Call of Duty Modern Warfare is one big WTF. (Spoilers below)

Shooter Season 2011 has arrived, and with that comes more generic action, as you begin to have the sudden urge to join the army as the shooters devour your senses set piece after set piece. Modern military shooter games have indeed become the reality shows of the video game world. While the game developers who triple as movie makers, and military recruiters swim around, and indulge in their ocean of cash, frustrated gamers continue to buy the same rehashed game year after year.

The Infinity Ward lounge right now

Consumers keep buying, and you can't blame the developers/publishers for wanting to make money it's what they do. And though every Call of Duty game I've ever bought was was fantastic for the first two weeks, but declined in quality to almost absolute zero after that, there are still plenty of great games out there, and I'll enjoy the freedom of not buying a Call of Duty game this year.

leaving more time for my other hobby of ditch-digging

Now that I'm done with my criticism, I can focus on the story of the Modern Warfare games which seem to be littered with plot holes. Modern Warfare 1 starts off with the world today, and is shown through the perspective The US Military messing around in an unspecified Middle Eastern nation, and the British Special Air Service sneaking around all over the world, and tying up loose strings. In this universe however, it turns out that there actually were nuclear weapon in the Middle Eastern nation of unspecified. 

And this happens

30,000 US Marines (including the player) are killed, and it's up to the SAS to avenge them by assassinating Zackaev, a Russian Ultra nationalist who was responsible for giving the terrorist access nuclear weapons, and blah blah blah, Zackaev dies, and all of a sudden the people of Russia unilaterally decide that Zackaev is a national hero/martyr. 

Because Russians watch nothing but their version of Fox News

 In comes Modern Warfare 2 where an Ultra nationalist terrorist attack led by Zackaevs successor Makarov on a Russian airport leaves one CIA agent dead at the scene, and apparently that is enough evidence for Russia to invade the United States. So after a series of "Why the fuck not"s and "Yeah I guess. I'm bored anyway"s at the Kremlin, it happens, and yet again, the SAS swoops in, and detonates an EMP in the Northeastern US which disables every electronic device within range, thereby stopping the Russian advance in to the US. 

Also pissing off this guy who forgot to save game

In comes Modern Warfare 3, when a startled Russian President has decided that it's time to make peace with the United States, but before he can do that, what do you know, he gets kidnapped as well as is daughter, who dies but that doesn't really matter, and the Ultra nationalists who are now in power stage a Russian invasion of Europe. That's right. EUROPE as in the entire continent not even a week after withdrawing from a war with a superpower. And as pattern goes, the SAS saves the day by tracking down Makarov (losing some protagonists in the process for added dramatic effect) and killing him, ending the Ultra nationalist presence in Russia.

Similarly to how terrorism ended forever when this guy died. 

And we're done. As absurd as it sounds (though I did present it very sarcastically), that is the Modern Warfare story that fans so happily eat up. How fantastically depressing isn't it?

Halo: Impracticality in the name of Balance

This is his 'action' pose

The year is 2552. Humanity at the height of it's development has found the key to release itself from the chains that has restricted us to the miserable wet ball that we like to call our home planet. Our civilization has stretched to an an interplanetary scale, yet the batteries for flashlights still run out in minutes.

The Covenant, a heavily segregated society of religious fanatic who have no feelings, or families to go home to (we'll discuss the social aspects later) are trying their best to ruin humanities day, but one man, Spartan-117, (pictured on the right) is all that stands in the way between the Covenant, and the destruction of the human race.

It's impossible to actually know whether we will actually last this long without killing ourselves off, considering all of the clever ways which we have invented to do so. However, humanity has somehow managed to absolve from our petty differences, decided to use the SAME TECHNOLOGY FOR WEAPONS for 500 years.

This may include wheeled, and tracked vehicles that go up against the shiny Covenant vehicles that all hover. This includes the four wheeled disaster that is the M12 LAAV also known as the Warthog which offers little to no protection from fire for the occupants, as well as having the ability to seamlessly flip, and roll out of control if so much as a pebble gets under it.

"I can explain"

While the humans do have access to directed energy particle weapons (aka Lasers), it seems as though most of the braniacs behind the United Nations Space Command have decided that simple lead behind gas operated firearms are still the pinnacle of death-dealing devices, and have basically just stopped development at that, to focus on other ways to inconvenience their soldiers, such as an assault rifle completely devoid of any sights.

An ammo counter where the sights used to be? This can't possible go wrong

Now, it is important to note that Bungie, the developers of the Halo franchise did intended to create a balanced system of weapons to accommodate the massive multiplayer fanbase that has gathered around the series for more than a decade. Bungie has made some very fantastic games, and has supported their community like no other game developer has. Since Bungie has become all too familiar of those "bunGle fiX HAlo" emails, it wouldn't be fair to blame them for how the weapons in Halo don't make any sense. All we can do is feel a at least an ounce of pity for the millions virtual AI lives that have been brought to their tragic end because of how hilariously impractical their firearms were.

This was most likely caused by a banana peel

Tom Clancy's Endwar: WW3 Simulation? Or Sociopath's PipeDream?

Let me start this off by saying that I am a very anti-war person. Despite my liberal disposition on world conflict however, I do enjoys the concept of war.

Because of this, it seems appropriate that Tom Clancy's Endwar, an underrated game with the first effective voice command system on a console be chosen as my first topic.

It's major fault however was the fact that it attempted to appeal to strategy game fans and shooter fans at the same time setting itself on this middle ground, but failed (however admirably) at grabbing the attention of either audience.
But we’re not here for a semi-inspirational tale of a game that tried, but didn’t quite make it. We’re here for the story.

Tom Clancy's Endwar starts off with the world in economic, and political turmoil after a nuclear war between Saudi Arabia and Israel leads to the majority of the worlds oil being destroyed. With oil at a record $800 per gallon, Russia becomes the world's #1 supplier of petroleum, and the nations of the European Union are forced to come together as one to form the European Federation as humanity does a collective face-palm waking up with an international hangover muttering "Oh crap what did we do last night?" The world responds by installing a new international nuclear defense grid making nuclear weapons obsolete.

With three superpowers now in the contest for world biggest douche bag, the United States decides that it should up the ante by building what is basically a space space that can send US Marines ODST style anywhere in the world within an hour, thereby holding up a symbolic middle finger to the rest of the world. NATO breaks up in protest.

It all pretty much goes to hell from there

The Russians, not taking kindly to this over-zealous display of military might organize a terrorist organization which proceeds to attack several European, and American bases and blow up the fore-mentioned space station after hacking in to a EF missile station, which ends up placing the blame on Europe.




Wait, so can this happen?
According to infoplease, Russia is the second largest supplier of oil next to the Saudi Arabia, so Endwar got that part right. It pretty much was all standard fare until the whole nuclear war deal. Saudi Arabia and Israel are both allies tied together in wedlock by their mutual best buddy America, so the chances of them actually fighting are rather slim. Also, it's as if the developers completely ignored the fact that China isn't even mentioned in the story of the games.
Next comes the terrorist organization hired by Russia known as the Black Hand. If they were a pre-existing organization, they would of course have a pre-existing agenda meaning that after the conflict began, they would have played a significant role. If they were Russian operatives, they would have been easily identified after bodies recovered from attacks on bases, thereby catching Russia red-handed. Get it? RED Handed?

"No"

So in the end, if the world ever does decide to have another International Civil War, it most certainly would not happen like what Tom Clancy's Endwar the video game says it would.

The awkward moment when you stop firing your rifle because you realized you're in a giant plot-hole