We're back for more discussion of the only (?) video game that includes inspirational quotes from both Gandhi and Dick Cheney. Let's discuss three more levels.
Today's Game Club meeting covers:
-The Gulag
-Of Their Own Accord
-Contingency
These levels have situated the game, in my mind, as something I think I'm going to like less than Call of Duty IV: Modern Warfare and Call of Duty: World At War, at least in terms of the campaign.
I liked IV's campaign a lot, appreciating its set-pieces and its depiction of some memorably odd moments of war (the opening assassination, the hiding in the reeds as an army walked and rolled just about over me, the detached aerial bombardment of a small enemy town, etc.).
I liked World At War's depiction of some of war's more unpleasant situations (the use of flamethrowers as weapons, the turning of an anti-air gun on enemy infantry, the unchecked vengeance of angry Russians against their vile German enemy, etc.)
I thought Modern Warfare 2's campaign was going to embrace more of those weird moments of war, those peculiarities of conflict. The Afghan enemy just standing on the balcony in the game's second level or even the abnormal event of the No Russian level mined that. But at the point of the game we're discussing now, the scenes being depicted, while exciting and impressive, feel more conventional.
How's the campaign shaping up for others this far in? Do you find yourself, this far in, unavoidable sizing it up against other entries in the series?
NOTE - The next Game Club meeting will be on Friday, same time as this one, 2pm Kotaku Time, 4pm ET. We'll be covering levels 13-15.