"Editorial" Explanation of My Impressions of MW2

A lot of people were up in arms for the past two weeks with a few things. There was the Fort Hood shooting, which is indeed a valid reason to be up in arms (though for some, the wrong reason, meaning not the shootings themselves). But, the normally ridiculous thing was a level in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 that involved you playing as a CIA operative during an undercover operation in a terrorist unit, shooting in an airport, killing innocents. But, there are two questions: Was the level necessary? and Was the killing in it called for?

Well, here are my answers (and my opinion): No and no. But, its not for the reasons you may be thinking. I saw someone playing this level, and I will say this: it does what it's supposed to, and that's show you the atrocities of terrorism. Might I add that this level does it well, too, but to an extent. Yes, you witness the death of hundreds of people, civilians and police alike, and you do take part in this... but you can choose when you do. What this amounts to is the player going through the level without firing a shot until a certain where you have to defend yourself.

If you ask me, this is actually counter productive for the message. I am not saying that they should've made it so that you had to kill innocent people, although, oddly enough, that would've pushed the message across more accurately, but that'd be way too overboard. For everything that is shown in the game, it might as well be a cutscene until the last five minutes of the level, because, for those of us who wouldn't want to kill innocents (like myself), that's essentially what it is.

In the question of the killing, that's a little harder to answer, but I still have to say "no." This isn't "no" meaning that the level is in it of itself senseless violence, quite the contrary. Again, it makes you sick, ergo, it did its job. Instead, the killing is senseless in the meaning that, again, you aren't the one doing the killing. No matter what you, no one survives. Again, this goes to making it more of a cutscene, which would've had the same, if not a slightly diminished but still effective, message. It seems that the message, though, with everyone dying no matter what is that you can't save them (true, due to the nature of the mission, I realize), instead of one showing the pain and trauma of terrorism.

Ironically, what Infinity Ward set out to do comes out as a completely different message. Its supposed to show the horror of what the terrorists do, by making you go undercover as one of them. Instead, it comes out as a cutscene (one you can choose to interact in, and still not kill noncombatants) that shows more or less just killing, and the terrorism seems as backdrop. Its there, don't get me wrong, but for what it was, several games have done this better, i.e. Manhunt, or Without Warning, both on the Playstation 2.

If they wanted to show the horrors of terrorism, they should have had you play as an unarmed civilian, running through the airport, trying to save himself, but ultimately failing. Towards the end, each step gets harder and harder, each breath is more labored. You look down, and see your chest is blood red as you collapse. With your last breath, you see one of them point his gun at you --bang-- the screen goes black. I bet your feeling sick and horrified at just thinking about that. Isn't that the point, though?

In fact, Modern Warfare the first did something like that. The player's helicopter crashes after a nuclear missile detonates. After it lands, you have one objective: get help. First thing you do is collapse, then crawl until you die. It's frightening, and effective, more so, I feel than MW2's level. But I guess they couldn't compete with that.