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I can't see how the story is internally consistent: in MW1, Russia is in the throes of a vicious civil war, fighting is going on between factions, towns and cities burn, NATO freely violates their airspace, they can't carry out special operations without help from the SAS, etc.

In MW2 Russia is suddenly huge and dangerous and capable of projecting significant power across oceans oh and BTW they went to war against the world because of a terrorist attack.

PeZook wrote:Did everybody forget how Russia was being torn apart by civil war throughout the first game, to the point they were unable to defend their airspace from intrusions by Dramatic Helicopter Rescues and AC-130 gunships? Yeah.

Nitpick: the Russian "loyalists" were totally fine with the said intrusions; the ultra-nationalists always struck me as the sort to have fairly limited air support. It's clear that they're more like an insurgency and less like a national military- they have light armor and helicopters, but they don't have much in the way of heavy armor or nukes.

That they don't have the heavy antiair weapons it would take to mount a coherent air defense doesn't surprise me.

The situation was so bad that the commandos who took back a freakin' ICBM site couldn't count on loyalist air or armored support in any way and had to abandon the silo (a perfectly defensible position) out of fear of major nationalist reinforcements.

It was really, really bad. Earlier in the game we saw nationalists just freely shelling villages with rocket artillery - rocket artillery that had to be taken out by commandos on the ground.

The entire thing makes absolutely no sense. Russia has a one note, disposable civil war that disappears like a solution to the Enterprise's toilet overflowing in that one episode. Some American guys shoot up an Airport, Russia declares war on the United States. Then teleports their whole Army into America. Whatever, invasion usa is all cool these days. Their is nothing more fetishistic to Americans than watching hastily formed militias fight epic battles to preserve America's Freeeeedoooom!!!!!!!!

What really grinded me was how in a game that's obsessively about guns, the Russian Army apparently uses every gun in the world not Russian. Oh but they still use the AK-47 .

Who gives a shit, honestly? You're all gonna play the single player once (assuming you even buy the game), and then complain about how the multiplayer is exactly the same as it was black ops and modern warfare 2, and complain about the online community blows.

Its the same old song and dance that's been done already for the past 2 years.

Lagmonster wrote:I don't actually enjoy the MW games (I'm a Battlefield man, myelf), so I guess it has to be explained to me why we can't suspend disbelief for them the way we would for any other fictional story. Are the game makers actually saying that they're presenting a plausible alternate-future scenario based on actual modern politics and military might, or are they saying, "In our universe, Russia has a military that could take over the world and supersoldiers can turn the tide in global warfare and you should just go with that"? In the case of the latter, does proximity to reality lower the amount of disbelief players are expected to suspend?

No see, the problem here is Bad Company did not present Russia in the middle of a Civil War in their first game and then less than a decade later capable of waging a war against all of NATO and being able to invade the US. Bad Company was unrealistic with a Russia Vs NATO story, but they consistently depict the Russians as extremely powerful and not a nation that only half a decade ago underwent a massive civil upheaval. And judging by the interviews of the writers for the game's story they do intend for the story to be taken seriously.

Simon_Jester wrote:Nitpick: the Russian "loyalists" were totally fine with the said intrusions; the ultra-nationalists always struck me as the sort to have fairly limited air support. It's clear that they're more like an insurgency and less like a national military- they have light armor and helicopters, but they don't have much in the way of heavy armor or nukes.

That they don't have the heavy antiair weapons it would take to mount a coherent air defense doesn't surprise me.

Yet we are expected to believe the Ultranationalists win if they're unable of contesting the skies at all?

Magellan wrote:Who gives a shit, honestly? You're all gonna play the single player once (assuming you even buy the game), and then complain about how the multiplayer is exactly the same as it was black ops and modern warfare 2, and complain about the online community blows.

Its the same old song and dance that's been done already for the past 2 years.

Who's this 'you' you're talking about? I bought MW2 thinking it was a continuation of MW, it was so horrible I was almost completely turned off to the series and totally ignored BLOPS, I was hoping against my better expectations that maybe it was the Infinity Ward heads who were responsible for the crappy story of MW2 but apparently my expectations were right and it was EA. Maybe you should stop making stupid generalizations?

the first modern warfare also enjoyed being topical; iraq had just been invaded, second chechnya was still ongoing, fears of terrorism and nuclear proliferation were everywhere. and so the game dealt with invading a middle eastern country, civil war in the caucasus, and nuclear proliferation. flash forward to MW2 and there are only a few token afghan missions (one of which is stolen straight from generation kill, in iraq, while another is fantasy underground CIA base stuff), very little of the existing story carries over, the threats are not topical (russian invasion hasnt been feared since the cold war), no one is afraid of EMPs, the locales (except the American ones) don't feel like they are actually in the country they're supposed to be in, (ie the junkyard seemed to be in Arizona, not Afghanistan) etc. the only slight one that may have wound its way into the public perception was the fear of american military adventurism continuing on without end re sheppard and his stupid plan for more war.

but thats weak

General Schatten wrote:Who's this 'you' you're talking about? I bought MW2 thinking it was a continuation of MW, it was so horrible I was almost completely turned off to the series and totally ignored BLOPS, I was hoping against my better expectations that maybe it was the Infinity Ward heads who were responsible for the crappy story of MW2 but apparently my expectations were right and it was EA. Maybe you should stop making stupid generalizations?

How so?

Magellan wrote:How so?

After Modern Warfare 2 was released EA fired the heads of Infinity Ward right when it was time for them to be getting their share and EA had an agreement with the heads of IW that they would be allowed to work on things outside of the CoD franchise and that IW were to be given the rights to all CoD and MW titles that took place in the post-Vietnam era , which caused an exodus of a number IW employees from EA. Thus I was giving EA the benefit of the doubt that the original IW employees were responsible for the MW2 story being so disconnected from the MW one. I assumed that since MW was a new title and IW first foray into the established CoD brand EA would've demanded more direct input into the story but with IW (or at least the talent responsible for creating IW) splitting from EA and the story only got worse, it's quite obvious I was wrong to do so.

General Schatten wrote:

Magellan wrote:How so?

After Modern Warfare 2 was released EA fired the heads of Infinity Ward right when it was time for them to be getting their share and EA had an agreement with the heads of IW that they would be allowed to work on things outside of the CoD franchise and that IW were to be given the rights to all CoD and MW titles that took place in the post-Vietnam era , which caused an exodus of a number IW employees from EA. Thus I was giving EA the benefit of the doubt that the original IW employees were responsible for the MW2 story being so disconnected from the MW one. I assumed that since MW was a new title and IW first foray into the established CoD brand EA would've demanded more direct input into the story but with IW (or at least the talent responsible for creating IW) splitting from EA and the story only got worse, it's quite obvious I was wrong to do so.

Don't you mean Activision?

Even mortal kombat 2011's "Outworld invades earth with monsters, ugly bastards with teeth, and flying dragons!" feels more realistic than FOR THE MOTHERLAND!

Even in my height of initial "Ooooh this game is cool" trip during MW2 I couldn't get why Russia would start a war against the US over a terrorist attack.

Hilariously according to the video game industry Russia is more dangerous to America and far more likely to invade it now than it was ever was during the Soviet Union.

Anyone else remember when Call of Duty was a game about some guys from different countries just fighting a war?

I remember that. You were just an ordinary soldier. None of this "save the world" bullshit. 'twas so much better back then.

Eternal_Freedom wrote:I remember that. You were just an ordinary soldier. None of this "save the world" bullshit. 'twas so much better back then.

You were not saving the world but you were saving your unit, your squad or just your brothers in arms. Why were you charging forward to bazooka Panzers? Because if you didn't those bastards would run rough shod over the rest of your men and kill lots of people before they went down. Why defend Pavlov's house? Because the Germans fucking took it that's why! Your not saving the war, it's just one house in one part of Stalingrad but dam it you took it and it's a great artillery observation location, so your going to defend it against those damn Germans.

I could go on but that was Call of Duty 1/2. It's been a series that does unique things all the time from the Man with the rifle run in CoD 1, Taking Pointe du Hoc in CoD 2 nuke scene in CoD 4 MW to the No Russians in MW2 (Never played Black Ops). Not counting CoD3 which was not done in house every Call of Duty game to date builds around big epic memorable moments. CoD 1 I can still remember about half of the missions because they were so different less so CoD 2 but most of MW 1, less MW 2.

Modern Warfare is when they switched over to the save the world plots which is a shame because it what used to make them different from Medal of Honor where world war II would have been lost without you. The smaller scale works much better for war games than saving the world plot unless your playing an RTS.

Magellan wrote:

General Schatten wrote:

Magellan wrote:How so?

After Modern Warfare 2 was released EA fired the heads of Infinity Ward right when it was time for them to be getting their share and EA had an agreement with the heads of IW that they would be allowed to work on things outside of the CoD franchise and that IW were to be given the rights to all CoD and MW titles that took place in the post-Vietnam era , which caused an exodus of a number IW employees from EA. Thus I was giving EA the benefit of the doubt that the original IW employees were responsible for the MW2 story being so disconnected from the MW one. I assumed that since MW was a new title and IW first foray into the established CoD brand EA would've demanded more direct input into the story but with IW (or at least the talent responsible for creating IW) splitting from EA and the story only got worse, it's quite obvious I was wrong to do so.

Don't you mean Activision?

I too was confused. EA don't even have any control over IW. EA own DICE (or at least publish DICE games), which make Battlefield, not CoD.

I agree with the statement that the story of MW3 is stupid - realistically speaking. Sure, Russia hardly got the manpower and the industrial base left today to do any real damage like this to the United States (the only redeeming property is that in various areas their weapons and arsenals are superior to other nations). Even if it was the Soviet times they are significantly outmatched by the United States, economically, technologically, militarily and socially, despite how everyone back then had imagined it to be (F***you, Richard Pipes and the B-Team you worked with).

Theoretically speaking, not so much.

Consider - MW3 IS part of a fictional VIDEOGAME series - it is fictional. And in a fictional world its author could alter any aspect of reality which it claims to reflect and reflect. And even certain plot elements in the MW series could make perfect sense:

1) Russia of this setting could have sufficient military might to pull that thing off, considering the fact that in MW1, the old Russian government had been fighting against the Ultranationalists for a number of years - Ultranationalists who have access to large amount of military hardware such as helicopters, BMPs and NUCLEAR MISSILES. Against this magnitude of a threat it would be inevitable that the Russian military budget and power would had to be enlarged and reorganized by a number of magnitudes just to force a stalemate in a short period of time (they pulled that off successfully back in WWII), which means by the time the Ultranationalists took over they would had inherit a powerful military force that could pose a real challenge to the United States. And don't forget, they can get high tech military hardware by trading their unimaginable large amount of mineral resources.

2) The United States military forces, both in real world and in game universe, would still face the fact that being the most powerful doesn't mean it could effectively face off all the possible threats thrown at it - The United States had shown to had failed, time and time again, to fight against forces far weaker then they are, such as the Vietcong in the Vietnam War (and don't you frakking throw in the 'Defeated at Home' argument. A defeat is a defeat, psychologically or militarily), and in the two middle eastern wars over the last decade. In MW1 they got NUKED once and in MW2 they are still stuck in the Afghanistan debacle. Granted, before the Russians invade in that universe most opponents they fought were ingenious guerrillas, but even so if they are ONLY NOW winning against an opponent who they outnumber and outgun by magnitudes I don't think it should be surprising that they could find themselves barely holding back a massive surprise attack from their old foes

3) America is being invaded, but even then it would be impossible for the full might of the US army to be brought to defense - remember they are still stuck in two Middle East debacle in the story, its naval forces spread out, and its military probably soften up by domestic reforms over the years between MW1 and MW2 (I mean, would a shell-shocked society want to continue to fund the military, which they no longer have any confidence in after that nuclear incident in MW1 killed around 30000 US marines and showed how much weaker they actually are? I certainly won't). It would take time for the US military to ship its forces from bases worldwide to homefront. And don't forget that it is possible other nations hostile to the USA would not take advantage of USA's one moment of weakness to attack its allies, forcing them to leave troops to defend as well e.g. North Korea invading the South, Iran and other hostile states invading Iraq and Israel, China may want Taiwan back etc.


4.) General Shepard allowed the Russians to crack the satellite code to their NORAD warning grid, getting Russian forces into USA without America being able to muster enough forces to defend itself in time

5) Russians had been preparing to pull this shit off for some time, just needing an excuse. With or without framing that American CIA operative, the Russian government would had gone to war anyway over the airport attack since the Makarov and the terrorists uses American weapons

6.) This whole invasion is probably limited in scale (i.e. they take the 'Thousand American lives for every Russian dead' clause seriously) and is merely just trying to kill Americans and capture key symbolic structures (e.g. the White House) as a show of force, gaining diplomatic bargaining chips with hostages, key infrastructure and landmarks and a propaganda declaration to the world "HEY! The Old Bear is Back in the GAME!", rather then causing America's total defeat with a full invasion and occupation, thereby eliminating logistics as a possible obstacle to pulling shit like this off.

It still probably isn't quite realistic. But hey, its a game, so why worry? Beside, we should rather hope Sledgehammer games (this game's developers) don't screw up in the characterization, dialogue and script and putting us off the story.

SpaceMarine93 wrote: 1) Russia of this setting could have sufficient military might to pull that thing off, considering the fact that in MW1, the old Russian government had been fighting against the Ultranationalists for a number of years - Ultranationalists who have access to large amount of military hardware such as helicopters, BMPs and NUCLEAR MISSILES. Against this magnitude of a threat it would be inevitable that the Russian military budget and power would had to be enlarged and reorganized by a number of magnitudes just to force a stalemate in a short period of time (they pulled that off successfully back in WWII), which means by the time the Ultranationalists took over they would had inherit a powerful military force that could pose a real challenge to the United States. And don't forget, they can get high tech military hardware by trading their unimaginable large amount of mineral resources.

Except neither side in MW1 had a modern military left. It is also absurd: the nationalists would take over a nation wrecked by civil war, which has a nasty habit of happening in the places your economy is made.

So in a few short years they have rebuilt and uparmed significantly enough to become a major threat again, when five years ago they couldn't even provide support to people trying to hold a NUCLEAR MISSILE SITE. Or did you forget how the SAS guys had to up and run?

They also had to send in infantry to take out nearly undefended rocket artillery sites, couldn't deal with enemy helicopters in an efficient manner etc.

That doesn't mesh well with the governmnent having a hugely expanded modern military.

SpaceMarine93 wrote: 2) The United States military forces, both in real world and in game universe, would still face the fact that being the most powerful doesn't mean it could effectively face off all the possible threats thrown at it - The United States had shown to had failed, time and time again, to fight against forces far weaker then they are, such as the Vietcong in the Vietnam War (and don't you frakking throw in the 'Defeated at Home' argument. A defeat is a defeat, psychologically or militarily), and in the two middle eastern wars over the last decade. In MW1 they got NUKED once and in MW2 they are still stuck in the Afghanistan debacle. Granted, before the Russians invade in that universe most opponents they fought were ingenious guerrillas, but even so if they are ONLY NOW winning against an opponent who they outnumber and outgun by magnitudes I don't think it should be surprising that they could find themselves barely holding back a massive surprise attack from their old foes

Guerilla wars have a habit of dragging on because of their irregular nature, it has nothing to do with the capability of an army to fight a stand-up war. Though it is a good point that most of the US Army would actually be stuck in Iraq and Afghanistan.

SpaceMarine93 wrote: 3) America is being invaded, but even then it would be impossible for the full might of the US army to be brought to defense - remember they are still stuck in two Middle East debacle in the story, its naval forces spread out, and its military probably soften up by domestic reforms over the years between MW1 and MW2 (I mean, would a shell-shocked society want to continue to fund the military, which they no longer have any confidence in after that nuclear incident in MW1 killed around 30000 US marines and showed how much weaker they actually are? I certainly won't). It would take time for the US military to ship its forces from bases worldwide to homefront. And don't forget that it is possible other nations hostile to the USA would not take advantage of USA's one moment of weakness to attack its allies, forcing them to leave troops to defend as well e.g. North Korea invading the South, Iran and other hostile states invading Iraq and Israel, China may want Taiwan back etc.

So Russia was uparming like mad, yet the US just remained complacent and weak because they got nuked? Something doesn't mesh here.

SpaceMarine93 wrote: 4.) General Shepard allowed the Russians to crack the satellite code to their NORAD warning grid, getting Russian forces into USA without America being able to muster enough forces to defend itself in time

Yeah, because the only way to detect a MASSIVE INVASION FLEET is via satellite, and without satellites the US doesn't know what's going on anywhere

SpaceMarine93 wrote: 6.) This whole invasion is probably limited in scale (i.e. they take the 'Thousand American lives for every Russian dead' clause seriously) and is merely just trying to kill Americans and capture key symbolic structures (e.g. the White House) as a show of force, gaining diplomatic bargaining chips with hostages, key infrastructure and landmarks and a propaganda declaration to the world "HEY! The Old Bear is Back in the GAME!", rather then causing America's total defeat with a full invasion and occupation, thereby eliminating logistics as a possible obstacle to pulling shit like this off

Oh, so they ARE retarded. Hint: they're not gonna have any "bargaining chips" after invading the US, they're gonna have a full-scale war. You make a show of force by sailing fleets around and acting tough, once you invade a nation you are comitted to war, unless you're so much stronger that you can dictate terms at will.

Holding the Washington Monument at the end of a tenous supply line does not give you that sort of advantage.

SpaceMarine93 wrote: It still probably isn't quite realistic. But hey, its a game, so why worry? Beside, we should rather hope Sledgehammer games (this game's developers) don't screw up in the characterization, dialogue and script and putting us off the story.

The point isn't that it's unrealistic per se, just horribly dumb, illogical and out of character for everyone involved.

Mr Bean wrote:

Eternal_Freedom wrote:I remember that. You were just an ordinary soldier. None of this "save the world" bullshit. 'twas so much better back then.

You were not saving the world but you were saving your unit, your squad or just your brothers in arms. Why were you charging forward to bazooka Panzers? Because if you didn't those bastards would run rough shod over the rest of your men and kill lots of people before they went down. Why defend Pavlov's house? Because the Germans fucking took it that's why! Your not saving the war, it's just one house in one part of Stalingrad but dam it you took it and it's a great artillery observation location, so your going to defend it against those damn Germans.

I could go on but that was Call of Duty 1/2. It's been a series that does unique things all the time from the Man with the rifle run in CoD 1, Taking Pointe du Hoc in CoD 2 nuke scene in CoD 4 MW to the No Russians in MW2 (Never played Black Ops). Not counting CoD3 which was not done in house every Call of Duty game to date builds around big epic memorable moments. CoD 1 I can still remember about half of the missions because they were so different less so CoD 2 but most of MW 1, less MW 2.

Modern Warfare is when they switched over to the save the world plots which is a shame because it what used to make them different from Medal of Honor where world war II would have been lost without you. The smaller scale works much better for war games than saving the world plot unless your playing an RTS.

Damn you Infinity Ward! You're making me feel really old for remembering the original CoD coming out. I'm only 19 damnit.

Well, PeZook the Logistic point was made by my brother when I asked him how on Earth do Russia invade the US in MW2, which even I find absurd at first. And as for hoping the game being not dumb, illogical and all that, its not really a big problem - any capable writer could had turned a stupid and cliched plot into a brilliant story. MW2 plot is a bit dumb, but it works because the writers were good at it. Let's just hope Sledgehammer Games don't screw it up.

Magellan wrote:Don't you mean Activision?

Ah, yes, my bad. Faceless corporate entities and all that.

SpaceMarine93 wrote:MW2 plot is a bit dumb, but it works because the writers were good at it.

Except it doesn't work and the writers weren't good at it. Modern Warfare 2 does not sell on it's story, it sells on the multiplayer.

Spacemarine, why the hell did you just repost everything you said on the last page?

Well, Nobody seemed to be reading it so I decided to report back just in case, and my argument is a bit messy after point 4, so yeah.

I'm not implying that nobody cared about what i'm saying, but err... yeah, just reporting back. So how's the points?

Are you sure you know what 'reporting back' means? It doens't mean 'reiterate for emphasis'.

SpaceMarine93 wrote:So how's the points?

I don't know, why don't you read our posts and tell us what we think of your points?

General Schatten wrote: Except it doesn't work and the writers weren't good at it. Modern Warfare 2 does not sell on it's story, it sells on the multiplayer.

Except aren't there still less than half the number of MP players : copies sold?