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While the media debates the issue of games being ‘harmful’ or ‘poisonous’ to people’s minds, it never speaks of the creative capacity of the medium, as well as its capacity to incite an emotional as well as an intellectual reaction from its audience. While the media is busy lynching its latest scapegoat, it unsurprisingly refuses to acknowledge that games have a significant capacity for sending messages. Modern Warfare 2 sends a clear and simple message: War is brutal. War is ugly. War has consequences.

It hits home on a number of missions. One of which involves the player character going undercover and being forced to mow down unarmed civilians with a powerful assault rifle. It’s unsettling and disturbing, and as I watched a nameless civilian attempt to carry an injured man to safety, only to be mowed down himself by one of my “allies,” I felt a sick feeling in my stomach. In another mission, I rappel down from a cliff and kill a guard with my knife. I can see his face as he dies, while his eyes frozen in horror melts away into a dead, blank stare as the life drains out of him. The game pulls no punches, and unflinchingly shows the most horrible consequences that war has on us: not the loss of our lives, but the loss of our humanity, which is something infinitely more terrifying. Of course this will be lost on most of the gamer population who think of themselves as REAL HARD MEN who scream “YEAH I’M KILLING CIVVIES YEAHHH” or “Who cares, they’re just pixels on a screen.” The subtleties of any narrative are lost on these neanderthals.

Still, there’s a game underneath the layers of story, and while not much has changed from Call of Duty 4, it has a great deal more variety. You can find yourself engaged in a stealth operation one mission, then rooftop hopping to escape from an angry mob the next. The game literally has no missions where you can rest, as every mission thrusts you waist deep into the action. Certain missions are almost chilling in their depiction of war, especially those set in the U.S. Spec Ops is damn good, as it includes a multiplayer that does not involve killing other players and instead focuses on coop, which I enjoy a lot more (I got more out of Horde Mode in Gears of War 2 than Versus). It recreates some instances of the game, while others are completely new scenarios to tackles for those who have finished the Campaign. The Campaign itself is brief – almost too brief, as I was able to finish in about 5 or 6 hours on Veteran difficulty, but regardless, it was an incredibly experience.

The graphics use the same engine as Call of Duty 4, so it’s nothing too revolutionary, but it’s nothing to sneeze at either; it’s still a great looking game, and has no slowdown even with the myriad (sometimes dozens) of enemies on screen at once. The musical score is incredible, and it supplements each mission and scenario incredibly well, making for what is probably the most immersive game I’ve played this year.

The Good
+ Strong story with powerful emotional impact
+ Phenomenal score to enhance the experience
+ Large amount of mission variety (both within the campaign and Spec Ops)
+ Excellent graphics and weapon realism

The Bad
- Scenario clocks in at around 5 to 6 hours … on Veteran. A bit too short.
- Lag is (as of this writing) really bad, though it is like to clear up in the coming months.
- Online Versus is still incredibly newbie-unfriendly. Uninitiated players will be slaughtered endlessly.

The WTF
?! The general response to the ‘offensive material’ in the game, from the media and gamers alike.