090
using night vision is genuinely unsettling as
the reality of war comes to a quiet street near
you. It’s the appalling possibility of accidentally
shooting innocents that anchors these, and many,
of the new Modern Warfare’s missions.
The controls, visuals, and sound design make
every weapon feel powerful – guns are weighty
and impactful, and shots reverberate around, in,
and out of the screen with a powerful kerr-chunk
or wheezing zip. Infinity Ward has gone out of
its way to make you feel powerful, then scattered
the levels with women, children, and fleeing
shoppers – whether in London’s Piccadilly Circus
or chasing a terrorist through the streets of St
Petersburg – to make you feel the consequences
of pulling the trigger.
In one scene I see a terrorist taking aim at
some shoppers, but a child runs into my line of
sight; I can shoot both child and terrorist and
save all the innocent people, or hold fast and
let more passers-by die to save the kid. It’s not
scripted, it’s the consequence of a situation. I feel
bad and restart the checkpoint.Pushing you through these
missions is the need to find
a cache of stolen chemical
weapons, the game’s overt
theme. The real question the
campaign asks, however, is
‘How far would you go?’ Are
you prepared to put a gun
to the heads of a terrorist’s
wife and child to extract
information? Well, that’s a
choice you face in Modern
Warfare. Don’t worry, Captain
Price won’t feel less of you if
you opt out, which you can
thankfully do.
Captain Price regularly asks
his team to cross more than
borders to keep the world safe.
“When you take off the gloves
you get blood on your hands,”
he says like a Bourne-again
Gandalf delivering words of
wisdom amid the chaos.NO RUSSIAN
Despite these moments the
game still leans into stereotypes
to sell its perspective - the
maniacal general Markovgoes full Rambo III, American
soldiers are selfless heroes, the
CIA can’t be trusted... While
the world Modern Warfare
paints is one of greys, its heroes
and villains are still sharply
black-and-white.
Female resistance leader
Farah Karim does manage to
rise above the tropes that try
to sell her struggle. Callback
missions to her childhood can
feel mechanical as they clutch
at your heartstrings – a gassed,
dying dog takes its last breath
while women and children are
lined-up and shot by those
‘evil’ Russians. Yet they can
also deliver some effective
gameplay: as a young Farah
you must crawl unseen under
tables and through air vents
in your burning family home
to stab an invading Russian
to death with scissors and
screwdrivers. It’s horrific and
brutal, and regularly plays as a
thread through this character’s
missions until the final
confrontation with Markov.“THE REAL QUESTION THE
CAMPAIGN ASKS IS ‘HOW
FAR WOULD YOU GO?’”
Right Running
on a new game
engine, Modern
Warfare looks
stunning.Left Missions
vary and enable
you to play
with all sorts
of gadgets, like
these drones.Can you stop the
terrorists in Piccadily
Circus and avoid killing
any innocent civilians?