Call of Duty: Modern Warfare review: The most candid and straightforward campaign

With Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, Activision finally remembered what made it famous.

Activision and players have been unhappy with Call of Duty campaigns for a long time. It is true that in the current market environment, "campaign" is no longer the biggest selling point of "Call of Duty", and the more playable multiplayer mode is the root of ensuring player engagement. But as the "Call of Duty" started with the campaign, its campaign is like the Spring Festival Gala, may everyone clamor for hope, food tasteless, but once the game is released, the campaign performance is poor - even if ordinary, it is still the most easy to become a trigger for player dissatisfaction, or make the player after a year, return to the "New Year goods" topic of an introduction.

To this end, Activision previously chose to return to World War II when the "future" and "science fiction" war themes were slightly tired, and handed over a heavy "World War II" theme in the history of human war in "Call of Duty: World War II". It was also the beginning of the Call of Duty series.

And more importantly, although "World War II" is old for players, it is actually a "new" face that has been absent for too long according to the series timeline. This is similar to Assassin's Creed: Origins, since the series timeline has been pushed too far ahead, can expand the Settings to expand almost, it is better to directly return to the theme has left a feeling in the player's mind, and can allow the player to pick up fresh nodes.

However, for the most commercially valuable game IP in the world, the campaign performance of Call of Duty: WWII is still lackluster. Part of the scene setting in the level can let the series veteran players know what will happen next at a glance. Some foreign media's praise of the game is also mostly focused on the zombie mode and multiplayer mode, and the campaign still pointed out some specific flaws, such as rush work, and the plot logic is insufficient.

In Call of Duty: Black Ops 4, the campaign was cut. In today's "Call of Duty", also known as "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare", Activision seems to realize that although "World War II" is the origin of the series, but in the campaign part of the "Call of Duty" really made the name of the "Modern warfare" trilogy starring Price and Makarov. And so, in this battle, Captain Price returned.

The most unshy and straightforward battle

The first thing to note is that this time around, when Price appears in the script, the player does not see the scene of old acquaintances hugging and crying. Since the previous trilogy had finished the story completely, the team members and the villains were almost completely dead, except for Price. Just like the title of this generation's Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, the subtitle has no sequence numbers, and the old characters will appear in rotation, but the plot and timeline are completely parallel to the previous work.

Even said, if not for the final ending has a memorable emotional shot, Price's presence in the campaign is actually relatively weak. This has to do with the improved graphics brought by the new engine and the pace of the campaign.

Regardless of the feel, with the blessing of the new engine, the picture quality of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare has indeed reached the highest level in the history, and the optimization is excellent. The characters' faces come to life, with textures and colors that make them feel more alive - or more vibrant, rather than stagnant. As far as Price is concerned, in terms of modeling precision, he is very different from the captain of the year. When the bullet is fired, the effect of the powder particles diffused on the side of the gun is more clear and realistic. The diffusion effect of light sources such as street lights and flames in the night scene is also moving closer to the reality, creating a night battle experience that is quite fresh.

Still, at least for this generation, Activision doesn't seem to be planning to write too many thrilling chapters for Price, Soap and others with the new engine. This time, most of the ink has fallen on a newcomer - a female leader in the Middle East known as Farah.

Activision has long been accustomed to allowing players to experience the war from the perspective of different sides and different characters in the campaign, and to promote the plot in multiple lines. In Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, this is almost the ultimate in the series.

In the middle of this campaign, Activision inserted a series of memories of Farah's childhood and being imprisoned by the enemy. It is worth mentioning that in this section of the young Farah escape and fight back against the enemy level, the player manipulated the little girl is able to run and jump, as well as, can swing sharp instruments, raise guns and shoot.

Through the poppy bush

Perhaps Activision is trying to create a sense of oppression similar to Resident Evil 2's "Tyrant" in this level, where the little girl is trying to hide her tracks, a single shot will kill her, and the slightest mistake will cause the level to fail. The enemy soldiers were as slow but deadly as the tyrants. Overall, these levels are brutally depicted and put enough pressure on the player.

But at the same time, and it may vary from person to person, what I felt in these levels was that my shock at Activision's bold and unflinching depictions dominated and completely overshadowed everything else.

The previously mentioned plot inside the prison also requires the player to take on the role of Farah at the time and experience a long period of torture. It could be argued that what Call of Duty: Modern Warfare is doing is giving the player more of a perspective of the people involved in the war outside of the military. This also happened in previous battles, but not in large numbers.

In addition, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare's campaign is probably the most mixed with civilians.

In this generation of campaigns, part of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare's interpretation of the term "modern warfare" is that the war spreads to modern cities, such as some of Europe's iconic cities. Enemy forces will storm the city and fire indiscriminately. At a certain level, when explosions and gunfire suddenly become overwhelming, the system does not give the player a precise direction and path guidance, but allows the player to survive and protect the people.

At that time, this setting of the system made me particularly happy, it made me feel slightly confused about the direction, and the city, or around me, was full of fallen police and enemy troops, and the atmosphere of despair was particularly strong.

Some action in the dark is one of the results of the new engine visual effects. When the environment is completely dark, the lighting range of the gun tactical light will be extremely limited, and the effect is about the same as the "flashlight in the horror game" joked about on the Internet. In this way, the sense of crisis when the player is in the dark is multiplied, and the dust particles in the air and the footsteps that echo from time to time in the empty workshop will also make the player more nervous. Finding an enemy's location also became difficult - or involved more tactical and conscious elements, such as listening to sound.

Some of the scenes of floor by floor house sweeps at night are closer to the scope of modern SWAT law enforcement. The way the team members positioned, pushed, and searched the corridors was exactly the same as recorded in a special police training book I had read. For example, the field of vision of the 4-person team when advancing between the corridors, the detection of corners, the double cooperation when breaking the door, and so on, the details are very professional.

One of the things that pleased me about this campaign was that Call of Duty's formulaic design of clearing the enemy in a nondescribable bunker area was much less. Instead, the flow and length of individual chapters have been drastically reduced. For example, the night cleaning chapter mentioned earlier, the player clears 3 or 4 floors, the chapter ends.

If it was before, it might also add a design of shooting at the enemy at a distance in the street after walking out of the building to increase the level content and support the length of time. But this time there really are very few. Except for a battle in a hospital, the design was almost formulaic at the time, but Activision added new features like "tripwire grenade" to increase the variation.

And, perhaps by design, most of the animation between each chapter of the campaign is extremely short. It's about as short as a simple conversation in a chapter. At the beginning of the chapter, there are no longer large sections of rendering and foreshadowing, and most of them go straight to the theme.

There is little sense of division between chapters. So when I first started writing the first four chapters in two hours, I thought I was still in chapter one. In my impression, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare also seems to have deliberately hidden the progress bar and Loading icon for chapter loading, or it is so subtle that I am completely unaware of it.

Coupled with the new Settings in the level and the thrilling script, the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare campaign gave me the feeling that it was actually close to the "mirror to the end". Of course, the multi-line narrative that Call of Duty is good at can't be "one mirror to the end", but the flow and rhythm of its overall episodic narrative is broadly similar.

But also because of the pure narrative and background content introduction is not much, "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare" campaign always gives a sense of unfinished business. The story seemed to end as soon as it began. The fucking villain is dead, too. The conspiracy behind the war has only uncovered the tip of the iceberg, which is not very enjoyable.

Regarding the campaign, there are also some debates related to "bottom line" and "political orientation". In some of the "bottom line" related levels, I didn't try to do something extremely bad that would have consequences, but just the in-game display was enough to confuse the player about the boundaries of "double mark" or "good and evil."

There are no specific examples here to avoid revealing the plot and causing discomfort. But I say this detail, this time Call of Duty: Modern Warfare before entering the campaign list page, it pops up a content warning option in advance to let the player confirm. Later, in a certain chapter, a dialogue option is deliberately designed to avoid the plot, to "warn" the player twice.

The multiplayer mode remains at a good level

One of the key operational changes in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare is the addition of the "gun" function. The player can mount the gun at almost any corner of cover to shoot while reducing the area of the body leaning out, and the Angle of view is very easy to change. In addition, the player can remove the gun mode by moving the character at will, which is very convenient to use.

Combined with the map with the larger area and more corners in this generation of multiplayer mode, you will find that there are more players squatting in the corner of the shadow. But this is more or less in conflict with the fast-paced, high-intensity competitive confrontation that has characterized Call of Duty for generations. The number of trolls and Broadsword mines will increase dramatically.

Another operation worth digging into is the interaction with the door. The player can push hard on the door and it will be opened quickly. But if you're unlucky, the broadsword mine behind the door will trigger and kill you. Another option is to gently open a crack in the door, slowly move forward, carefully survey the field of view, and then push the door open.

The 2v2 mode is more straightforward. In a small area of the map, the two sides are randomly assigned the same gun, team up to fight. In less than 10 seconds. There is basically no Yin people, just look at the limit of hand speed and accuracy.

As for the cooperation mode this time, it is really difficult. A team of four on a PVE mission. If a player falls, they can help each other. However, the number of AI constantly coming up on the field is really a lot. With the slightest mistake, the AI can easily circle to the uncovered side of the player. It often ends up with four players running towards each other, trying to save their lives.

64 player Big Battlefield mode gameplay close to Battlefield. Take points, get points. But this generation of maps is really a lot of buildings, very three-dimensional. Players are basically standard with trolls and broadsword mines. So although the map is bigger and there are more people, the taste of "street fighting" is stronger when playing.

Conclusion

Overall, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare delivers a campaign mode that has stood out in history. The rhythm is almost the best in history. The plot is also bold and immersive. But the plot is really too little, just the beginning is gone. The visual and sound effects brought by the new engine for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare are also very significant, which is not wrong to restart the "Modern warfare" theme.

At least for now, what I'm most looking forward to for next year's Call of Duty is that it will be the second game in this reboot of Modern Warfare - of course, that's not possible, and next year's Call of Duty has been confirmed as Black Ops 5. But in terms of quality, I hope so.