What a confusing story this campaign tried to tell. Treyarch, clearly still chasing after Infinity Ward (given how similar certain parts of the presentation are to those in Modern Warfare) has attempted to take an inward look into the legacy of the first three Call of Duty games. It includes more gore, more reveling in the killing by your protagonists and the characters around them. They seem to examine the mindless killing of the previous games, have characters who are almost comically relentless and brutal, give players scenarios for sparing their enemy. Whereas the first game ended with the Soviets taking the capital as you look at someone else carrying the flag, here you carry the flag as you charge and slaughter through it. Truly, they got to the bottom of what Call of Duty was about, hyperbolized it and made you consider what war truly was.
Except they didn't.
Having binged all the Call of Duty games prior to this one, I can safely say that not once did they incentivize reveling in the killing. Far from it. Every previous game is loud, scary, the atmosphere is oppressive and desperate, Modern Warfare perhaps the most terrifying of them all. They never represented war fully, but they were great at sparking interest in history, in the people that fought in the war and the unique and unbelievable events that they had to go through in order to put an end to it all. Ironically, this is the only game where you are indeed incentivized to be the superhero of each scenario, to destroy your enemies and finish them off as they beg for mercy. Reznov, as a character, works because it's easy to see these situations from his point of view: Dimitri is the superhero, he cheats death over and over again, he is able to complete every task given to him. What doesn't work is Dimitri, he is no longer the simple, though slightly lucky soldier of the past games, he is a killing machine who laughs as he nears death. Same for the American protagonist. It's pretty clear that this game is trying to showcase the dark descent of the soldiers beginning to feel pleasure from violence and murder. But for the American campaign, it is only at the very end, for around 5 minutes where they begin to start calling their enemies animals and scream to kill them all. For the Soviets it's all the time. It feels like there's an attempt to have the cake and eat it too: both technically undergo the transformation, but obviously they show much, much less of the Americans participating in such animalistic behavior. Technically it is an interesting premise, but combine all these head-scratching moments I had together with the music, consisting primarily of electric guitars, and the overtly stereotypical (even for a shooter and even for a Call of Duty game) portrayal of racial stereotypes and what remains is, to me, a very unconvincing narrative.
What's also frustrating is the Veteran difficulty, once again. Drastically unbalanced, it rarely makes you wonder "damn, how could anyone manage to get through this," instead making you wonder "why are there 3 grenades being thrown at me 60% of the time." You run around so much during firefights in order to avoid these barrages. It looks and feels silly. Some objectives are fun to overcome, overall the Soviet campaign plays quite well and the flamethrower in the American campaign is the most unique weapon in the series, making for completely new ways of tackling scenarios. Also, the best-feeling PPSH and the best plane level, hands-down
Although I haven't played it, I think the Zombies mode which began with this game fits this style much better. It would be much easier to tell this story if the enemies were undead monsters. What we have instead is a game that, for the first time in the series, fails to make war look scary, all in an attempt to make it look different. Dedicating it to the soldiers who fell in battle feels wrong, given how many are portrayed as killers reveling in the mass murder they commit.
Except they didn't.
Having binged all the Call of Duty games prior to this one, I can safely say that not once did they incentivize reveling in the killing. Far from it. Every previous game is loud, scary, the atmosphere is oppressive and desperate, Modern Warfare perhaps the most terrifying of them all. They never represented war fully, but they were great at sparking interest in history, in the people that fought in the war and the unique and unbelievable events that they had to go through in order to put an end to it all. Ironically, this is the only game where you are indeed incentivized to be the superhero of each scenario, to destroy your enemies and finish them off as they beg for mercy. Reznov, as a character, works because it's easy to see these situations from his point of view: Dimitri is the superhero, he cheats death over and over again, he is able to complete every task given to him. What doesn't work is Dimitri, he is no longer the simple, though slightly lucky soldier of the past games, he is a killing machine who laughs as he nears death. Same for the American protagonist. It's pretty clear that this game is trying to showcase the dark descent of the soldiers beginning to feel pleasure from violence and murder. But for the American campaign, it is only at the very end, for around 5 minutes where they begin to start calling their enemies animals and scream to kill them all. For the Soviets it's all the time. It feels like there's an attempt to have the cake and eat it too: both technically undergo the transformation, but obviously they show much, much less of the Americans participating in such animalistic behavior. Technically it is an interesting premise, but combine all these head-scratching moments I had together with the music, consisting primarily of electric guitars, and the overtly stereotypical (even for a shooter and even for a Call of Duty game) portrayal of racial stereotypes and what remains is, to me, a very unconvincing narrative.
What's also frustrating is the Veteran difficulty, once again. Drastically unbalanced, it rarely makes you wonder "damn, how could anyone manage to get through this," instead making you wonder "why are there 3 grenades being thrown at me 60% of the time." You run around so much during firefights in order to avoid these barrages. It looks and feels silly. Some objectives are fun to overcome, overall the Soviet campaign plays quite well and the flamethrower in the American campaign is the most unique weapon in the series, making for completely new ways of tackling scenarios. Also, the best-feeling PPSH and the best plane level, hands-down
Although I haven't played it, I think the Zombies mode which began with this game fits this style much better. It would be much easier to tell this story if the enemies were undead monsters. What we have instead is a game that, for the first time in the series, fails to make war look scary, all in an attempt to make it look different. Dedicating it to the soldiers who fell in battle feels wrong, given how many are portrayed as killers reveling in the mass murder they commit.