A lot of things impressed me about the Modern Warfare 2 demo: the great blizzard/snow effects. A snowmobile chase that would make Bruce Willis blush. That tense climb up the ice-covered mountain with a pair of ice picks….
But those are the easy things to point out. Watching an extended hands-on demo by Infinity Ward’s Mark Rubin, I made a point to look for more of the finer details — which, interestingly, didn’t always involve guns and the discharging of their bountiful ammo.
I noticed that while making Private Gary “Roach” Sanderson, who the player controls, scale that mountain, Rubin was actively in control, alternately pulling the Right Trigger and Left Trigger in accordance with each pick’s strike and lift. Sure this may seem simple — I’m just glad to see it’s an active motion that makes sense. I would have been disappointed if it involved just a bunch of canned animations after one button press.
Your commander for the duration of the demo is Capt. MacTavish, who doesn’t hesitate to give you lip when needed. One part I enjoyed was some context-based dialogue. As the two soldiers split up during the raid on the snowy compound, we could hear Mac give orders and updates over the comm. At one point he said, “I got this one,” referring to an unknowing grunt about to get a silenced ACB shot in the head. But Rubin saw who the captain was aiming at and shot him first, at which point MacTavish could only say, “Or maybe I don’t.” Cool. Made the scene feel that much more real.
Finally, I noticed a couple brutal takedowns. In one, Roach and Mac head inside an office, where MacTavish sees an enemy turn the corner in front of them, at which point he charges the chump, leaps at him, and tackles him before taking him out. Later, just before the snowmobile scene, Roach looked back to see Mac waiting at the corner of a lodge before spinning with his drawn ice pick into the driver of an oncoming snowmobile. Ouch.
I asked Rubin 1) if the player can pull off these unique executions (“No…it looks better when the A.I. does it”), and 2) if these were all scripted attacks. He said some were scripted, but others are situational. Given the right context, an A.I. character will wait at a corner to take out an oncoming enemy. By mixing in these types of takedowns, Rubin said it makes the action feel a little more intense and realistic, since these soldiers won’t just mindlessly reach for guns in every situation — what a concept!
While these details made me appreciate what Infinity Ward is doing, this demo mostly just made me want to get my hands on the game that much more.