I'm a big fan of the Modern Warfare films, 
spawned off the blockbuster "Call Of Duty" titles, and just finished watching the second installment, which was even more action packed and furious than the first. An instant classic. That said, with the hype swarming it and its massive budget, financed by producer Activision (recently in the news with their short film created with Warp Films), this doesn't surprise me, and the estimation of over 11 million sales worldwide, seems incredibly plausible.
The plot follows on 5 years in the future from the last film, where a shaky friendship between the U.S and the Russian are beginning to crumble. New antagonist Vladamir Makarov leads the Ultra-nationalist faction, provoking an American undercover agent to lead Russia into a full on war. In a surprise attack, the Russians storm the East coast, and into Washington. Private Ramirez, one of the films new protagonists is led into the war, throwing him into devastating combat where America is slowly torn apart by bullets and explosives. 
However, in a Tarantino-esq move, we also follow the movements of the Task Force 141, led by Captain McTavish, more commonly known as Soap from the last film. They follow Makarov's trail of bullets, leading them into extreme environments, from Russia's snowy peaks to a favela in Rio de Janeiro, where snowmobile chases, high adrenaline shoot outs and epic missile launches immobilise the viewer. Ghosts of the past are stirred up and old favourites rise from the dead.
The crisp visuals are accompanied by 5.1 surround sound, with a winning score by Hans Zimmer, best known for his work on films such as "The Dark Knight" and "Gladiator". Available on DVD and Blu-ray, I highly recommend purchasing Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, available damn near everywhere.
Oh - I had a point. Games are becoming films. It's a good thing.
I like the term "Ludology". With HD standard gaming, a realistic approach is being taken to games, and developers are taking advantage of this to make the player feel like the protagonist - first person gameplay is a good example of this. Many first person games have silent protagonists so we can easily pretend to be the character, and third person games tend to have "cool" characters, again for the same reason. Flawed protagonists and such really don't exist in games. I expect sequels arise for the same reason they did with films - demand. Even the earliest games had sequels, and the higher budgets provided allow the creator to design exactly what they wanted in the first game. This is happening a lot lately - games such as "Fable" and "Assassins Creed" were popular but flawed, and critics often deemed their sequels to be more like what the first game was supposed to be.
ReplyDeleteGames are becoming more film like, but films are also taking more and more influence from games as their power is stripped away, to the point that the two mediums are sometimes virtually indifferent besides how we use them. I expect games to have the upper-hand in this exchange due to their accessibility, cheaper budgets and far higher interaction values. Also, games have far more explosions. Its interesting that originally, games were sometimes made as advertising for films, and still are, and yet recently games are being made into films. The up-and-coming "Prince of Persia" film is a good example of this.
Also note the film "Gamer". If a film about a computer game (with explosions) isn't proof of the film industry aiming at game fans, I don't know what is.
Oh, and buy it, its the best game to be released since Super Mario Galaxy.
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