’re breaking ground for games as a storytelling medium, even if they’re not exactly leveraging it with a deft touch.
To put it another way, I think their #1 priority with No Russian was to show atrocities being perpetuated against civilians in the most compelling way they could; something that penetrate the average gamer’s cynicism and detachment. I can see the room for greater depth, and can get behind you taking them to task for this in a heartfelt manner. But when we get to the point where you’re criticizing the people not fleeing quickly enough, and the guards not being sufficiently armed. . .that’s the point where I feel like I’m reading a rant rather than an article with a fully thought-out point. That’s the point where it seems like you’ve moved away from a coherent analysis to grasping at any and all criticisms so as to better rationalize your bile.
This level bears discussion, and I agree with the better part of your thoughts on this matter. But taken as a whole, this piece is not one of your better moments as a games writer/journalist/what have you.
20/11/2009 at 01:32 Cvnk says:
Excellent commentary. I can only wish that game designers displayed the level of maturity that game critics like Kieron do. We’d probably have much better games and they’d be taken a lot more seriously as an art form.
20/11/2009 at 01:34 Tei says:
If the level is “trolling”, then we are feeding the troll.
20/11/2009 at 01:42 Helm says:
I have similar sentiments. What’s really interesting also is how the game gives you the choice to walk or not walk, to look left or to look right, to pull the trigger on innocents or not. But it doesn’t give you the choice to shoot the terrorists in the back of the head. Why? Is this interactivity? Is this how you make a point about choice, by giving it where it doesn’t matter as much but not where it does?
Generally it seems much bad will follow MW2 in the mainstream field.
20/11/2009 at 01:48 A-Scale says:
It’s an artistic choice. If you’re arguing that the scene is not good because it doesn’t account for the direction you wanted to take you’re walking on very thin ice.
You might as well argue that a hedge maze is not good or not artistic because it doesn’t let you walk in whichever direction you choose, or that Half Life 2 was a bad game because you couldn’t restrain, rather than shoot, the combine.
20/11/2009 at 02:01 Helm says:
I’m arguing that the scene is not good because it barely holds together narratively (as the article explains) and on top is hand-held to its invariable conclusion via cutting off impulsive paths the player might take. And it does this by providing *no feedback at all* (you click on the head of Makarov and nothing happens). At some point just shooting the terrorists and getting a game-over screen would-you-like-to-replay? would have been barely more honest, if you see what I mean.
I get that the issue of free-will in a scripted universe like a videogame exists and I’m not trying to side-step it at all, in fact even what I considered a bad game – like Bioshock – gets points from me for even attempting to tackle such an issue (imagine what happens when a good game – like Braid – does it!!). But in a game where the raison d’etre is to chose where to shoot and where not to and then see what happens (shooting/not shooting are the only verbs in MW) to be denied by the game to shoot where I placed my cross-hairs with no explanation whatsoever, just so they can have their controversy, is terrible. And opting to not play the scenario to begin with is bullshit. I was warned in the beginning that there are scenes in the game that might disturb me and would I like to opt out or not. I am playing a videogame where I am going to shoot a lot of people dead, is that not disturbing enough? The reason I’m doing this is because there’ll be a point to it all, right? A videogame is not a buffet, it’s a work of art, you don’t skip the chapter in the book because it makes you cry, you stick with it and it makes you a better human. No Russians didn’t make me anything other than reevaluate why I bother playing these games.
A ground rule to a gaming system is one thing (the presupposition being that when I start playing snakes and ladders, I will obey that I need to roll dice, say) and then very artificially containing valid impulses (like shooting a bad man when playing a first-person-shooter-where-you-shoot-bad-men) is a very different thing. I am not saying this effect couldn’t conceivably have been handled well, everything is possible in art. The tragedy is that whereas this cognitive dissonance could have been used for a potent result, it’s handled so shallowly on every level (of design, narration and even style) that it backfires hugely. When I played the level I wasn’t horrified on a humane level nor did I treat it cynically, instead I finished the level, half-heartedly played the next one for a bit and then uninstalled.
20/11/2009 at 13:59 Mark says:
I agree with Helm.
Putting the subject matter aside, any time you are given the illusion of free will (I have the choice to pull the trigger or not) and choice is taken away from you (I pull the trigger but nothing happens when I aim at a terrorist) it shatters immersion along with any credibility the level may have had.
20/11/2009 at 01:44 h4plo says:
Even with the over-used expletives and a very clear bias, this is one of the best pieces you’ve written in awhile, Kieron. The level of analysis and your conclusion, that the level is shit because it’s just bad, is an interesting one that’s on-point.
I don’t have much to add – just wanted to throw some props.
20/11/2009 at 01:48 Helm says:
I’m really confused when you say he has a bias when he’s writing an opinion-piece to begin with.
20/11/2009 at 01:53 NegativeZero says:
I’ve always believed that Infinity Ward were masters at creating brilliant, incredibly fun set pieces. The trouble is that they’ve always struggled to have a strong enough plot to string all those separate pieces together. It’s like they studied what Valve did in Half Life and picked up the mechanics of it perfectly, but completely missed the purpose.
20/11/2009 at 01:55 scratchy says:
Brilliant article. That is all.
20/11/2009 at 02:06 James says:
Well put, what a disaster in execution.
20/11/2009 at 02:17 Adrian says:
Three things.
This level isn’t about Makarov, it’s about Shepard
This level has created a lot of discussion and passionate responces so I’d say the effectiveness of this stage went beyond IF’s expectations.
It’s a videogame game. In real life, you don’t have regen powers and you will get killed in one hit. If artists choose reality over emotions, then this would be one very boring game.
20/11/2009 at 02:42 h4plo says:
Adrian:
Glenn Beck generates enormous amounts of passionate and heated discussion. Does that mean what he has to say is valid or worthwhile if it is based on speculation, imagination, and untruth?
20/11/2009 at 02:57 Adrian says:
I don’t know who that guy is h4plo, but I’m guessing there’s lot of people out there who thinks what he has to say to be very valid and worthwhile. Just like Bill O’reilly.
20/11/2009 at 03:18 JoeX111 says:
@Adrian:
Excusing stupid shit because “It’s a video game” doesn’t do much to help this medium evolve.
20/11/2009 at 03:58 Adrian says:
The OP called this level bullshit because the civilians didn’t run fast enough from his bullets. Give me a fucking break.
20/11/2009 at 04:08 invisiblejesus says:
That’s not what he said. And I think you know that.
20/11/2009 at 04:45 Adrian says:
“But the rest is simply ludicrous. Machine-guns are loud. People are gone the second they start firing. Anyone anywhere near doesn’t hang around. They certainly don’t find themselves hanging around to be gunned down in lobbies. “
A big chunk of his rant is how unrealistic this scenario is. The whole game is unrealistic. One man cannot take down a Brazilian viallage full of militia. This is why it’s a video game.
20/11/2009 at 06:33 Jeremy says:
Video games are about putting people in unrealistic situations that they could never be in, not for the systems within them to act in unrealistic ways.
20/11/2009 at 02:25 Matt says:
that “Death from Above” level really impressed me too, because for the first time I could remember a “dumb” FPS actually seemed to be making a statemate, that war has become a point-and-click video game. But for the rest of the game I got the sense of a game that was making a brave stab at being art, only not quite succeeding.
It sounds like MW2 is more of the same. Here’s hoping for MW3, yeah?
20/11/2009 at 02:32 subedii says:
I just wanted to thank you for calling out IW on the complete absurdity of this whole scenario. It really does read as an attempt to give a “deeper meaning” to the game, but it can never achieve that because of how stupid they’ve been with it.
It’s… trash. People will praise it for being deep and edgy, and other games will try to emulate it. It doesn’t make you think, and the way it’s crowbarred into the narrative is a joke. About the sum total point of the scene is to say “here are some badguys, they’re really really evil. It doesn’t try to make an actual point or make you think. And yet whilst it can have the power to shock, it’s purely as a reactionary thing, the way a sudden monster closet can make you “jump” you but that doesn’t make it horror.
Also, I’ll agree with richmcc about the complete neglect everywhere of the torture scene. It’s a tiny thing but grief. Torture’s seen as happily a part of warfare, the just and right thing as long as we “good guys” do it against the evil bad men. Honestly, when I saw from the trailer that there was going to be torture in the game, I was hoping, hoping that IW would be able to take a more intelligent track with that scene. Instead it’s just more “24″ style idiocy where you grab the badguy (and he’s definitely the badguy otherwise you wouldn’t be torturing him), torture him (it’s electricity so it doesn’t count. But just to be sure it’ll be off-screen anyway), and get precisely the information you want from him, and everything’s right with the world.
Oh I like how immediately after they shut the door on the torture scene they talk about how “important ” it is to avoid those civilian casualties. We wouldn’t want to be bad people now would we?
20/11/2009 at 02:42 Helm says:
Well said.
20/11/2009 at 02:55 Saul says:
Exactly. It would be wrong to kill civilians. Oh, unless we’re undercover helping terrorists do it for no apparent reason except to accidentally start WW3. Hmm.
20/11/2009 at 02:52 Urthman says:
Really, this scene is no more and no less than the same stupid scene that’s in every dumb action movie where the bad guy rapes a puppy so the audience will think he’s Really Bad and Needs Killing Now.
20/11/2009 at 03:11 Krikey! says:
Well said Kieron. Well fucking said.
20/11/2009 at 03:21 elle pesh says:
“they’ve never really had a strong public face like Valve.”
If MW2 is game of the decade, these words are the understatement of the century.
I mean, Valve makes a jar of piss into the Most Quotable Game Joke, topping even false cake (Valve), a box with a heart on it, (Valve), crowbars (Valve) and appropriate cows (Monkey Island).
MW2′s high-point in public relations – unless you consider “custom stuff like mouse control” intentionally funny – is a gay-bashing joke with a “celebrity” baseball pitcher. A U.S. AMERICAN BASES-BALL PITCHER calling people pussy while obliquely being called a faggot.
Nobody should be surprised that their games are as insincere as their community.
20/11/2009 at 10:35 oceanclub says:
“MW2’s high-point in public relations – unless you consider “custom stuff like mouse control” intentionally funny – is a gay-bashing joke with a “celebrity” baseball pitcher. A U.S. AMERICAN BASES-BALL PITCHER calling people pussy while obliquely being called a faggot.”
Details? Hadn’t heard about this. My middling opinion of IW has been plummeting lately.
21/11/2009 at 00:37 radomaj says:
oceanclub: This – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zaSTgGXw3LE
20/11/2009 at 03:47 Tim says:
“Yeah, realism is a tricky thing with Call of Duty. It’s clearly ludicrous, unless you’re the person in Alec’s Wot-I-Think comment thread who somehow thought that 24 was a documentary or something. ”
Precisely why I haven’t bought this title yet. I enjoyed the first Modern Warfare because I thought it was believable. Despite all of my hesitance to play a single player story about “modern warfare”, it was an intriguing, balanced, plausible story that did not lapse into a naive pacifist diatribe not did it lapse into a justification of the war on terror.
Once I saw that Infinity Ward’s new story was trying to create fictional military units and use picatinny rails to attach Aliens-style motion trackers to assault rifles, I realized that Inifinity Ward had stopped watching the history channel and started reading too much Tom Clancy(or maybe they were just playing too much Spinter Cell).
20/11/2009 at 04:03 FRIENDLYUNIT says:
“You could see Modern Warfare 2 as the sister of BioShock – as in, mocking the player for being stupid enough to follow this linear string of events.”
Actually that sort of thing annoys me. I’ve spent a lot of time and effort (I play RPGs as well as computer games) going along with silly inconstancies and ignoring lack of motivation (why am I saving your village again?) for the sake of jumping on the plot wagon and allowing the game to flow. To have a game turn around and then smack me in the face and call me stupid, well that’s just uncool.
Let me restate that.
Game: Knock knock!
Player: *sigh* Whos there?
Game: People who say whos there suck!1 kekekeke
20/11/2009 at 04:14 hitnrun says:
I agree with most of what you said. By arguing over the permissibility and taste of the level, people miss the greater point, specifically that the level was a crock of shit, a pitiful attempt to inject gravity into a story that is less serious and engaging than 3 of Pierce Brosnan’s Bond movies.
I beg to differ. Somewhere in Act 3, the game enters territory occupied by Ninja Gaiden and Crysis. In a sense, the airport fiasco really was foreshadowing.
20/11/2009 at 05:14 Mr. Bravado says:
Whilst I may not agree with the extent of the complaints in this article, it was quite well-put and thought-provoking. Articles like these are why RPS is my favorite online gaming read.
20/11/2009 at 05:18 Mr. Bravado says:
Also, I have to say, for a comment thread more than a page long, there’s hardly any flaming. You Brits (and Brit-writer-readers) have your Interweb ettiquette down pat.
20/11/2009 at 05:22 jsutcliffe says:
F*ck you!
20/11/2009 at 05:38 jsutcliffe says:
That is the best flame I can come up with. Flamefail.
20/11/2009 at 05:25 Deadend says:
I hated the level, as until the police showed up, it was on auto-pilot. It may as well have been a cutscene for all the choices the player could make. I also don’t think Infinity Ward was making a statement, as their games strike me as a bit.. not artistic at all, unless you mean reenacting scenes from War Movies.
The amount of choices players could make in the game was shockingly low as well.. I think the scene with the most freedom was taking over the House In The Forest, as you got to pick what door you went in and what rooms you blew up first. But most of the game has you running down 5 foot wide hallways with enemies that pop out at you. Thank god for the high quality set pieces, as the corridor crawling in between belongs in 2000 or so.
I also think the game was hurt by the strange silent protagonist thing. As Soap does not shut the fuck up when you see him, but the moment you take over, he zips those lips.
If I tried pointing the gun at the other terrorists and internal narration voice came on and said “no! I have to wait until I find out who hired Makarov” and a few other internal comments in the airport.. maybe it would have been better.
Or if the people in the airport tried to be heroes, have a bunch of guys decide that the only chance is to rush the terrorists en masse.. only to get cut down, as Call of Duty is all about that sort of thing.
But, as it stands.. the level sucks and Infinity Ward either pussied out, or doesn’t understand. I am assuming they pussied out of making the level better.
But I do give the game credit for the Iraq level.. as that level is great until you get into corridor crawl mode, as that jeep ride evoked what I think being on a patrol gone wrong would be like.
20/11/2009 at 06:45 bill says:
While I never expected this, or 24, to be the one to do it, surely the only real value in placing you in the shoes of the “other side” is to attempt to explain their viewpoint and motivations. Otherwise it’s just an attempt to shock… which is almost impossible to do when it’s “just a game”.
20/11/2009 at 06:53 TCM says:
A true work of brilliance, be it game, novel, comic, movie, or tv show, can do both.
20/11/2009 at 06:49 Wraggles says:
I can agree with the core sentiment, that they only went the half mile rather than the full with the execution of the scene. But as to it’s place in the story, well it’s fairly deserving of that. Too many people claim that it’s a stupid move to send an American into this mission, well guess what, *spoiler* that’s exactly why he was sent in. Shepherd (regardless of what powers of office he should have, considering this is a fictional game), pulled someone with little knowledge of undercover ops, told him he’d be a hero, prevents him from meeting anyone else on the taskforce (so he gets no chance to be told this is unorthodox), then sends him into Russia to die. Also Makarov’s machinations are seen quite plainly in that he has no reason to strike Russian soil. The man is Zekhaev’s Lieutenant, and the coup’ has been successful, a terrorist op on Russian soil would be done FOR NO OTHER REASON, than to provoke whatever Russian conservatives that are left into open action.
20/11/2009 at 07:06 Jerry says:
To me, it’s an issue of “willing suspension of disbelief.” I’m willing to accept that an elite soldier could potentially take out dozens of enemies. I know it’s highly unlikely, but it’s within the realm of possibility. If you don’t believe that, feel free to do a little research on winners of the Congressional Medal of Honor and some of the insane exploits they pulled off. Or look up Simo Hayha.
What I’m =not= willing to accept is that some PFC fresh out of boot camp is going to have four armed terrorists in front of him, slaughtering dozens of civilians, and not shoot them in the back. It takes years of desensitization, religious fanaticism, and/or some mental disorder to produce that kind of remorseless killer. And Shepherd would have been a fool to trust that sort of mission to a fresh-faced recruit without extensive psychological testing.
20/11/2009 at 07:20 Corion says:
I definitely think the story in MW2 was much sloppier than the one in MW1.
MW1 felt like playing through a movie. It felt epic. It felt desperate, but it felt like what you did made a huge difference.
A lot of MW2 was doing random missions of questionable impact – even up until the very end. Since when is taking out the leader of this shadow organization suddenly going to fix the world? Why is taking him out and quite probably dying in the process going to help things in the long run?
Half the time I had no idea what was going on – I suppose some of this chaotic storytelling was intentional, but other times it was just frustrating.
As far as the “No Russian” mission went … Eh … could have done without that, shown it from a different perspective, or talked about it in a cutscene or briefing. Regardless, it doesn’t make ANY sense. I doubt an operative in that situation would just play along with it, even if it meant possibly saving more lives in the future. They had to have seen the game’s outcome from a mile away – though I suppose that was kind of the point? I just think they could have come up with a much more plausible storyline there …
Also, I hated the mission briefings. Most of them tell you nothing about what you’re supposed to do in the upcoming level but rather give you background/history on a location, vehicle, or weapons. I’d actually like to be briefed on what the strategy or tactics for the mission is … am I alone in this?
It’d also be nice to be able to pick a loadout in singleplayer and Spec Ops … Why don’t they have this?
20/11/2009 at 07:32 Lord Benjamin III says:
Infinity Ward never claimed to be Hemingway, and is in all probability quite happy being Danielle Steele.
It’s not war-porn, it’s war romance. Equate ‘undercover agent’ with ‘young, dusky nobleman’, ‘fully-automatic rifle’ with ‘throbbing member’ and ‘crowd of civilians’ with ‘creamy inner-thighs’.
Oh hot.
Like romance novels, the game is not laudable on any intellectual level, but perhaps worth a wank nonetheless.
20/11/2009 at 08:33 Caerphoto says:
Are there any children in the No Russian level?
20/11/2009 at 08:35 Caerphoto says:
Are there any children in the No Russian level? If not, what (in-game) justification is there for them being absent?
20/11/2009 at 09:10 demon arm says:
I don’t remember any kids. Only in front of the TV, perhaps…
In fact, I don’t remember any more than perhaps a dozen distinct individuals.
Looking down from the balcony when the terrorist pauses to shoot down makes this most obvious, you’ll see dozens of identikit business men and women fall over like dominoes.
It’s true that you can’t shoot at the terrorists – what you can do, however, is lob a grenade at them. This will earn you shouts of “traitor” and a couple of bullets to the head, followed by a quick game over.
20/11/2009 at 08:56 Caerphoto says:
*shakes fist at crap company proxy server*
20/11/2009 at 09:04 Lockdown says:
Brer, you missed out the biggest plot hole of which is that infinity ward seem to have forgotten about NATO or more to the point believe it consists of the US and the SAS. I mean even if the russians had managed to get that fighter crash techno babble gizmo and knock out US radar and then circumvent whatever other stuff the US has to track hostiles, becuase they’re assaulting the east coast they’d still have to cross through european airspace, which means going through NATO airspace who can track Russian aircraft crossing over the top of europe all the time. The ammount needed to detect airborne would in no short order cause NATO to shit a brick, tell the US of this massive air fleet and scramble all avaliable fighters. Now I know many may say ‘it’s just a game’ but many people seem to have this preclusion that modern warfare is incredibly realistic which is just bullshit, if you want some form of realism play Operation Flashpoint: Dragon rising, if you want ultra realistic play ARMA 2.
20/11/2009 at 09:09 faelnor says:
I’m glad a journalist realizes that this level is completely irrelevant. Thanks Kieron.
20/11/2009 at 09:10 abhishek says:
That level has everyone talking about it. I would consider that Mission Accomplished for Infinity Ward.
20/11/2009 at 09:13 TheApologist says:
Yep – glad you’re saying it Kieron. Was sick of Giantbomb style defence just because its big, dumb and ‘the biggest entertainment launch ever ever ever’…
20/11/2009 at 09:22 Jonas says:
Thanks Kieron, this post really helped me get my opinions on MW2 organised. I played through the game yesterday and almost everything you’ve talked about has been floating around in my brain since then. It was good to get it all straight.
And Brer: thanks. Post more in future please.
20/11/2009 at 09:54 clive dunn says:
Infinity Ward remind me of the brash, loud-mouthed, opinionated tosser in the pub who ‘everyone is talking about’. By that i mean, everyone is calling him a dumb fuck-face and moving on.
20/11/2009 at 10:17 Bogie says:
+1
20/11/2009 at 10:07 Peter Davies says:
Curse Kieron. Every time I get all het up about something that’s BIG AND IMPORTANT LIKE VIDEOGAMES he’s done a cogent and thoughtful post setting out what I think in detail before I’ve tapped out two sentences.
But, yes, couldn’t agree more. It’s as if someone asked them to paint the Sistene Chapel and they did a couple of stick figures and a willy.
20/11/2009 at 10:12 CaptainPerverso says:
“Modern Warfare, it’s bad writing” … excuse me? I think you should go and play some Crytek games to see what really bad writing is!
20/11/2009 at 10:14 Da'Jobat says:
A pretty spectacular post, nice to see you’ve still got the journo in you as well as being all marvelled up.
20/11/2009 at 10:23 Ravenger says:
A really excellent article. Kieron is like the little boy who pointed out that that the emperor has no clothes on :)
As far as the MW2 plot goes, I have a theory. There are three ways to integrate story and levels in a game:
a) Come up with a story and design levels to fit the plot.
b) Think up really cool ideas for levels and fit the story around them.
c) A combination of (a) and (b)
a) Leads to a very strong cohesive story, but the gameplay may be lacking in places as the levels are constrained by the story.
b) Leads to very strong levels and set pieces, but the story tends to be all over the place as the plot needs to changed and retconned to fit the level designs.
c) Tends to be the best of both worlds – a strong story with some excellent set-piece levels.
I reckon IW went for (b).
20/11/2009 at 10:32 XM says:
My take on all of MW2s missions and story as it’s all over the top in your face action. Leave your brain in the bin full of popcorn on the way in and enjoy the summer action flick.
It’s one of those action films that the more you think about it the less sense it makes.
It’s just entertainment, a fantasy in a realistic setting and should not be compared to the real world.
The airport scene was made to be a WTF? moment to grab your attention. For everyone that’s played COD before and other FPSs. It’s to give the confident “I know that’s going to happen” a kick up the ass, no you don’t.
20/11/2009 at 13:22 Jesse says:
You know what though, I never ‘leave my brain’ anywhere. I always like to have it with me.
20/11/2009 at 15:12 Bema says:
I certainly agree with that point when it comes to films, but games are an interactive medium. I expect them to challenge me more than a summer blockbuster does.
20/11/2009 at 10:32 dadioflex says:
I’m probably behind the loop here but I’ve got to the point where I can recognise a KG post just by reading it. In a good way.
MW2? I think not.
That is all.
20/11/2009 at 10:39 Heliosicle says:
The funniest thing, is that at the end of the level, if you run away and hide behind a “SOLID” concrete wall, you still get shot in the face..
Its a totally worthless level, much better to show it as a cutscene rather than try to do something “cool” and controversial, which exposes the flaws in the game and their story weaving skill.
20/11/2009 at 10:51 Gap Gen says:
The bits that did similar things in CoD4 were more powerful, partly as you had no control over your direction, unlike a guy standing freely and holding a gun. I can see that they decided to try and do something else a bit like it, but like people say, the level needed a lot of work before it became compelling.
Deus Ex did this kind of killing of innocents quite well. In the level where you infiltrated the Mole people, I went through the first time shooting my way through. To then have the guy surrender and have to walk around the people you were just killing was quite humbling – they weren’t soldiers or criminals (I don’t think), just a community trying to protect themselves from the harsh world outside.
So I think that it was important to have done this sort of thing, ham-fisted though the execution was. But I agree that it was important to do right, even inside the 24-style fantasy world that CoD:MW2 seems to inhabit.
20/11/2009 at 10:51 The Sombrero Kid says:
infinity ward are nothing like valve, they constantly flaunt their inability to understand just what valve get right! like any good copycat :D
20/11/2009 at 10:52 Barbellion says:
It’s certainly good to see an important issue debated with both reason and fire, but I do not agree with most of the arguments for the level being ‘bullshit’. I feel there is a certain lack of context here. I am no Infinity Ward apologist or one of the crowd that can’t see that the emperor is stark bollock naked, but I do think there are certain counter arguments here. Firstly, the change of pace from the James Bond snowmobile chase is deliberately jarring, surely – you’ve got giddy and silly and felt like you’re an impossibly indestructible secret agent and then you’re Someone Else and it leaves you reeling. Whether it works for you or not, the shock of it is deliberate and not just a poorly thought through mistake. As justification for a Russian attack on American soil of such magnitude I think it’s a good plot device on its own terms.
The complaints about the response of the civilians and the emergency services to the situation dilutes the argument somewhat . It it at least convinces on its own terms, and I think if you did want to examine the real-world examples of similar behaviour – Columbine is a good reference point here – then I think you’ll find that the minute someone starts shooting a gun randomly into a crowd unexpectedly then protocol goes out the window. Not to mention that the police do send out scores of riot police as a first response to possible terrorist attacks – remember all the riot-gear police milling around the tube station sheepishly when De Menezes was shot?
Where I do agree with Keiron’s argument is that the player should have been forced to take part, and that there should have been some justification for why Makarov was not taken down other than what can be extrapolated by dialogue snippets. Whatever happens the player could wind up dead and blamed, but there’s no way the terrorists should let you abstain from joining in. It’s only that logic that made me start firing on the crowd to start with on my first play through, thinking I would ‘fail’ the level if they cottoned on. But then again, they need the American blamed, and know about him being a plant, so they would let him get away with his reticence.
What really made me upset about the technicalities more than anything was that on the 360 version I got an achievement for wiping out three policemen at once with the grenade launcher. Surely the achievements should have been disabled for this mission? That’s really very distasteful.
20/11/2009 at 11:01 Kieron Gillen says:
Barbellion: I was firing above the heads of people at the start of my first play through for exactly that reason.
KG
20/11/2009 at 13:46 Zero says:
They give you like sixteen chances to earn that achievement before “No Russian”. Actually, I got it about five seconds into the game, firing across the river. I suspect that they were “expecting” the average player to do the same thing — not that it makes your point moot. On the other hand, entirely. If they say you won’t get or lose any achievements on the level, they need to follow through.
20/11/2009 at 18:19 Jimbo says:
Why should you be forced to take part? That would make even less sense. The guys you’re with already know you’re an agent and the attack is only taking place at all so that you are seen taking part and then dumped at the end. If they act against you out in the open, for any reason, it completely undermines the picture they are trying to create.
Oh, and the picture they’re trying to create isn’t just that you were a US agent trying to infiltrate a terrorist organisation, they’re trying to spin it as a straight-up US attack carried out by a US agency, hence ‘No Russian’.
20/11/2009 at 11:04 clive dunn says:
There should be an achievement for killing over 500 civilians…
A survivor or the Mumbai terror attacks comes round to your house and calls you a sick fuck!
20/11/2009 at 11:08 hekr says:
I think one of the truest statements in this article is how playing in the vicinity of other people can really change how the content makes you feel. Personally i played with a few friends, the controller changing hands after every ridiculous accidental death, and for us the whole thing just became a farce. From the grenades bouncing fully off peoples faces,then causing damage to a terrorist who promptly turn on you. To the weird jam like substance which seems to cover your eyes a soon as the bullets start flying. I mean if you couldn’t run behind a wall and wipe the stuff off the game could get quickly annoying. In retrospect it made me feel nothing at all and still doesn’t it was a poorly made mission, i mean why cant i run for half the bloody thing, and why if you stand anywhere in front of the terrorists they start shooting you in the back!! But hurray for Jam bullets they really made a arduous game slightly funnier
20/11/2009 at 13:48 Zero says:
To be fair, the average 40mm grenade needs some thirty meters to fully arm. The mother will indeed bounce off walls and the like if it doesn’t have enough time.
I can’t help but find amusing when I shot someone in the face point blank with a grenade round — it didn’t arm, but the impact killed him.
20/11/2009 at 11:18 ShineDog says:
“(Why you don’t just shoot this terrorist leader now that you’re close enough to him isn’t really explained. Why infiltrate the cell to stop an attack when you can just kill the ringmaster now?)”
I agree in everything in your article, but picky me had to spot this – Shephard lied to you, implying that there was someone hired up that was paying for Makarov and that was who you were really after. There was. Shephard. He set the whole thing up, and wanted you dead from the beginning.
glurgh. Stupid plot makes brain leak.
20/11/2009 at 11:22 ShineDog says:
Higher, no hired. Nuts.
20/11/2009 at 11:27 Kieron Gillen says:
Shine: I do actually reference the Shepherd stuff, as much as it needs to be referenced – the following orders unquestioningly leading to WW3 stuff. I don’t think it explains clearly enough why you don’t shoot him, however – not least because the build up to him… but don’t kill him! is so ludicrous.
KG
20/11/2009 at 11:46 Kenny says:
20/11/2009 at 11:51 wintermute says:
In the nicest possible way – fuck you guys, and fuck you KG.
Are you getting an emotional response from No Russian? Do you feel “uncomfortable”? Is this before or after you murder your next innocent/civilian/mook on Prototype, or GTA, or Postal, or Hitman, or Sims, or Dragon Age, or Syndicate, or Baldur’s Gate, or Civilization, or World of Warcraft, or Counterstrike, or any game ever made which involves killing, even indirectly?
I am calling bullshit on all you hypocrites.
The real discussion here is – WHY does everyone feel the need to write oodles of passionate rhetoric on No Russian? – and the only real winner is the IW marketing department.
20/11/2009 at 12:21 Kieron Gillen says:
Wintermute: Because, bless its cotton socks, it’s important. I mean, that’s bloody obvious. It just happens to be important and rubbish.
KG
20/11/2009 at 14:59 Butler` says:
Context, context, context…
20/11/2009 at 18:12 Alastayr says:
Wintermute, you fail at Cultural Studies 101.
Like Butler’ said: Context, context, context…
20/11/2009 at 20:50 TeeJay says:
“any game ever made which involves killing”
Chess?
20/11/2009 at 12:36 Monkeybreadman says:
IW did that level to be controversial, no other ‘higher’ reason or goal i’m afraid. With that in mind it worked perfectly.
20/11/2009 at 12:47 Chiller says:
MW2 got bashed a lot for all the wrong reasons. No Russian is one of them.
The level was necessary for story advancement reasons, in the same way that the level in which you “play” the Arab president in MW1 was necessary, or even more so.
The level is pretty much on par with the rest of the game in terms of, well, everything (such as design, story, consistency), except for its theme, which I do agree that Infinity Ward put in just because they could, and kudos to them for doing so.
No good reason whatsoever has been given for bashing this level any more than the rest of the game.
Of course you can’t shoot Makarov, for the same reason you can’t let MacTavish get killed at the airbase. The game tells its own story, not the player’s. You only ever have control over the least important aspects, such as whether to shoot the guard on the right first.
Level design and NPC issues are on par with the usual FPS ridiculousness, which we all have been desensitised to by years of gaming and people don’t usually over-analyze except when it’s convenient to do so, like in this case.
The real issue is that MW2 is not quite as good as MW1, and people are upset by it, so the pick on what they perceive to be the weakest link, No Russian (although I don’t even think that’s the case).
However, I’m pretty sure we can all get over the huge, unexpected shock of a sequel not being all we thought it’d be. After all, I didn’t like Thief 2 all that much when it first came out, too… true story.
I do think that the game is good. The story is much less consistent than MW1′s, which hurts a lot because it’s arguably the most important aspect of the game. However, MW2 does have its moments, and the gameplay is actually better. And I do have to agree with Blizzard that gameplay should come first.
20/11/2009 at 12:59 The Sombrero Kid says:
in the other missions it’s shoot or be shot at, in this it’s shoot or be bored to a tear doing nothing, that’s why it’s the weakest link, there’s no imperative and the alternative is to be bored by a piece of ‘entertainment’ if it was a cut scene it’d've been acceptable in that you don’t expect interaction, this is the equivalent of a quick time event without the imperative and so only slightly about it as a storytelling mechanism.
20/11/2009 at 12:56 rocketman71 says:
It’s bullshit and they should be ashamed
Thar’s the best review of MW2 I’ve read this month.
20/11/2009 at 12:59 wintermute says:
Hi,
Logged in to prove not trolling. Also, all is meant respectfully, if insulting people respectfully is possible.
Kieron. Why is No Russian important?
Is it important because everyone is talking about it? People talk about lots of things. X-Factor for example. Would there have been so much outrage from gamers, if non-gamers had not picked up on the story? Would these outraged gamers be the same ones that toss grenades at people in GTA IV for a laugh?
Is it important because the player is killing civilians? Gamers have been doing this for years. Everyone of us is running his own virtual genocide counter. No one cared much before. Why now?
To quote your own article: “It’s not any good. It’s bullshit. It’s a lie. It means nothing.”
Precisely. But why did people have lofty expectations in the first place? Is it because of the Game of the Decade tag? That’s not something we came up with – IW did.
This is not a watershed moment for gaming – just a watershed moment for marketing. It is the first time a game is judged, scored and discussed entirely on it’s hype, and not the intrinsic value of the content itself.
Within the standards MW2 sets for itself, No Russian is perfectly justified. Does the story of MW2 raise difficult moral issues? No. Why should No Russian?
Because if we boil it down to just killing civilians, we have been doing that for years.
EDIT: In fact this should have been the point of the article:
WHY does No Russian make you feel uncomfortable, and other games do not?
20/11/2009 at 13:01 The Sombrero Kid says:
it tries to push the boundaries of what games can do, both artisticly and from a censorship perspective.
20/11/2009 at 13:03 Chiller says:
Also, I totally agree to this.
20/11/2009 at 13:18 Azazel says:
You can’t possibly be pretending that shooting people in No Russian and clicking on some peasant in Baldur’s Gate and having him explode are two equivalent things?
Oh.
20/11/2009 at 14:31 Kadayi says:
The entire premise of the massacre is to set up you, the plant up as the perpetrator, which is just such a retarded idea, Vs how the previous title played.
The stuff that happened in CoD4:MW was far fetched, but it wasn’t completely preposterous (the believability of the scenarios is what sold the Story so well) . However the idea that some terrorist mastermind would elect to personally get his hands dirty and put himself directly in the line of fire as in No Russian is. No matter how competent you might personally be as a soldier, it only takes a guy with a sniper rifle 500 yards away to turn you into a statistic.
As Kieron rightly pointed out Airports are not the sort of places to even consider attempting a massacre, simply because they have lots of security and control in place. Secondly there is normally so much surveillance that actually getting out unobserved would be a pipe dream.
It’s a poorly contrived level. A better option if they wanted to go down the controversial route would of been something completely civilian like a Hotel lobby, a Restaurant, an Office building or even just a public space and a better weapon would of been a bomb.
20/11/2009 at 15:01 Butler` says:
Azazeal, as above, the concept of context does sadly seem to be eluding him.
20/11/2009 at 15:06 MrFake says:
“WHY does No Russian make you feel uncomfortable, and other games do not?”
Simple. It plays to fears. That doesn’ t need much explanation, being the point of terrorism after all.
Even as flawed as the realism is in MW2, it’s still not intentionally approaching the murder of innocents in an absurdist way. GTA is somehow elevated because of the ability to mow down pedestrians with a bus, but the game is punctuated every second with crazy dialog (“cheesy vagina”) and outlandish behavior as an acceptable act (shit, driving down a crowded sidewalk). It breaks the realism thoroughly.
MW2′s No Russian preserves the realism; or at least it attempts to, which is just as good. So that leaves some players left feeling like they are there, holding the gun. And, I don’t think IW, however dense they’re proving themselves to be, meant for your actions to be at all acceptable. If games are escapism, then you escape into the world of the game, and many people will insert their own selves into them. And that leaves you with the question, “Why wouldn’t No Russian make you feel uncomfortable?”
20/11/2009 at 13:15 Sombrero says:
You people take videogames waaay too seriously.
20/11/2009 at 13:24 The Sombrero Kid says:
or maybe you take stealing peoples names way to seriously! how do you know i’m not tim langdel!
20/11/2009 at 16:28 The Sombrero Kid says:
i wish it’d just been honest at the beginning and said:
‘there’s a shit boring level , used only to generate hype and controversy in this game, do you want to turn it off and enjoy it the way the developers intended?’
i’d've clicked that button.
20/11/2009 at 13:28 Comment system, what comment system? says:
Failure or not, ‘No Russian’ has evoked strong response from nearly everyone in the industry and everyone I’ve talked to the game about. Some people think it succeeds, some don’t, but when the trying alone is enough to get everyone in the industry talking about it isn’t that a success in by some measure?
20/11/2009 at 20:59 TeeJay says:
also: Diakatana was a “success”
20/11/2009 at 13:30 Azazel says:
Not really.
To go back to the Bill Hicks quote someone mentioned. The film ‘Basic Instinct’ caused a storm of controversy. That didn’t stop it being a piece of shit.
20/11/2009 at 13:42 Down Rodeo says:
I fired on those that were crawling away, bleeding out. It wasn’t fun. Or enjoyable. Or even thought-provoking. In an effort to say something that has not already been said in this thread, I will mention that it *is* possible to shoot the smartly-dressed terrorist-men. At the bit where the police turn up you can aim roughly towards your “team-mates”, the bullets’ spread ensures they’ll catch a nasty nick on the lung. Playing on my flatmate’s Xbox (I don’t want to buy this game) I managed to drop the two remaining terrorists and run away, only to be chased and shot by Makarov. I feel it is slightly harsh that he is invulnerable, super-accurate and has the reactions of, well, a computer. They also turn on you if you flash them.
But yes, there are holes everywhere, and while the game is a lot of fun to charge around in, being the hero, I don’t like the story. I don’t even understand Shepard’s motivation! Why is he doing all this again? Craig Fairbrass certainly hasn’t had a good run of things anyway. They also misuse the word “check”, they mean “cheque”, and it is nigh-on impossible to light petrol with a lit cigar/cigarette. Thanks, BadMoviePhysics!
Despite the game’s age rating, might it be that this level was aimed at younger people (“these are clearly bad men”)? Or perhaps, a different audience than the majority of the RPS comments thread. I don’t want to riff on the usual stereotype of “console gamer” but there seems to be some kind of idea that games (at least in their mechanics) are simplified on the console. Now, CoD has never been complex (point at man, shoot at man) but there are other ways to villify people than an unlikely terrorist scenario. But to have such a blunt level – it is very much like being clubbed.
Ugh. We should perhaps try to move on now. As has been noted the entire section seems confused in tone and idea, with poor implementation and no excuse via plot. This could have been handled well I think, but wasn’t. This entire thread has made me rethink various parts of the CoD series from across the years, and not in a good way.
20/11/2009 at 13:45 Dreamhacker says:
So a game developer of some (or great) notice makes an unrealistic level in a game…
…why is everyone (or just KG) getting so emotional about it? Not that being emotional about games is a bad thing, but this is:
1. Not a big deal.
2. Not even news.
In the end, COD:MW2 is a good, solid game and apparently a bestseller, but is it groundbreaking in any way, shape or form? Not really.
20/11/2009 at 15:40 OgunBadbooks says:
what “Down Rodeo” said :thumbsup:
games aimed at teenage boys (like this one) should stay away from this kind of controversy.
they might be games about killing but they’re certainly not games that can address death – haven’t been since they left the moral safety of ww2.
there were enough eyebrow-raising moments in mw1 (e.g. the nuke) that weren’t really needed for the ‘story’ and just felt like thoroughly unwanted heartstring tugging. this is more of the same.
20/11/2009 at 13:54 ShineDog says:
I think Shephard wants to fuck Russia, essentially. Zakhaev nuked the 30000 soldiers in MW1, and when Shephard talks about no one gave a shit and wants to people to be patriots, I think what hes really getting at is that he has a grudge against Russians and wants people to go “lets go fuck Russia up” which is pretty inevitable for the sequel.
It’s terrible terrible logic and crappy writing. I still enjoyed it immensley, despite the airport level and the enormous plot holes and shitty logic. It’s just clear after they did a pretty good job with MW1 that this could have been much more. There have been a few devs that have come out and said “Activision wanted us to be controversial” and its a real shame, because I would have been keen to see what they came up with without the meddling.
20/11/2009 at 14:31 Player1 says:
Best-article-on-the-issue-ever. Agree 110%.
20/11/2009 at 14:47 Alex McLarty says:
Hearing you all talk about it makes me want to play it.
20/11/2009 at 15:02 Butler` says:
Some PR person from IW will copy this comment into an email to their whole team. :(
20/11/2009 at 15:29 Jake says:
Why can you only walk in this stage?
No Russian.
20/11/2009 at 23:11 DXN says:
You, sir, deserve to be shot in an airport.
20/11/2009 at 15:34 Jeff says:
Oh, Kieron. 24 was a documentary, and the events happened in real time.
20/11/2009 at 16:36 Klaus says:
ha!
20/11/2009 at 16:05 underproseductor says:
Great article.
I already said (and posted a little bit) something similar about this when I first saw the video of this level. My opinion haven’t changed – well, just as I expected.
20/11/2009 at 16:14 Davee says:
Ahh yes, the Stalingrad River Landing-mission. One of the most memorable and interesting missions from the CoD series imo.
And I agree with you Kieron, I was myself confused about what message IW was conveying when/after I played No Russian… big lack of clarity there. They could have done it way better, and they blew it.
Also, the later missions in the game where a bit too over-the-top-conspiracies for my liking. I’ll stick to ‘mass charges up slopes defended by MG42′s’ thank you.
20/11/2009 at 16:15 the wiseass says:
Well I got curious so I decided to have a go at this controversial “level” in MW2. To be honest, I absolutely agree with Kieron here: it’s just bullshit!
There are many reasons why “no russian” is wrong on so many level, but one that strikes me the most and that hasn’t been discussed yet is the frame in which it all takes place. MW2 does not strike me as a game that tries to provoke deep thoughts or even tries to appeal to a critical conscience. MW2 is a mainstream game that tried to please to the broadest audience possible to such an extreme extent, that even well-known PC mechanisms have been removed in order to simplify the gaming experience. In short, MW2 loiters on the lowest common denominator possible.
It is no wonder, that “no russian” can only be perceived as not honest. It is a blatant lie, a fake try of criticism which also explains its half-assed execution. MW2 is not a game that stimulates your thoughts therefore this whole level did not really touch me in any way possible.
When I started up this game, I knew to switch off my brain (just like how you do it with most hollywood summer blockbuster movies) so when I finally walked out of the
escalator, the whole scenery just went by in my idle mind. It didn’t help that the civil victims reacted in a very very artificial an unrealistic manner.
The worst thing is, when I finally opened fire on the civilians, the mission restarted and I was told not to shoot the civilians. I wasn’t able to shoot the terrorists either. The only thing I could do was walk around and enjoy the scripted events pulling off in a seamless chain. Why try to evoke criticism, when you don’t give the player the freedom of choice? I should have been able to shoot both, I should have been able to decide. Instead the game behaved like a 6 year old that plays a prank and runs way giggling.
But in the end, I really don’t see whats the fuzz is all about. Yes, there are some evil dudes walking around shooting people. But people have to realise, the whole game is about shooting people! That is all that is to it, you walk around an shoot stuff. I don’t know if it really makes a difference if they are armed or not, a dead man is a dead man. But well always have to realize, even after we have killed millions of millions of pixel-enemies, that this is just a game. And it is not for real.
P.S.: A quick stroll through BRAID touched me emotionally more than this game will ever be able to.
20/11/2009 at 16:16 Jakkar says:
Ah, the Gillen sees clearly.
Like reading my own words sirrah. Let me know if you need a kidney oneday.
20/11/2009 at 16:23 Diogo Ribeiro says:
As usual, I’m so buried in work that when I get to post about something trendy on my blog, everyone else has already moved on. DAMN YOU KIERON! A week behind the zeitgeist? I found gunpowder a month after the war has ended!
Anyway, agree, undersign, yes. My thoughts on the matter were a lot more rant-like and I fire off in several directions but the core is the same. In spite of it being a good idea the execution is bullshit, through and through.
20/11/2009 at 16:30 The Sombrero Kid says:
woops how’d it get posted up there?
i wish it’d just been honest at the beginning and said:
‘there’s a shit boring level , used only to generate hype and controversy in this game, do you want to turn it off and enjoy it the way the developers intended?’
i’d've clicked that button.
20/11/2009 at 16:34 wintermute says:
Hmm, good points sir.
If we consider the episodic structure of MW2 missions, along with the ridiculous storyline, then the effect is similar to putting a gruesome murder scene in the middle of a Michael Bay film.
I guess No Russian should be commended for the response it elicits from the normally stoic gamer-killer, though it exposes the rest of the story as not up to the standard set by it.
20/11/2009 at 16:36 dmauro says:
“Why you don’t just shoot this terrorist leader now that you’re close enough to him isn’t really explained. Why infiltrate the cell to stop an attack when you can just kill the ringmaster now?”
Because you’ve been put there by Shepard, and Shepard doesn’t want Markarov dead until he gets the war started. Shepard probably made it possible for Makarov to discover that you were undercover so that this whole thing would play out as such.
I actually enjoyed this level. I had fun pretending to shoot at people and intentionally missing and shooting people that were already just about dead, and doing other things to maintain my cover without killing too many innocents. I was role-playing an undercover pfc in a Jack Bauer-like fashion (to bring it back to 24) of doing whatever needs be done.
20/11/2009 at 16:49 Inferno says:
I think this review of the level is bullshit. He basiocalyl says oh it’s believable in the world and illicits a response from most people of finding it hard not to shoot but it’s bullshit because this is unrealistic because it could never happen in the real world. Most of the stuff that happens in CoD couldn’t happen in the real world. Dmauro said it quite well. If you get into it like the ridiculousness of a tom clancy book then it’s GOOD.
20/11/2009 at 16:50 Dyermaker says:
I’m surprised about the amount of outcry that this level has generated. I went into the level expecting to be thoroughly disgusted. In the end I left feeling mostly detached. I will say I avoided shooting civilians, so I guess in a way I was affected enough by the situation to feel like what I was doing was wrong. But at the same time I was slightly fascinated with what IW tried to do, slowing the pacing down and creating enormous amounts of detail to take in, which I can appreciate. In the end, I’d agree that an opportunity has been missed.
However, in the end, as others before me have mentioned, most of us as gamers have killed hundreds if not thousands of digital persons with little emotional response. The fact that this level is generated debate may say something.
20/11/2009 at 17:16 Klaus says:
I have killed millions, I wager. But if the people are standing about waiting to be slaughtered then I may as well comply with the game. Had I bought this game I would have did the level and continued on. I might have have offhandedly mentioned it to a friend but it’s no more shocking than the other murderous shenanigans I get up to in other games. To illicit an emotion response from me, they would have to have been fleeing or some such. Rather than the reported surrendering.
20/11/2009 at 18:39 Wulf says:
Postal generated this level of debate, too, FYI. So that’s hardly an accolade. See, that’s how my mind has classified this. It’s MW2 stepping into the realms of Postal/Postal 2, it’s idiot food for those who actually enjoy gore and acts of atrocity. It’s clever in that it generates debate and controversy, because it means that the people who’re drawn to that kind of thing will buy it.
It’s a Postal 2 level in the middle of Modern Warfare 2, it’s no better than that, no worse, it’s simply just that. A nonsense level whose reason for being is exactly the same as Postal 2′s. It could have made a statement, it could have been intelligent, it could have had a message, but it didn’t. It wasn’t any of these things, it was just Postal 2.
That’s why when I watched it didn’t exactly elicit an emotional response from me either, bar lots of eye-rolling and face-palming. It’s a marketing stunt, it’s just atrocity for the sake of atrocity, it’s just… Postal. That’s all I can say about it.
To call it anything else would be giving it undue praise.
20/11/2009 at 16:58 Wixard says:
The game is lacking in a number of areas.
I played the no russian map and i didnt really findt shocking as much as simply not interesting in the least.
It almost seemed they were trying to take this game with a weak story and shoe horn in some kind of epic overwhelming sense of importance.
It’s mindless and dumb from start to finish, a wild disappointment in a number of areas, and i think it’s failed to live up to it’s potential.
It actually reminds me quite a bit of a super high budget serious sam. (not to knock serious sam) but it’s simply mindless.
20/11/2009 at 17:13 Sym says:
I just came across this site a few weeks back, been browsing it every day as part fo my normal routine. I have to say that alot of the writing/opinions in reviews and such are very well done. I find myself shaking my head in agreement way more often then not.
Again here…excellent write-up. Kudos to you. This has rapidly become one of my top favorite sites.
20/11/2009 at 17:24 Tei says:
I agreed, this article is really well written.
20/11/2009 at 17:38 Henry says:
I think what you fail to account for here is that the vast majority of computer games are very distant from being philosophically sound. Just because this game has had funds pumped in to it, does not mean it will have enlightened witers for it. It aims to be high action, it succeeds at being high action.
This game is like a typical hollywood action flick. Lots of stuff happening, but with as many holes in the plot as one of the civilians you have just encountered.
Personally I was put off it during the overly patriotic first five minutes, that feels like you are playing part of the millitary group from the recent GI:JOE movie (Yippi-ki-ay lets whup some ass). As games get closer to films, you will probably find that like most action films, the plot in games will be far from genius. It is usually films that try to avoid action that have better writing.
20/11/2009 at 17:39 Railick says:
Don’t get how this is any diffrent than running around in GTA killing random helpeless people from all walks of life (Which I did for hours and hours and hours and hours and hours and hours and hours across GTA GTA 2 GTA 3 GTA Vice City GTA San Andreas and also True Crime :Los Angels ((yes I know you’re a cop but who cars?)) and also driver. Also played missions in Arm:A where I fly in and nail a whole village full of innocent people while the US marines come in and try to stop me so . . . .))))))) . . .))
20/11/2009 at 17:49 Klaus says:
Because all those are silly enough for it to be ok. MW2 is supposed to be gritty, and realistic.
I get what you’re saying and more or less agree, though.
20/11/2009 at 17:49 Jason Moyer says:
MW2 sucks. I’m referring to the campaign, here. I don’t care that it’s short, CoD4 was fairly short and was still a great experience.
For starters, the story is totally batshit incoherent. The missions feel like they were designed first, and then jumbled around to fit whatever story they made up at the last minute, Thief 2 style. Some of the missions in the campaign are awesome on their own (the obligatory stealth missions, the fighting in suburbia) but I found that not only did they not really fit together in any way that makes sense without the FMV’s, but for the most part they tended to be total crap compared to previous IW-produced CoD titles.
Part of what made CoD4 awesome, imho, was the variety and the pacing. One mission you’d be pounding your head on your desk after dying repeatedly while trying to push forward to the next invisible trigger to get the spawning to stop. The next mission you’d be creeping around in the dark with the SAS. The next mission you’d be supporting the SAS from an AC-130 gunship, then you’d be doing some urban combat, then more sneaking around, etc. The variety was great. In MW2, the variety basically happens in the first half of the first act, and then everything else is just following someone around because the game has to keep pushing you forward now that the spawning is gone.
Speaking of the spawning, as glad as I’m that it’s gone now, the way they removed it makes the game feel a lot less player-oriented (aside from that mission in the fast food parking lot, of course, where you’re forced to run back and forth out of cover while your squadmates just stand around and eat bullets). In the previous CoD games, even if you were a subordinate to someone else, it felt like you were controlling the pacing of the game. Now every 10 seconds someone yells the exact same dialog in your ear telling you what to do next as if you don’t have a giant white dot in your HUD that says “GO HERE 4 TEH WIN” stamped all over it. Even in the earlier, better stealth mission, Soap will say the exact same line about where you need to go over and over and over while I’m studying the patrol movements and trying to remain unseen – which is the entire point of the damn mission. In other missions, even the great “fighting in suburbia” one, you’re liable to get run over by one of your own vehicles if you don’t keep running out of cover into enemy fire, and in basically all of them you’ll have to sprint constantly to keep up with the rest of your squad as they run gleefully past enemies who will happily hold their fire until they get a chance to shoot you in the back.
The final aspect that I hate is how it’s gone all Tom Clancy. Part of the beauty of the original game was that it was similar to the quasi-historical WWII games, but set in a contemporary setting. This game isn’t “modern” warfare, it’s “hypothetical future” warfare. That works for me in something like Advanced Warfighter where the emphasis is on tactics, but CoD is all about the atmosphere and feeling like you’re taking part in a real, if highly dramaticized, war.
TLDR: The campaign is short, schizophrenic and full of stupid sci-fi garbage. Additionally, they’ve somehow made the gameplay mechanics worse (and that’s without even going into the “no lean” stuff, which doesn’t bother me in most games but was a staple of this series).
20/11/2009 at 18:09 LionsPhil says:
“That’s what sickens me. It’s that they had the balls to try to do this… and they blew it.”
^ This
20/11/2009 at 18:13 Jason Moyer says:
“That mission” wouldn’t bother me if it were a.) remotely believable and/or b.) felt like a fluid part of the story arc. Like most of the missions, it just feels like a crappy action-movie moment they came up with one day at the office and later tried to shoehorn into the plot, and by even that early stage of the game you’ve turned so many dudes into ragdolls that the emotional impact of seeing more people die is essentially nil.
20/11/2009 at 18:26 Tei says:
I think is “easy” to troll.
So theres not merit on trolling.
Trolling and Trough provoking look similar, like one is the evil twin of the other. Maybe the difference is that Trolling destroy rational debate, while TP spawn and create it.
So, is this level creating noise or signal?
20/11/2009 at 18:31 Breaker Morant's Ghost says:
People are over-analyzing this. It’s a casual FPS for kids. No Russian is a cynical grab for free headlines.
It’s a shit game whose devs care only about cash.
20/11/2009 at 20:02 Kadayi says:
That’s why it’s an 18 certificate yes?
20/11/2009 at 18:43 Funky Badger says:
If you want to try to do this thing you have a responsibility to do it properly, or not at all.
Cannot agree with this at all, its just not how art works. The execution does not colour the intent, nor vice versa.
20/11/2009 at 19:16 Tei says:
Is not vile enough.
Vile enough will be to take the control from the player, and make so the player continue killing civilians, in a gruesome way.
Vile will be have somewhere on the level a mirror, and on that mirror, let the player see his own face, and in that face a obvious happy smiley.
….
20/11/2009 at 19:30 Railick says:
That wouldn’t very vile Tei, that would just be silly and annoying. I had several true vile moments in Postal 2 where I felt like I was going to be sick and wondering what was wrong with me that I was enjoying the game and almost stopped :P then I reloaded the level and played it again BUT I didn’t REALIZE there was something wrong with me for enjoying it.
20/11/2009 at 19:32 Dyermaker says:
I’m not sure I would agree with that. Postal 2 was a gimmick, something twisted throughout to appeal to adolescents, a one note joke. You could make the same claim of this level, I suppose, but there’s a lot more game here than just that. Granted, I haven’t played the whole campaign yet, but the consensus seems to be that there’s some great action setpieces that most will enjoy. People buying MW2 buy it for that, not the controversy.
Basically IW tried something different, and failed, but the whole is a sum of its parts.
20/11/2009 at 19:36 Alex says:
“And crucially, SWAT-or-local-equivalent response isn’t a wall of men walking slowly towards you with riot shields. It’s snipers on the rooftops taking down these psychopathic shits.”
Post-Columbine, I thought the American police response to a live shooter scenario WAS to storm the building and assault the shooter. They still use snipers, sure, but I’m pretty sure they just charge the fuckers.
A massive, well-geared assault mounted within minutes of the bullets flying? Bullshit. Just as it’s bullshit that you can sail a full invasion fleet across the Atlantic just because you spoofed their satellites. You’d think that someone like the British, or say….. the U.S. Navy would notice something like that.
There is no realism in the COD games. It’s well-crafted adrenalized war porn.
20/11/2009 at 19:37 Dyermaker says:
That last post was for Wulf, sorry for the confusion :)
20/11/2009 at 19:46 Spacegirl says:
I am confused as to why this is AS important as every1 appears to be making it out to be.
I think it’s just cause of the hype. I mean, remember the Assassinate Kennedy game? No? If yes, is this the first time you thought about it in forever?
Is this because Modern Warfare 2 is the Biggest Game Now and tried something fairly controversial?
Are you upset because it tried to make a strong point about a very hot topic and couldn’t decide between a dive and a cannonball and ended up in a belly flop?
All of you are thinking too hard. None of the people who frequent this site (myself included) are the people that the writers are writing their story for. I think Kieron and others are assuming this game is trying to rise to something it isn’t.
Who could expect the story and execution thereof to be anything more than middling? You would especially be sensitive to the storytelling shortcomings, Kieron, and this level’s apparent Extreme Pacing Flaw because you work in the comics medium and SO MUCH (imo at least) of good comic storytelling is hitting “beats” and pacing. That’s true for all stories really, but crucially true for comics. A movie can “wander.” A comic cannot. Yeah, compare MW2 to Garth Ennis’ work and it’ll come up a bit fucking short (Ennis’ Punisher may honestly be my favorite comic of all time.)
However, no one knows who Garth Ennis is. Everyone, in America at least, knows the show NCIS. It is the top rated show in the country!! (My Mom “likes some of the characters”, ive seen it a few times and it’s pretty much like any other Acronym Show)
It constantly plays goofy and loose with “real world” issues and military conduct. A major writer of that show is the writer of MW1 and 2!!
NCIS is the highest Nielson rated TV show in America. MW2 is one of the biggest selling games ever. They do not in any way appeal to the “writer” demographic, ESPECIALLY not the “videogame journalist / comic book writer” demo! THAT’S ONE OF THE CRAZIEST DEMOGRAPHICS EVER!! Unpleasable! look at all the wacky games posted on this site!! ;)
This is a Real World Example of what That Level really means. It happened last nite and is from my memory, but is fairly accurate.
INT. TYPICAL SUBURBAN HOUSE IN NASHVILLE, TN.
A group of white males are discussing Call of Duty : Modern Warfare 2 amongst themselves.
Normal Musician Guy I Know : What about that level where you kill all those civilians?
Me: Yeh there’s this level where you are disguised as a terrorist or some shit and kill a bunch of ppl.
Friend Who Didn’t Know About This : sweet. <—–note the lack of exclamation point.
Normal Musician Guy I Know : yeh it was one of the craziest things ive played.
END OF CONVERSATION.
Normal Guy played it, thought about it enough to think "it was crazy" and didn't really give a shit about anything else about it. It will forever be a really crazy moment in a videogame to him, and nothing else. Because that is all it is. A bizarre crazy moment in a very popular videogame.
Conkur's Bad Fur Day? Manhunt? These are both fairly controversial games that Modern Society has basically forgotten. They'll show up in lists of "most controversial games" and I'm sure That Level will show up in those as well. Maybe that Bad Fur Day game is less controversial than I remember it, but I do recall a fairly big stink about it when it came out!!
Modern Warfare 2 was never going to make an important statement. It's a shame it doesn't tell a better story than it does, but who cares?
21/11/2009 at 00:29 DMcCool says:
“All of you are thinking too hard”
I’m sorry, this sounds horrible, but that phrase is one of the worst in our language and merits at least something of a retort.
As is generally the case when people say that, the problem here is actually the person that made that claim isn’t thinking enough.
Kieron Gillen is actually a rather clever chap, as are many people here. I don’t think anyone is under any illusions that the sort of debate we’d have over this game doesn’t even resemble normal public discourse on the subject. Does that mean we shouldn’t bother?
It is the worst kind of pompous pretention to assume that you are part of some sort of elite and only the experiance of a work of media/art by your peers matters. Shakespeare is not the greatest wielder of the english language of all time because he writes things that a special intellectual elite understand. He is brilliant because his work is universal, it speaks for humanity, for tragedy, for comedy.
In the exact same way (But on the other end of the spectrum) that last scene in Titanic shaped millions’ thoughts on devotion and romance, films like LOTR instill in us a wonder for fantasy but also furtively strengthen the christian good-vs-evil dichotomic view of war in us. Rap music that glorifies violence and machismo decadance – you get the drift. Everytthing effects everyone, in small ways and sometimes big ways, if they notice it or not.
The fact that Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 is the fastest selling game in history, that “No Russian” is being experianced by an unprecedented amount of people, the amount of inevitable controversy behind it means that an awful lot of people will know how important that scene is for gaming. It was an oppertunity Infinty Ward made themselves and they screwed it up, achived nothing but shock value and, as you say, confusion – “that was a crazy level man”. They could have affected millions in a truly meaningful way, they didn’t.
A rather seperate issue is the fact that from now on whenever the debate of “Mature Games” or maturity in games or controversity in games itself comes up, this will be the one example we all have to deal with. You can’t exactly ignore it, this was gamings chance to show everyone its grown up.
20/11/2009 at 20:30 Diogo Ribeiro says:
Girls? In space? NEVER!
It’s important like any other game is. Which is to say, yes, games journalism and the media seem content to exist in a vacuum of sorts. Violence and controversy are not new. We’ve had our share of Carmaggeddon, Syndicate, Postal, Manhunt, GTA and whatnot. Predominantly, this happens because most people focus on the medium as a visual vehicule (ie., there was no controversy over the fact that you could poke eyeballs take out someone’s intestines in Planescape: Torment) and also, because these are mostly mainstream titles which get more press atention and potentially, more players will have access to them, leading to whatever subject matter in these games to be discussed more regularly. This isn’t necessarily a problem – although one should wonder why, when half a world was busy talking RapeLay, no one seems to have paid much attention to the implied rape of the main male character in FEAR 2 – and seriously, we need more discussion around the medium. We may not always pick the more interesting games or the more poignant, but it’s a work in progress. MW2′s controvery is only going to last a couple of months, and then it’s on to the next game, but some discussion is better than none.
20/11/2009 at 20:39 Spacegirl says:
I think the most important question facing us today in the videogame world is will Mass Effect 2 have Dude-on-Dude?
20/11/2009 at 20:40 Diogo Ribeiro says:
Also, it seems the level’s scripter spoke his mind on this Gamepro article:
http://www.gamepro.com/article/features/213011/modern-warfare-2-writer-the-airport-level-was-a-risk-we-had-to-take/
20/11/2009 at 21:57 Tim says:
@spacegirl Agreed, that’s way more important.
20/11/2009 at 22:02 Ohle says:
This is really one of the main issues with narrative in today’s games, though — everyone has these grand plans to make games as impactful and thought-provoking as film or literature… but nobody’s really any good at it. There’s a complete and utter lack of realistic emotions and reactions. I have never been touched by a game the way I have by movies — several movies each year have some impact on me on an emotional level… but games? Nothing.
If we can get some writers into this industry who can really understand story development and get a handle on how to control tension and excitement, we might have some good stories. But if, at the end of the day, we can’t let go of the “gameness” — i.e. your end goal is still to shoot the bad guys with a vast array of awesome weaponry — how can we possibly hope to really deliver interesting narrative?
20/11/2009 at 22:52 Spacegirl says:
@ Diogo Ribeiro : yes I read that prior to my post, and it informed some of it.
it manages to say a lot and very little at the same time. The main gist was “We knew ppl expected some intense stuff, and this is the intense stuff we came up with.”
20/11/2009 at 23:05 postmanX3 says:
“(Why you don’t just shoot this terrorist leader now that you’re close enough to him isn’t really explained. Why infiltrate the cell to stop an attack when you can just kill the ringmaster now?)”
I have been wondering this. Someone please explain to me. Really. I can’t figure it out. At all.
20/11/2009 at 23:06 nrXic says:
Wait…you’re complaining about realism in a Modern Warfare game?
THAT is bullshit.
When ever, has the synopsis been accurate or realistic?
If the levels that take place in various nations aren’t accurate or realistic…why expect a Russian airport to be?
“It’s not any good. It’s bullshit. It’s a lie. It means nothing.”
Why didn’t you say this sort of stuff when the game first came out? A reality of “Modern Warfare” is the sky high amount of civilian casualties it incurs. The ratio of civilian to soldier deaths is alarmingly high. We didn’t see it in either of these games. Why aren’t you complaining about that “lie”?
The No Russian level was nothing more than an interactive cutscene. If you are going to question whether it is “good” or not you should judge it based on it’s purpose, which is to advance the story, rather than it’s historical accuracy.
Because by that metric Black Hawk Down was a crappy movie, 24 is a bullshit show, and Modern Warfare is a shitty game.
Nevermind how entertaining they are, let’s judge them on their realism…right?
21/11/2009 at 00:38 Funky Badger says:
Black Hawk Down was a *disgraceful* movie – which is different. MW2 would only be on that level if No Russian was set in Mumbai.
20/11/2009 at 23:19 Diogo Ribeiro says:
@Spacegirl: I only read the interview after, but posting the link here wasn’t meant as a reply to you. Seeing the time stamps now, it may seem like that was the idea but it wasn’t.
And also, I understand your point. It can be exhasperating to see certain games’ coverage swell up like this, to the point that everyone seems they have something to say. I can understand the minuses – ie., high profile game causes controversy, everyone wants to get on the attention train – but I wouldn’t discard the positive side-effect, though: that, for some, it was a game that cause a genuine response and people felt the genuine need to talk about it. I spent some time wondering if I should make a blog post about it for that reason, for instance – there are way too many sites, blogs, forums and whatever drowned by the topic – but if it had not moved me in any way, I would have kept shut (besides, no one ever reads my blog, I can be as trendy or archaic as I want, lol).
21/11/2009 at 00:01 ouslorrd says:
This post is 100500% bullshit. It is.
21/11/2009 at 02:14 Tim says:
I’m with Kadayi. MW may have been a little far fetched, but it was still plausible.
You know why I read Rock Paper Shotgun? Because of this kind of writing. I want games journalism to take an intelligent stance(or take any stance for that matter) on this kind of thing. Giving every big budget title a perfect 10 does not count as taking a stance by the way.
21/11/2009 at 03:14 Michael says:
“That’s what sickens me. It’s that they had the balls to try to do this… and they blew it. They fucking blew it. Anyone else who tries it will be living in their diseased shadow.”
Good. They’ll look at how polished IW’s productions are and they’ll look at how badly they choked on that level and they’ll realize that real, proper, human story telling that actually affects people is bloody hard. It’s hard enough in books – a well developed medium. It’s scarcely been achieved at all in computer games. Ever. So if you are going to have a crack at it, don’t push all your chips in on the first hand – wait until you’ve figured out what winning is and how to do it, first.
21/11/2009 at 03:34 Miggs says:
If you want pointless killing go play Postal 2! Where you can burn people alive and then pee on them to wipe the fire out!
21/11/2009 at 03:35 Andrei Sebastian says:
The post is’nt bullshit at all in fact. (@ ouslorrd)
Haleluiah! Finally some words of wisdom. It turns out I can count on RPS after all. I think I’ve basically bashed the living hell out of CoD6 by now in every forum or comment thread, the sad part is that it’s not so much bashing as it is strongly argumented critique.
The reason behind this attitude and the most saddening fact that I seemed to nurture on this topic is that no other main game site seems to realise the failure of this scene/level, even less seriousness of such a failure. Even Anthony Burch, which I’ve followed in videos or articles for some time, lost some of my respect in the MW2 Rant.
The fact that it sold 4.7 millions units in 24 hours is quite aggravating, and therefore (still)renders it relevant for discussion. “DMcCool ” Said it best: An issue is the fact that from now on whenever the debate of “Mature Games” or maturity in games or controversity in games itself comes up, this will be the one example we all have to deal with. You can’t exactly ignore it, this was gamings chance to show everyone it’s grown up.
P.S.
Did you actually saw how “the writer” looked like, seriously? I don’t know about you, but here in Romania we make fun of people that dress like that(white shirt with top buttons unlocked, really?) and have an avatar with stupid sunglasses to hide ugly eyes, probably smells of cheap cologne too. The fact that they considered at one point aliens(the irony is that outbrakes, viruses and chemical warfare would have been far more verisimile than the final plot they chose if done properly) speaks tons about their… wisdom.
21/11/2009 at 15:17 sana says:
P.S. your P.S. makes you look like an idiot
21/11/2009 at 03:49 Andrei Sebastian says:
Kieron bravely tries to find excuses for the game in the second part of the article and comes up with some very interesting theories, I did’nt even try.
As much as I would love to believe the aforementioned, it is more than obvious IW were nowhere near such a concept.
What I think basically happened was they got let’s say “scared” by the hype themselves – tried everything possible to make it all shiny, explosive, (ridiculously and stupidly) fast paced but in the process forgot to add substance, context, build up and tension.
21/11/2009 at 05:01 MadMatty says:
Get over it
21/11/2009 at 06:09 whitebrice says:
“It’s nothing more than that moment of revulsion (or, for those sort of gamers, excitement)”
By ” those sort of gamers” you mean console gamers, right?
21/11/2009 at 08:22 Jerry says:
No, I think he means gamers like my roommate who loved the airport level because he could kill dozens of helpless civilians, something he can’t do in real life because of the consequences. I.e., the same kind of gamer who plays Postal, Manhunt, or any other such controversial game….
21/11/2009 at 11:49 Barbellion says:
There is a morbid fascination to any kind of violence in games. 95% of games are about killing stuff. Even the most thoughtful, well-paced and emotionally moving FPS is still about shooting stuff in the face. Valve are the masters of this, and also understand more than anyone about the inherent contradiction of playing the role of saviour whilst shoooting most things that moves.
Witness the wholesale adoption of zombies as gaming’s current ubiquitous craze. It’s always been a popular scenario. L4D2 plays on both absolute carnage and small, human stories and creates something very special. The fact that all these Infected used to be people is both addressed and gleefully set about with a frying pan, even though the tragedies it tells of are more huge and horrifying than anything in MW2. If we didn’t find apocalyptic scenarios beguiling then there’d be no money in them at all. It’s an interesting dividing line – we can laugh at a zombie’s head bursting into jam because the context rules all. L4D and HL2 do not shy from the actual horror or the situation, and address it as thoroughly as a game with no solid plot can do.
To denigrate the likes of Manhunt or Postal 2 (the latter of which is admittedly shit) as simply appealing to psychopaths who are only bound by a sense of consequence in the real world so rely on games for a homicidal fix is really quite dodgy. Most games are murderous. MW2 at least manages to interject a philosophically fraught question mark into the whole process of bursting people with bullets, and has if nothing else proved that context is everything.
Kill all sons of bitches.
21/11/2009 at 12:04 Sagan says:
I just heard, that you can’t kill civilians in the German version. I don’t know what happens, but I guess you just can’t pull the trigger in the entire scene.
21/11/2009 at 13:53 Down Rodeo says:
About the implied torture, which a couple of people have picked up on – I would like to think that it’s not necessarily blindly accepted as the next step, as what *must be done*, I’d like to believe that it’s supposed to be slightly humorous (Ghost calmly sparking the wires from a car battery is at least a little funny) but also slightly unnerving. The sheer readiness that these men have, their willingness to cause someone pain until they divulge the information they want, is hopefully disturbing to the player. I know it was for me, it carries echoes of the midpart of MW1. Actually, I found that scene (Al-Asad’s safehouse) to be very powerful, and unnerving as I said before – as soon as Price finds out what he needs to know he disposes with the man’s life which presents the player with a moral “grey area”; yes he was an awful man who detonated a bomb but on the other hand to kill him so brutally in cold blood is not exactly what the war is being fought for. So that affected me quite a bit. It’s the same in the favelas, you need to find Makarov, undoubtedly this man who will help you get to him is evil (he’s shot and killed your driver and has endangered innocent citizens) but is torture the way forward?
Of course, the writers couls have placed both sections in with complete seriousness, and the average gamer response could be one of “lol”, but I hope not.
21/11/2009 at 14:11 wintermute says:
Hmm? No sarcasm, what am I missing?
Are you guys saying OMGTERRORISM is fresh and cool, while plain, old mass murder is so last decade?
:(
21/11/2009 at 15:20 Risingson says:
Just finished the level. It is not that bad, it is just too simple for having taken the risk of that controversial approach. Advance, you may kill some civilians, you make kill policemen. Advance. Kill other guys. Advance. End. Buh, after that crazy james bond level this is just too simple.
Though I appreciated the VERY dark humor touch of all the planes being delayed.
The game, for the little that I’ve played, has bettered some aspects of MW1, as the dreadful respawn, but the shock value isn’t here. But stop comparing this with Half Life 2, which is just too much of a masterpiece imho. And BTW, I really don’t think that writing has much importance here, but the level design.
21/11/2009 at 16:10 Demikaze says:
I’d just like to say I agree completely. I mentioned in Alex’s thread the idea of making the scene more dynamic, giving you options on how to act, such as shooting over civilians heads to keep up the charade, or being forced to shoot an innocent by the terrorist leader – and you have the option right there to turn on the terrorists, or kill the civilian for the greater good, or perhaps try to give them a non-lethal shot that has the group think you’ve killed the person when you have not. Rather than simply have a binary choice, make it more emergent, you have to make decisions on the fly, forced into difficult situations in which you have seconds to make a choice. At the moment, you’re right in saying the whole undercover infiltration thing is a huge cop-out, but that didn’t have to be the case.
21/11/2009 at 20:32 Calabi says:
The thing is games dont deal with player choices anymore, you must experience these fantastic stories they’ve created which are completely linear. You cannot say no, and who cares about emergence when we have such great stories and linearity as this, why would any one do anything else.
Will we ever see games where players are allowed to make a single choice effecting choice I wonder.
One other thing, pacing is a something which has been perfected in the movies. If you watch at least a few you will notice certain patterns, consistencies of what happens where. I wouldnt be surprised if they had computers which calculate the pacing of what goes where, but I’m sure they would have graphs, which denote emotional states, and not even a hack director would implement pacing like they did in this game.
I find it funny that these games try and emulate movies in every way and yet they still cant even do the simple things right, and take the lessons that have already been learned in that arena.
22/11/2009 at 13:35 Jayt says:
so THIS gets past Australian censorship but shooting zombies doesn’t?
Ugh
22/11/2009 at 15:18 Longasc says:
There are so many things wrong and dumb about the design and ideas behind MW2′s singleplayer mode that I would like to smack each of the devs one time for each copy of the game they sold. Because it is such a DISGRACE, really! :(
22/11/2009 at 21:29 poop says:
I was sort of interested about THAT LEVEL until I saw how FUCKING GIGANTIC all the civillians hands are and it is now really distracting :O
http://angryhosting-east.mirror.waffleimages.com/files/3a/3a00bd75c1cbdcaf61c242ef600bcb9f97121685.jpg
22/11/2009 at 23:04 Ninja says:
You have quite a few grammatical errors there, Kieron.
Fore-note: I played that level, they called me a coward when I didn’t fight the riot shield people and started firing at me (though on reflection it might be because I wasn’t right next to them). Then I got all the characters to glitch into a wooden crate, and they couldn’t get out. It was awesome. Unfortunately, there is an automatic death wall if you move too far ahead of everyone else.
I agree that they should have cut the level, it doesn’t feel like it should be there at all. Timing in the story hurts this mission the most. I would have understood it being after the SSDD (or whatever level had the pit) because it’s the same guy. But the counter-argument is that this shock level happens way too early and would set people up with this ideal that the rest of the game would be a terrorist/miliatry bloodbath.
There really isn’t much of a story with this level. All you’re “doing” is seeing terrorists kill people. And the game forces you to watch (or join in). Really. There is no point to this level (you die at the end anyways). If they wanted to fit this into the story, have Shepard talk about during one of the briefings, because (several people have told me they did this too) when I played through it the game kept on punishing me for killing Makarov. It’s not my fault I want to kill the bad guy and save the day.
Makarov is right there, any person with a little bit of logic would realize it would make so much more sense to take out Makarov! The level description tells us that we have to earn Makarov’s trust. But the fact that his back is facing you the whole time (because the game will kill you if you move too far ahead of Makarov), makes me think he already has some trust for you. I mean, I wouldn’t let someone I didn’t trust watch my back if I was some powerful/psychotic ringleader. He obviously trusts you a bit. And considering that you’ve already completed the level objective before you even start, the level is pointless.
I do have a feeling that if this rationalization had to be counter-pointed by IW, the reasoning would be that Makarov would be a “martyr”. However, that’s not necessarily the case. We know from Shepard’s monologues that Makarov strikes fear into the citizens as well as harming the Russian government. Shepard also notes that Makarov doesn’t fight for “any country or any set of ideals, he trades blood for money.”
I’m pretty sure if the US decided to take him out at the Airport level, no one would be angry at the US (despite his organization [but that could be taken out pretty easily, considering how hard it was to get you to the Airport with Makarov]) for doing so. The US couldn’t be afraid of him becoming a martyr, since we know from the DOZENS of newspapers and other articles shown that all he has done is just strike “fear” and that’s all he does. Makarov kills for the fun of it (though it could be because of that guy from the last game’s son. If that’s the case, this connection has been poorly drawn out and is not a valid argument [because any evidence does not exist except for the one "for [whatever the guy's name was]” but I don’t even think that line is said by Makarov).
It seemed like IW was trying to recreate the reaction that most people had in the level where you are crawling around after the nuke in CoD4, but failed miserably. Too bad they couldn’t even catch how poorly done No Russian was.
23/11/2009 at 09:58 theanorak says:
Nowhere near finished yet but I did just get past the No Russian level. Found it rather obvious and a little irritating. I found the moment in the next(?) level where, having shot a guy in the legs, I left him tied to a chair with one of my “colleagues” making ooh-look-it’s-time-for-electrical-torture sparks with a pair of big alligator clips **considerably** more distasteful. Implausibly mowing down an airportful of civvies was the emotional moment, but systematic instinctive torture is such a non-issue that we just skip blithely by? Nice.
23/11/2009 at 11:54 Cooper says:
Well said.
I cringed when I first heard about this. For the sake of games a a cultural medium in any kind developers need to have the confidence to go -there- (wherever that may be).
Leaving that to a bunch of Hollywood knock off wannabies makes me a little sick. Postal 2 is fine – it knows what it’s doing, and is rightly not ashamed of it.
I never get the feeling that IW know what they were trying to do with this. Other than a marketing gimmick. For which they should be ashamed.
23/11/2009 at 12:01 Digital Gigolo says:
‘Remember – no Russian’.
A defining moment in video game history. Modern Warfare’s unflinching depiction of civilian slaughter, brutal, uncensored and so very real, ranks alongside Stephen Spielberg’s Munich and Gus Van Sant’s Elephant as a stark reminder of the terror and mayhem that a few guns in the wrong hands can wreak.
There’s no cartoon violence here to mitigate the horror. Death is violent and bloody. The wounded drag their broken bodies away from the gunfire, smearing the clinically white airport floor with their glistening innards. A pretty blonde props her bullet torn body against a wall, helpless, entirely at the mercy of the approaching terrorists. The woefully inadequate security guards manage to squeeze off a few shots before crumpling under a hail of machine gun fire. And the slaughter continues, relentlessly, at snails pace, forcing you to witness every atrocity in a dreamlike stupor. To progress you simply must collude in the carnage. There is no way to avoid it. Yes, you can choose to spare the few civilians who survive the initial volley of bullets. But the shielded riot squad must be killed if you want to continue. It’s a moral Catch-22.
Think back a year. Grand Theft Auto IV. Early in the game you’re given a decision to make – a choice to assassinate either Playboy X or Dwayne. Who did you kill? Did you make the right choice? It’s exactly this uncertainty, prompted by your decision, that created the illusion of a profound turning point in the game. Deciding who to kill was distinctly harder than the actual act of killing.
An interesting fact: Jesse Stern, scriptwriter for MW2, said, ‘every single person in testing opened fire on the crowd’. The overwhelming majority of us, when given the choice between active participant and mute bystander, chose to pull the trigger. No biggie, just pull the trigger. The police, after all, are armed – kill or be killed. Besides, it was part of their job description – protect the public. But the civilian with his hands held high in that naked gesture of utter helplessness was a guilty pleasure. Destroying the innocent. Total empowerment.
It’s at this point that I started to feel a little sullied by the whole experience, a bit dirty.
I had a choice and I chose to kill.
That a first person shooter can provoke such profound emotion, can deal with such weighty world issues without resorting to adolescent absolutes, is a turning point. Modern Warfare 2 is the first video game that seriously attempts to understand a post 9/11 world. It’s a game that stands shoulder to shoulder with United 93 and The Second Plane as a chillingly effective exploration of terror in the 21st century.
Jesse Stern sums it up nicely when he says, ‘I never really knew you could elicit such a deep feeling from a video game’.
Well you can Jessie me old son. And you did.
http://digitalgigolo.blogspot.com/2009/11/remember-no-russian.html
23/11/2009 at 16:51 Andrei Sebastian says:
You’re kdding, right? Basically you just represented how it should have been.
Kieron enumerated all the reasons it is’nt.
24/11/2009 at 03:10 Soundofvictory says:
I think overall the level is actually quite good. It leaves the player the freedom to play how they want to (as any good game should), while still guiding the player through a very specific path/sequence of events. There is clearly a purpose for the level as it sets up the events of the rest of the game. I don’t think there really needs to be a ‘set-up’ or explanation for it because it could reasonably be pinned on ‘Makarov is one of those Bad Men.’ Furthermore it definitely evoked a feeling as no other game has before it, which I consider a good thing. Sure there were plot holes throughout this level and the game which did detract from it, but these guys are in the business of making games. And I would like to believe (perhaps this is a bit too optimistic) that any narrative holes were begrudgingly left in order to make the game play better and thus result in more fun.
24/11/2009 at 18:58 sigma83 says:
The major problem with the schizophrenia MW2′s plot has is that emotional resonance has no time to build. Compare the AC-130 Spectre mission in the first MW1. It’s insane-blow-shit-up-madness, but you’re in constant contact with the ground team, which you just were in control of. And then after that, you’re back to the ground team.
There are some seriously bad-ass moments in MW2. The (spoilers obv) green-flaring of the white house was a great moment, as was most of the washington mission. The problem with that is that you get not a lot of the larger sense of the conflict.
Again, contrast with MW1, where you felt like part of a larger invasion force instead of just being thrust into a pretty set piece. The opening montage of MW1′s Shock & Awe (which is probably my favorite FPS level of all time, although I have yet to compile a complete list of entries) has you flying into the battle in a troop helicopter. You watch the rest of the invasion force; tanks, jets, attack helis, all roll into the city, and your mission is humanitarian in nature; apart from the requisite blowing up of ground defenses, you spend the rest of the mission rescuing a pinned down Ranger chalk.
And then, as you speed away into the sunset, triumphant, your escort attack heli gets shot down. In a scene that _never_ loses its power for me, the pilot radios Mayday Mayday as she plummets Black Hawk Down style into the city, where she is immediately swarmed by militia. What else is there to do? You rescue her, with suitably bad-ass manner: fight off her attackers, pull her from the wreckage and haul ass back to the chopper under heavy fire. You’re a big damn hero. Roll on snare drum. Curtains.
Just as MW1 drew life from Black Hawk Down, MW2 takes blood from 24 and Generation Kill. Difference is, MW1 made me go ‘Oh this is some Black Hawk Down shit’ whereas MW2 made me go ‘Oh they’ve watched some Generation Kill.’
TL;DR: No buildup = no payoff.
24/11/2009 at 19:01 sigma83 says:
Postscript: MW2 never reached the MW1 levels of epicness. Crew Expendable? The execution of Al-Asad? Pripyat?
It does some things better, but in fragments and bursts, not as part of a contiguous whole.
24/11/2009 at 23:34 Anomalous says:
It’s possible you weren’t paying close enough attention, but they didn’t sail any ships. The whole point of hacking the ACS module was so they could fly thousands of planes across without being noticed until it was too late.
25/11/2009 at 13:19 Saucy Hotdog says:
I’m sorry……..from a site that offers a reply function, only to be shown, “Wot you want to say” I’m not sure I can take your thoughts all too seriously!
Anyway without going into a rant of how OTT you being with a false sense of intelligence, have you completely forgotten that this is a game?
Maybe you should jump off your wee pedestal there and PLAY the game instead off trying to instil a political/personal/moral response from other gamers
28/11/2009 at 13:30 Neut says:
It’s just a game, it’s just a film, it’s just a book, it’s just a painting, it’s just a poem etc. etc.
30/11/2009 at 21:12 Demonir says:
Kieron Gillen I agree with you completely. I am a Russian myself and this is a scene I was very offended…
30/11/2009 at 21:46 irony says:
THIS article is bullshit.
war IS porn … did anyone read newspaper???? did anyone knows what happens around the globe???
leave the games for a while and watch the REAL world, and you’ll really feel ashame of your own government. this games are NOTHING new. i live in a country where i see violence almost every day, i play games, i play ‘no russians’ and i DIDN’T take a gun and open fire on my nearest airport.
GROW UP! it’s just a game! or do you feel bad when you’re shooting nazis, or africans in re5 … or brazilians in mw2??
i bet you Kieron: how many sisters do you harvest in your loved bioshock?
04/12/2009 at 12:23 Tom says:
Another typically pretentious and over wordy pseudo-analysis by game journalism’s favourite self important wannabe philosopher kieron gillen
04/12/2009 at 12:31 Ian says:
Saucy Hotdog is right on the money.
Having put “Wot you want to say” shows you up for the shameless shams you clearly are. Use of the word “wot” tells us clearly you should only be allowed to talk about shaving your knuckles and breasts.
Before we call the Angry Internet Men to get you for having the barefaced temerity to post on your own blog, please shut the site down immediately.
Neither thank or curse Nuffle. You’ll get punished either way.
04/12/2009 at 12:39 Tei says:
I know everyone can have a opinion. And that is good.
But… I think I know something about words, I could be wrong, but here I choose to trusth my ability to detect quality. And this article is well written, is a good article.
A old say was…
“If I can’t attack what you say, I will attack your spelling”.
The irony metter is high wen we see over wordy versions of the TL;DR type of comment with the words “over wordy”.
11/12/2009 at 14:47 ThunderDownUnder says:
If you don’t like it don’t play it and go and stick your head in the sand. F&$K sake. Intelligent comments on a video game won’t make your e-penis bigger and it won’t make the “scary game producers” stop. Fact is whether you bitch about it or not they will keep making movies and games in this manner. The writers won’t go “OMG someone on rock paper shotgun thinks my work was controversial so I will stop now.” I live in Australia and it was allowed to be distributed here. Nuff said.
14/12/2009 at 04:27 Thomas says:
So you’re saying that everyone should “get over” the fact that video games are failing to have emotional impact on the players? That it’s fine that the execution is so flawed that final result is “an interesting level”?
Did you even read more than the first sentence? This isn’t about it being controversial, it’s about Infinity Ward wasting the potential that they had with this level. You should read the entire article before you offer a response to it.
27/12/2009 at 22:11 rutherford says:
I’m glad someone else found the plot confusing and disjointed.
And all to fit in an outrageous clone of WaW’s Reichstag too.
29/03/2010 at 09:33 ed hardy says:
I’m not quite agreeing with Karry’s wonderful desire for an American killing sim (wasn’t Postal enough for you?), but I think we should wonder about IW’s use of Russians as massacre fodder. Why not place the massacre at JFK, if controversy is your goal?
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