The Charge

KA-BLOOIEEE!!!!

Opening Statement

Infinity Ward developed a first-person shooter and it made fifty quadrillion dollars.  Nothing I say here will have any effect on that.  But this bandwidth isn’t going to burn itself!

Facts of the Case

There’s a crazy Russian d-bag running around with mass homicide on his mind and it falls to guys with names like “Soap” and “Roach” and “Ghost” to mount up and fire hundreds of thousands of bullets in the general direction of their nemeses.

The Evidence

That’s really as deep as the narrative goes, which is kind of a shame because Infinity Ward sure knows how to put together jawdropping, cinematic action scenes.  I was consistently amazed at the amount of pyrotechcnics and carnage that was  around every corner.

There are some truly pulse-pounding moments, from the back-alley urban warfare in Rio to the surreal full-scale counter-assualt in DC to the snowmobile and raft chases and, my favorite, the suburban assault in Virgina (there’s something about dodging RPGs in two-story colonials).

Unfortunately, the storyline is too haphazard to tie these elements together.  The plot is essentially told with voice-overs in between levels on the loading screen.  So when you’re partaking in the controversial civilian shooting gallery in the airport, it’s not grounded in an story, and, as a result, the sequence doesn’t seem earned and ends up simply feeling gratuitous.

Then again this a game where you’re running through the burned-out streets of DC and helicopters are falling from the sky so subtlelty is not what Infinity Ward is going for.

Setting aside the uninvolving plot, this is still a barn-burner of a gaming experience, a technical marvel that blasts out some of the best current-gen graphics to date and sound work that is unrivaled.  I mean, you have Hans fricking Zimmer composing your score–that’s when you know you’ve arrived, methinks.

Gameplay is expectedly tight and satisfying and the weapon selection is diverse.  And you’re spared a gimmicky night vision bombing aside, instead handed some nifty Predator drone missles to fire on unsuspecting fools, which is especially nice when you pop out of aim mode in time to witness the resulting fireworks.

Closing Statement

Overall, the campaign isn’t long but it’s big and loud and fun and sets the table nicely for the main course in the franchise: the multiplayer.  If you’re just interested in running through the single-player Modern Warfare 2 is worth a rental.  The game will make your A/V set-up pound.

The Verdict

Not Guilty.