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That part of it is quite clear- with Allen being the dumb fall guy who doesn't kill Makarov when he has the chance, despite being told that Makarov is the target of the operation.

What I'm wondering about is the raid on the castle in Siberia, where Our Heroes from TF 141 bust out Captain Price- and where they nearly get flattened because the US Navy is bombarding the place at the time. I can't figure out what the rationale is- are they too pissed about the invasion of America to not bomb the fuck out of the place, or were they ordered to bombard excessively by Shepard, who's trying to come up with a plausibly-deniable way to make the raid fail, on account of him knowing who's in that gulag and not wanting Price to get out alive? Because Price pretty much goes rogue; even if he's nominally part of TF 141, he does a lot of very questionable things on his own initiative and is plainly likely to put two and two together if evidence of Shepard's treachery should ever arise.

If he did want to get everybody in there killed, he'd have just...not asked the Navy to stop their fire mission. It started well before they recovered Price.

It's still a fucking stupid sequence: it's not like the gulag is some critical enemy installation they can't afford not to destroy before the russkies react. The Navy should be perfectly capable of, you know, coordinating their fire missions with their own fucking assault teams. It's not actually very hard in this situation.

On the thing with Allen, I'd think it would've been pretty neat if they set him up as indifferent to civilian suffering, perhaps even comitting a war crime himself.

I agree. I'm just trying to remember if there was anything specific going on that explains it, or if anyone else remembers it?

As in yes, stupidity, but was it plot imposed stupidity or just "we want to have our characters extracted from an exploding building which means we need the Navy to be bombing the place while our characters are inside?"

Simon_Jester wrote:I agree. I'm just trying to remember if there was anything specific going on that explains it, or if anyone else remembers it?

Nothing I can recall seems to explain it. Maybe the Navy's just pissed and wants to blow up something on Russian soil, but they have an important port right next door and ignore it

Simon_Jester wrote:As in yes, stupidity, but was it plot imposed stupidity or just "we want to have our characters extracted from an exploding building which means we need the Navy to be bombing the place while our characters are inside?"

I think it was the latter.

Man, it was good nobody got killed while riding that rope up through a tunnel full of sharp debris.

Incidentally, what were the Navy bombarding the gulag with? Certinaly wasn't absurdly expensive missiles I hope.

Eternal_Freedom wrote:Incidentally, what were the Navy bombarding the gulag with? Certinaly wasn't absurdly expensive missiles I hope.

Even spending shells and bombs on it was a horrible waste when Petropavlovsk was right next door and oh BTW housed SSBNs.

Yeah. Modern Warfare. Hooah!

EDIT: I think the biggest problem was there were SEALs and Marines doing the gulag assault, too ; So people in the navy's command ranks, which made their gung ho attitude even worse. Was there a reason they couldn't have the Russians bombard the place? Only Americans are allowed to go all broken arrow broken arrow hooooah?

Bah humbug. I'll take the advice given above and think of the game as an interactive Micheal Bay film. Makes more sense that way.

Eternal_Freedom wrote:Bah humbug. I'll take the advice given above and think of the game as an interactive Micheal Bay film. Makes more sense that way.

That isn't a bad approach. The game is pretty fun, and hell poking holes in the story is fun by itself

Only a few parts are actually outright intellectually offensive, like that thing with Makarov and the airport masacre, which could've been fixed with a grand total of one line of non-melodramatic dialogue.

And the russian invasion out of nowhere I suppose.

In other words...the game's fine, and the only bits that are really offensive are the main plot points of the first two acts

Eternal_Freedom wrote:In other words...the game's fine, and the only bits that are really offensive are the main plot points of the first two acts

I felt quite insulted during the final boat chase. You just hold down fire and uzi your way through about 50 guys without even vaguely aiming. Where on earth was the skill or logic behind that bit? How can a hundred elite guys not manage to puncture a rubber boat?

All this shit about the storyline just makes me sad regardless of whether it does or doesn't make sense. Call of Duty was perfectly fine *without* epic nerd wank tacticool storywriting. It's just evidence of the state of affairs in the video game industry that people really think you need this shit in a video game. I wouldn't mind so much if plot didn't frequently get in the WAY of gameplay. Unfortunately many developers seem to be more interested in writing a fan fiction than making a game.

It would be interesting if MW3 dealth with America counter attacking Russia, but having the rest of Europe still uneasy about the whole thing and trying to get a diplomatic solution.

America's response: "Fuck you, we'll attack Russia by going through your stupid countries!"

So World War 3 is America/U.K. versus France/ Germany/ Russia.

See, that's something that could have been a neat plot moment had they actually thought of it.

Actually discussed the "fatal funnel" problem with my coworker today with the breaching scene in Hunter-Killer, by the way -- namely, that it seems that (as with MW2) you have to remain within a certain radius of the breach in order to retain the bullet-time effect, even though that's exactly what you shouldn't do IRL (stand still and silhouetted against the opening in the wall). Also, as someone mocked it on Kotaku, the archetypical corridor shooter's E3 demo level... is set on a submarine.

Edward Yee wrote:See, that's something that could have been a neat plot moment had they actually thought of it.

Only if you assume that Europe will actually not go to war if a belligerent Russia starts taking over the world.

Thanas wrote: Only if you assume that Europe will actually not go to war if a belligerent Russia starts taking over the world.

I could see Europe tryin to stay neutral. However, attacking Europe to get at Russia is just as stupid as Russia attacking Washington as revenenge for a terrorist attack, and for most of the same reasons. Do you like your supply lines overstretched and under constant attack by partisans? Great! Because that's what you'll get.

Besides, that would make the US the bad guys, so nu-uh. The US is good and uses PRECISION.

Then again, it would explain why they're losing so badly to an enemy who should've been beaten within a week. How many Delta Force operators can there be to task with carefully extracting civilians from vicinity of every enemy target?

The Russians just took half a dozen hostages onboard every ship in the invasion fleet, and now US special forces are carefully searching every transport to dramatically extract them, while the Navy holds fire.

It will only take two years to finish this, but by God we are not savages!

PeZook wrote:

Thanas wrote: Only if you assume that Europe will actually not go to war if a belligerent Russia starts taking over the world.

I could see Europe tryin to stay neutral. However, attacking Europe to get at Russia is just as stupid as Russia attacking Washington as revenenge for a terrorist attack, and for most of the same reasons. Do you like your supply lines overstretched and under constant attack by partisans? Great! Because that's what you'll get.

Nevermind that you will actually have to fight against Nations with a high tech base and who also keep at least somewhat competent armies/Navies. And if the USA goes batshit insane - because that is what this scenario is - then I bet that Europe will ally with Russia in a heartbeat. Which means that you have to face the combined forces of an enemy which has a better economy, comparable tech, is entrenched and does not have to force a landing somewhere on a continent that is not that easy to invade.

Yeah, I can see that working out just fine.