The Rundown

It’s highly unlikely you’re here and you don’t know what the game is about, but I’m introducing it, anyway. From Wikipedia: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 is a 2009 first-person shooter game developed by Infinity Ward and published by Activision. The game's campaign follows Task Force 141, a multinational special forces unit commanded by Captain Soap MacTavish as they hunt Vladimir Makarov, leader of the Russian Ultranationalist party, and United States Army Rangers from the 1st Ranger Battalion who are defending the Washington, D.C. area from a Russian invasion. The game's main playable characters are Sergeant Gary "Roach" Sanderson, of the 141, and Private James Ramirez, of the Army Rangers, with Captain MacTavish becoming playable later in the campaign.

The game was released during a pretty pivotal time in America’s history. The nation was tightly knit with comradery, compassion, etc, and I think it sort of showed in the game… People unite, and when we do, it’s a sight to see. Men and women were enlisting, deploying, and not everyone made it home — and that can be said for any timeframe in history when war is involved, of course, but the loyalty we saw back in 2009 and so could arguably be considered absent in today’s scape.

Modern Warfare 2 combines a raw storyline, believable plot (again, sort of keep in mind the state of the world at the time, especially), and a lot of action and engaging gameplay. Since playing MW2, I have actually played some other campaigns where I got a little bored, or I felt that the story lagged, or the gameplay was just overwhelming… but MW2 gets a great score from me.

The storyline is fast-paced, and there are actually a few moving pieces of the plot, which keeps things busy. The game is technically a party of a trilogy. Speaking as an author, trilogies can be a little tricky: the second installment, especially, can be hard to execute. You don’t want to give too much away, but you also can’t have too little plot. I think this is another reason why MW2 has done so well — it’s a fantastic installment, standing on its own, but also perfectly streamlining into MW3. Pacing and executing a complex, multiple-layered storyline is no easy feat, but the creators of Modern Warfare pulled it off.

Another great thing MW2 pulled off was the cast. You play a few different characters in MW2 — but at no time do they feel like a regular NPC, so to speak. You grow with the cast, you see the story from their eyes, but it is always immersive. I especially enjoyed playing as Roach, and the comradery with Taskforce 141 is yet another thing that makes this game so special. (I mean, let’s be real. MW2 immersed you into a story where loyalty, courage, and bonds meant something. A few other CoD games rely more heavily on themes of betrayal, you can’t trust anyone, etc. But I’ll dig into this deeper later.)

Now that the semi-professional overview of the game is completed, let’s get into the nitty-gritty. Be warned, this review has a lot of spoilers, but I’m also 15 years late to the game, so you probably don’t care.

Loyalty Means Something… A Trope That’s Vanished?

I mentioned before that one thing that makes MW2 so unique, or at least, one reason it resonated so deeply with thousands of players… is the theme that loyalty means something. This was a pretty important theme in a lot of media at the time — stories of people banding together, fighting against all odds, and putting honor and loyalty above all. One could argue, “Well, that’s a little fairy-tail-esque, and you should ditch the rose-colored glasses.” But many more fans would argue back, “No.”

And here’s what I mean.

Humans are made for each other. We need bonds. We need friends. We need loyalty, honor, and courage, because those things are kind of what make us… us. “Right” and “wrong” do exist, and there’s nothing fairy-tail-esque about that reality. And I think, for example, 9/11 impacted many of us, so a lot of stories during that time period wanted to push the reminder that humans can be brave and strong, no matter what is stacked against them.

That’s what we see in MW2. We see Roach find his place in Taskforce 141. We see Ghost and Soap cover for him, and we/Roach cover for them. We see the team’s loyalty to Captain Price. We see the motto “never leave a man behind” occur in the game. And, to put it shortly, when Ghost and Roach are betrayed, Soap and Price stop at nothing to obtain justice.

Why? Because loyalty. Because the right thing to do can often cost you a lot, but it’s still the right thing to do.

Now, let’s be honest. These themes aren’t really ones you find in media anymore. Books, movies, TV shows, games, they seem to fall more and more into the, “Hope and fighting for what is right is for babies! You need to be morally gray and take care of yourself!” or even, “Justice is false. Forgiveness and healing means not harming another to break the cycle of pain.” Still, that’s the exact opposite of what the Modern Warfare storyline shows… But this game is over 15 years old, and has continued to be timeless. Why?

Because we all want that gritty, hellish hope, and we want people that will risk their own lives for us, and we want to risk our lives for them, and we want our brute humanity, as broken and messy as it is, to keep us human. And to be human is to also be brave and hopeful and to try, try, try.

Modern Warfare 2 got it right. They got it brilliantly right. That no matter the odds, even when everything goes to hell, you stay human, you choose the good, and you keep fighting. It’s still popular to this day because men and women know this, deep deep down, and get tired of the mainstream media shoving nihilism, or pacifism, or fearmongering, or pick whatever poison you want, down their throats.

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The Plot Twist That Got Us All

Another cause for MW2’s steadfast admiration is the plot twist that shook us all.

Most players that played this when it released will share how insane the plot twist was, and how it shook them to their core. I played this game this year (2024), and since I already knew about the spoiler, I didn’t get the same experience…

But it was still an insane experience, and that goes to show how incredible the game is.

I knew what was coming, being 15 years behind and all… And my stomach was still in knots and I still felt. Ghost and Roach had grown to be like friends — once again, this game immersed you so deeply, and watching things fall apart, while being helpless, was such an insane position to be in. It made you, the gamer, feel something I don’t think many have ever felt while playing a game.

Putting my author hat back on, I have to say, that’s a great accomplishment. Storytellers want to make their audience feel. They want to break that audience into an individual, and meet that individual where they are, and make them feel something. Some people hate things. Some people love things. But making someone feel with a form of media is no easy feat…

And even more impressive might be to take a very realistic scenario and toss it into someone’s lap and say, “This is fiction. But it’s not always fiction. Remember that.” See, fiction reflects reality. And MW2 had us in such a grip because it shows the absolute shitty reality that we live in. A reality where men and women die. A reality where men and women get left behind. A world where KIAs and POWs are “forgotten” by most. A world that even if you survive and make it home, you’re not the same person, and nobody really seems to care. Or, in the most basic sense, a world where your friends, people you trust, will betray you.

MW2 reminded us of many realities — but I think the plot twist was one scene that truly moved so many into waking up, in whatever way they could, to the realities around us. Because fiction isn’t always escapism, it isn’t always “fake.” Good stories like MW2 show you pieces of reality in a fictitious format… And in this case, MW2 reminded us to keep going, no matter what.

Loose Ends

There are a few other things I wanted to ramble about… Because I loved this game and have to yap.

• The cast for this game deserves more credit. They were genuinely incredible.

• The soundtrack is by Hans Zimmer, and it was another hit.

• I also read the Ghost comics from around the same period. The Ghost comics are a prequel to Simon Riley’s character and origin. One interesting thing to note is that canonically, Simon lost his family — all of them, except his father, burned in a housefire. It was then Shepherd that brought Simon in and got him onto Taskforce 141. Then, in the end… it was Shepherd that burned Ghost.

• The final mission. 11/10 stars. Just cinema. (And the absolute AAHHHHH factor of Nikolai arriving — )

• I mentioned already how immersive the game is… I mean that also quite literally. The animation, angles, fogginess, etc, the game legit feels like you’re standing in as a character. Whereas with some games, it feels/looks like you’re playing a game, from a distance, and not right there. This is a small detail, and I am probably not explaining it correctly, but if you get it, you get it. (Even in MW2 Remastered, some of this quality had been removed, and it felt a bit more like looking inside a game vs. standing in the game, so to speak.)

• Roach, Ghost, Soap, and Price are considerably the coolest group in the game, but we always forget the incredible side characters, and Nikolai was a hero in this game, too. (If you feel there are more underdogs that deserve a mention, drop them in the comments below!)

• Another iconic sequence of events involve the Colt 1911 between Captain Price and Soap. That was such a cool touch throughout the campaigns. (Still emo about it.)

A Gem Of The Era

In my recent review of Call of Duty: Ghosts, I wrote the following, “This was a part of a decade where writing was heartfelt. Modern Warfare 2, launched in 2009, was, and to this day, still is, one of the most heartfelt pieces of fiction created, but I notice a theme during that time period where most things had that gritty heart, and Ghosts is no different. Stories back then could have grit and hellfire and chaos and themes that reminded you of why you fight, why you get up every day, why loving people really matters.”

And yes, that basically sums up my overall thoughts on Modern Warfare 2.

I loved it.

Anyway, I’d love to hear your thoughts, too! Do you think MW2 deserves the hype, 15 years later? What are your thoughts on the campaign?

Also, please consider subscribing to my Substack — I’ll be posting more CoD reviews in the future. And if you love the OG CoD, and like to read / want to try to read more, give my books a shot. The Infidel Books are like CoD meets Red Dawn, of sorts. You can find them here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08L656RT5

Stay frosty,
Angela

The Rundown

First, a quick rundown from Wikipedia, if you’re new to the game. Call of Duty: Ghosts is a 2013 first-person shooter video game developed by Infinity Ward and published by Activision. It is the tenth major installment in the Call of Duty series and the sixth developed by Infinity Ward… The game acts as a standalone installment… Ghosts inherits much of the core gameplay and structure of previous titles, with a mission-based campaign and an open-ended multiplayer, but introduces a near-future setting to the series as well as an increased focus on tactical gameplay…

Post-apocalyptic sci-fi meets recon missions and a lot of crazy situations. This is one of the reasons I love post-apoc, and write it myself, because you can ask, “What if this happened?” even if it’s outlandish or crazy or just plain sadistic fun. I sort of chime in with the other players that said this is an innovative game.

Ghosts has a pretty cool plot, but it’s also a really good balance of plot and characters. Especially with post-apoc and all, you can either have too much of a focus on the plot, or too much of a focus on the characters, to where it’s heavy-handed and bogged down. Ghosts had great pacing, great action, and the characters pushed the plot along, so everything was smoothly intertwined. The gameplay was pretty cool in campaign. There were a few little janky parts and moments, but nothing major. I also enjoyed the different settings a lot.

Now that the semi-professional overview of the game is completed, let’s get into the nitty-gritty of what I really enjoyed, and maybe, some stuff I didn’t enjoy. Be warned, this review has a lot of spoilers, but I’m also 11 years late to the game, so you probably don’t care.

Also, as a slight disclaimer: a lot of the game’s “hate” was directed toward the game’s multiplayer option. I haven’t played multiplayer on Ghosts, so I have no thoughts about it, and this review won’t have any feedback on that. I will note people are still playing multiplayer, though. I booted up one game before jumping into the campaign, so it’s funny that for a “hated” multiplayer game, people are still running it over a decade later, but, yeah.

A Unique Relationship Dynamic

Ghosts is the only CoD game I’ve played where the MCs are bloodkin, which was such a cool detail. I grew up with four siblings, and there is so much to explore in sibling relationships, but you rarely see it in fiction — not genuine, deep relationships, anyway. Sure, the premise of most war/military stories are camaraderie, which is brotherhood, but there is still a difference in that vs. being siblings. Siblings share the same parents, upbringing, and have known each other since one of them was born; so there’s so much to unpack. I think Ghosts did a pretty good job at exploring that dynamic. It was sort of interesting to see Hesh be the “leader,” but Logan still takes so closely after their dad, too. It was so obvious that the game had so much in store with this dynamic, and the build up to a second game was really well done… But more on the forsaken “game two” later.

I really enjoyed Hesh and Logan. I liked the subtly implied thing throughout that Logan was maybe in Hesh’s shadow… But we didn’t see bad blood, so to speak. Logan/we still followed Hesh anywhere, covered him, saved him. I think it’s a realistic reminder that siblings and parents can have all sorts of little hiccups, but still be family. Again, maybe a small thing to note, but you don’t see it much? It’s usually, “Dad, you always loved/treated this sibling better than me! I’ll kill you!” which isn’t realistic.

The Traitor Trope

Anyway, speaking of the Walker dad… I like the trope they used with Elias Walker and Gabriel Rorke. I like the trope of brother bonds going bad, for whatever reason, and the group left behind having to figure out how to stop the “bad brother” from destroying things. It was interesting to have the “bad guys” break Rorke down and make him into a new person, and it was fun to see him hunt the Ghosts and want to eliminate them all… except Logan. (Which, on that note, very few stories end with the “bad guy winning,” which was fun!)

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And I think the brother dynamic and traitor trope go hand-in-hand in this game! It felt that the game wanted you to notice that Hesh was the leader, and Logan followed, so maybe that was why Rorke saw different potential in Logan? (I mean, realistically, he probably saw the skills and “fire” in Logan, but maybe figured he would also be easier to break down?)

I mean, from a gameplay perspective, sure, it would have been cool to have options for Logan to make his own decisions throughout the game — but this game is also over a decade old, and I can imagine the logistics of offering that much leeway in a game model is hard, so I’m not too bothered by it.

(Update after writing this: so, as it turns out, the developers did intend for a multiple-options factor for the game’s ending, like BO2, I think. But they tossed the idea right before launch so the game had one ending, instead. Again, probably for a smooth build up into a second game, but… We didn't get the second game.)

Overall, while I loved the story and cast, the plot twist at the ending was a bit annoying. I knew it was coming — it’s the lil’ trope CoD can’t get enough of. “We killed the bad guy! Sure, we didn’t see the corpse or anything, but he’s as good as dead!” (I don’t know if I’m a sadistic little freak, but if a guy killed my dad / almost killed my brother and my group, I would find a way to decapitate him for good measure, but alas. What would you do? Let me know below, haha.) I think it would have been more believable to have the brothers fail, maybe narrowly so, but still fail, because seeing a guy escape a crash in the water, explosions, and yeah, a .45 round to the chest… Kind of a stretch. I think it could have been a bit more realistic, and dramatic, if Hesh had gone for a different angle to cause the domino effect, but whatever.

Loose Ends

There are a few other minor things I wanted to note that I enjoyed…

• I know people that hate Elias — saying he was a bad father and all — but I didn’t think that was really the gig. I think when you’re part of a secret recon group, that until your kids prove they can be trusted/somewhat safe with that intel, you can’t just yap about it, and that if they want to prove themselves capable, they do have to be tested.

• The intro mission to save Ajax was well done. One of the more impactful scenes in the franchise. The narration toward that scene later was a sucker punch, too, when Hesh acknowledged how the Ghosts treated their dead.

• The cast. Man, what a group of characters. The Ghosts were amazing, and I genuinely don’t think the franchise/fandom gives any of them enough recognition. I think if they did a second game, it’d hit harder this round, for sure, and I think the cast deserves it.

• Keegan running missions with Logan was one of my favorite parts. Again, I kinda liked the correlation of Keegan taking Logan under his wing / maybe seeing his potential, maybe even more so than Elias, and then Rorke seeing the same, but in his twisted version. At least, that’s my take on that.

• Riley was such a fun addition, and a cool shoutout to K9s, which is another thing we rarely see in media, but should.

• The voice acting was on point. Across the board, super well done. Hesh yelling for Logan at the very end? One of the few times I’ve actually gotten chills while playing a game.

• The soundtrack was pretty good, too. Really nice tone for Ghosts. (Also, going from the “what just happened” at the ending and then getting hit with “Survival” by Eminem was absolutely hilarious.)

Overall, I have to admit, besides some minor plot things (like, you know, why not just kill Rorke instead of using a missile that, somehow, didn’t work; or maybe, elaborate on why the Ghosts weren’t actually readying a mission to get the brothers out, which could’ve added even more urgency to the ending, but my writer-brain digresses), I didn’t have much I disliked about the game. I liked it. It was a lot of fun to play. I really hope, even still, that a second game is released.

The Overarching Theme

This was a part of a decade where writing was heartfelt.

Modern Warfare 2, launched in 2009, was, and to this day, still is, one of the most heartfelt pieces of fiction created, but I notice a theme during that time period where most things had that gritty heart, and Ghosts is no different. Stories back then could have grit and hellfire and chaos and themes that reminded you of why you fight, why you get up every day, why loving people really matters.

I think Ghosts reminded its audiences that family is still pretty much all you have. (And, maybe another lesson would be, “Make sure they’re actually dead.”) Because nowadays, a lot of stories, in any shape or form, are just cheap money grabs, mindless jabs at nihilism or emptiness or shallowness, and stories that cater to lust. So stories like “OG” Call of Duty are insanely refreshing and sobering, as both a person/gamer, and even as a story creator.

Anyway, I’d love to hear your thoughts, too. Let me know if you’ve played Ghosts, and what you thought of it. I’ll have reviews posted for Black Ops 6, the original Modern Warfare 2 / the remake MWII, coming shortly, so sub for more content. And if you love the OG CoD, and like to read / want to try to read more, give my books a shot. The Infidel Books are like CoD meets Red Dawn, of sorts. You can find them here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08L656RT5

Stay frosty,

Angela

Note: This article won’t be a genuine review of the series, but it is spoiler free. I’ll say now, that Attack on Titan was a masterpiece, and I enjoyed the series from the beginning, even if I am one of the few who wished the ending had been a bit different and all. But the ending is what it is. And I’m so grateful for this series and all it has done for me.

Ten years ago, I was facing abuse from one of my older sisters (not the eldest, I’ll clarify). I remember finding Attack on Titan and gobbling up all I could. I learned that Captain Levi was dedicated, and strong, and caring. I learned than Jean was stubborn, and stupid at times, but was still loved by his comrades, and he never gave up, either. I learned that dedicating your heart, no matter how scary, was something we all had to decide to do or not.

A year or so later, that abusive sister left, and I was left feeling… nothing. I was genuinely numb. I believed I was nothing. I didn’t have any dreams.

And yet again, I turned to AoT (among other stories) and clung to Levi’s hope and his dream, and Jean’s dedication, and the theme that there was still a reason to keep going.

That season of my life was difficult. I had been fed many lies by that sister, and unraveling it all took years, but finally… I found the truth.

I found the light, for real. I grabbed ahold of the light I had always been too afraid to truly touch.

And life… has changed.

Last night, I watched the finale with my siblings on the big screen: my brother and I are grown up now. I watched the finale with my eldest sister, and her husband. I watched the finale with a living room full of nieces and a nephew in the other room watching their own movie, too. I watched the finale with my parents safe and sound at home, too. And of course, watching an anime with such tragedy and heartbreak reminds you of all the good you have in your own life… But it was more than that, too.

I watched the finale as someone who finally, finally understood, and lived by, the faith, and hope, and love, that Levi and Jean portrayed so vehemently. Sure, other characters followed the theme, while others tragically fell away from this hope that truly keeps humans moving. But from childhood, those two characters were what encouraged me so much, so watching their journey hit quite hard during the finale. And the finale was harsh, and tragic, and heartbreaking. But they still pushed on. And I finally understand what that meant…

I also know a lot of people take the finale as a harsh reality that humans will always choose war, no matter what… And well, on one hand, duh. However… I don’t think that’s the message the series worked so hard to show, though. I think that’s just the obvious reality. But dig deeper.

In the finale, there’s a scene where Levi sort of rebukes this message of hopelessness: and once again, I was thrown back to my childhood, when I desperately held onto hope and faith, even if others told me it was hopeless.

If we look for the message that we’re doomed, we’ll find it.

But if we’re strong, and dedicate our hearts, just as Erwin and Levi urged, we’ll find hope. We’ll find beauty. We’ll find love. We’ll find all of the reasons that make this life worth living.

In no form or fashion will it be easy, or always lovely, etc. But as Armin Arlert said; “Endure it. Don’t let go.”

It’s really strange for this series to be over… But like with any good story… I think it’ll stick with us, and we’ll keep moving forward. I’m grateful for the help it offered me. I truly pray my stories can offer this sort of motivation and sanctuary, too.

Sincerely,

Angela