November 19th, 2009
If you are intending to play Modern Warfare 2 and do not want the story ruined then you would be better off not reading this. Having said that it is unlikely that I can ruin the story as it makes little or no sense.To say I intend to include spoilers is a bit of an understatement. Reading this will leave you in no doubt of any plot twist however ridiculous. It is important to bear in mind that most of this is based on my hazy release day recollections and may not actually have happened.There is a common philosophy in game development to add the story as a bit of an afterthought. This is largely because developers have ideas for levels they want to make or have types of buildings they are really good at drawing. As a result stories are often absurd. This isn’t an accusation that relates purely to Modern Warfare 2 but there has been quite a lot said about the moral ambiguity of one level in particular. In a sense it was unfair for the media to extract the airport massacre level as it was fair to assume that the rest of game would provide context for it. In fact the developers said exactly this.I thought there might be some use in me writing down what I remember about the game as a whole and seeing if there is any context.To be fair to Modern Warfare 2 it is great. It is jingoistic nonsense of the first order where you do get to blow loads of things up in a modern setting. That’s all you can really ask of it.So what happens?+++++spoilers+++++++The most important thing to remember when looking at the story is that General Shepherd did it. Everything that happens in the game is largely his fault. This is the big twist that you won’t be expecting.The reveal of this twist is cunningly hidden behind the device of not much preceding it really having a grounding in reality.Act 1The game begins in the Afghanistan where you are selected by General Shepherd to join some sort of covert special forces group. He’s apparently selected you on your ability to run down a sort of assault course in about 50 seconds. Clearly his recruitment criteria is not too rigid.Before you can explore the terms of his job offer you must come to the aid of some undisclosed army unit that being attacked by generic terrorists. This sums up the problem with Modern Warfare’s interpretation of Afghanistan. It doesn’t look a thing like Afghanistan we’re used to seeing on the TV.It actually looks quite nice. It seems to have had some extensive urban development and has a relatively good road infrastructure. In fact it looks stunningly like the unnamed middle eastern country in Modern Warfare 1. I think it was actually a left over level from Modern Warfare and the developers had decided that it was very unlikely that anyone playing would have any idea what downtown Kabul looks like. Except it’s on the news most days so we do know what it looks like. It’s generally more broken.After blowing some stuff up General Shepherd asks you to join his secret group and off you go. Nothing sinister so far.The biggest problem with Modern Warfare is that it jumps round the world for no apparent reason and you’re constantly playing as someone different. I admit that I quickly stopped paying attention to who I was playing and what my motivation was.So we now pop up in Russia (possibly) as some sort of UK special forces. Apparently a satellite has crashed and we need to retrieve the ACS Module. I still have no idea what an ACS Module is.The rational solution to this would be to establish diplomatic relations and negotiate it’s return in exchange for some sort of cash oil deal. What we actually do is sneak into sovereign territory, execute their sentries and steal the ACS back. It is important to note that before we steal the ACS we decide to blow up their fuel supply. I have no idea why. It seems a bit spiteful. It’s a bit like those people who burgle your house and piss on your pillows.Despite the evident flaws it is very exciting and you get to shoot loads of people.At last we get to the, now, infamous airport level. The premise of this level stretches imagination a little bit. We are once again the American bloke from the first level and General Shepherd has persuaded us to go into deep cover within a Russian Terrorist group. I would assume that the intention would be to find out what atrocities the group is planning and thwart them. I have no idea what they could have been planning that is worse than executing thousands of innocent people in an airport but for some reason we are not allowed to stop the attack.So we wonder around the airport with this bloke called Makarov generally shooting people. It’s a bit gruesome but I must have no morals as I didn’t find it very shocking.At the end of the level Makarov decides to shoot us in the first of our shakey pot twists. Apparently knowing that we are undercover he hopes to leave a body behind to incriminate the US in the terrorist attack. In itself this is probably reasonable. We know later on that General Shepherd masterminded this so he probably could leak our real identity. It does leave a little bit to chance and is the first indication that Makarov isn’t a very good terrorist.Once that’s all sorted we are back again as UK special forces but this time in Brazil.Apparently the forensics from the airport indicate that the weapons used come from an arms dealer in Brazil called Rojas. I was interested to note that Rojas is younger than me; he seems to have done quite well for himself.We trail someone in a van until they meet Rojas’ friend. He goes a bit ape shit blowing stuff up but we valiantly chase him down by shooting him in the leg. Whilst our colleagues decide to torture him we are advised to go and hang around in favela in case Rojas turns up.This seems to be a little bit of a random plan but actually works out for the best. Whilst in the favela we quickly find out that Rojas has a very very big group of people working for him. It never really becomes apparent why he would need this many people working for him. As anyone will tell you in large organisations the biggest cost is generally labour. Relating labour to income is key to a profitable business. In Rojas’ case security would obviously be a large consideration but maintaining such a massive group of heavily armed people must be an economic drain. I imagine they were generally not required to do much on a day to day basis.Unfortunately on this day they were required to die on an almost genocidal scale. As you begin killing everyone that moves there is a vague warning about avoiding civilians. There isn’t a lot to worry about as there can’t be more than 6. This is a bit unusual in one of the most densely packed conurbations on earth.Eventually we catch up with Rojas’ who tells us that there is a man being held in a Russian Gulag that Makarov doesn’t like. A lot of people died for this completely pointless information. The futility of human life doesn’t concern us to much and we ask for some sort of immediate evacuation. Before this can happen we’re off again.Act 2This time we’re just in time to witness the Russian invasion of America. It seems the Russians weren’t too happy about their citizens getting killed and planned this as revenge. Using the codes obtained from the ACS they have disabled the US air defences. This is the first indication that the ACS even held codes. The Russians reaction also indicates that we should probably not have blown up their airfield in retrieving the ACS. They are clearly riled.There’s not much to say about this level. It’s a big war in an American town.It’s probably my favourite level of the game and it does nothing to develop the story.And now we’re back in Brazil. It seems that the war in the US has disrupted scheduled air travel and the helicopter can’t pick us up. Oh no.We also seem to have lost Rojas. I have no idea what happened to him after he gave us his rubbish bit of intelligence, we probably shot him. Unfortunately as the helicopter can’t pick us up from the large patch of open ground we have to battle our way up to some rooftops where it can pick us up. There is no rational for this and a substantial amount of human life (and chickens) could have been preserved if someone had been a bit firmer on the radio.There’s lots of jumping about and quite an exciting leap at the end.That’s the end of Brazil. We killed a lot of people and we learnt that Makarov doesn’t like a bloke in prison in Russia. Not a good return.Back in the US we aided in our fight against the Russians by a large vehicle called Honey Badger. It’s great at blowing things like anti-aircraft guns up. Just mindless destruction.Again this doesn’t add to the story until the last bit of the level. After blowing some guns up we’re diverted to a specific address where someone important is hiding in a panic room. We need to get there and rescue someone.On arriving we discover the important person gone and cryptically the bodies of some, apparently, unusual people outside of the door of the panic room. You would be forgiven that this little gem might be in some way relevant to the story. As far as I can work out it isn’t. I have no idea who we were rescuing or what happened to them.Based on the intelligence received from Rojas’ the full US military might of the US and UK are devoted to finding this bloke who’s imprisoned in Russia. There is absolutely no logical basis for this. As we will find out later we apparently know where Makarov lives so we could have just cut out the middleman and gone to his house. We don’t.Obviously before we can go to the prison we have to free some hostages on an oilrig. People who make these games really like oil rigs. I think this is because of Roger Moore’s 1980 classic North Sea Hijack. Classic might be stretching things a bit but every game I’ve played that includes the customary oil rig looks a lot like it.The Russian prison itself is fairly uneventful. It does have a lot of shooting people and it is good to see that the Russians have a startling ratio of guards to prisoners. Seemingly two or three hundred to every prisoner. Much like Rojas their costs must be astronomical.Clearly we’re all very excited to find out who this person is that has got Makarov so annoyed. It turns out it’s Captain Price. Yes, Captain Price from Call of Duty 4. I thought he was dead but I didn’t pay much attention to that one either.It seems he’s been in prison for five years. In all likelyhood it was for a crime he didn’t commit.On releasing Captain Price we tell him about the war in America and Makarov’s role in the airport and it is fair to say he is very very angry about it. He suggests that the only way to put out a fire is to light another bigger fire under it. He has been tortured for quite a few years so I’m not too surprised that he has forgotten some of the principles of fire fighting but this should have been an early indicator to not put him in charge of anything.Act 3There is now a quick level back in the US where we have to fight to secure a building. Lots of killing not much in the way of story.Despite the warning signs Captain Price seems to be in charge and he insists we all go to a submarine base. This would have been a good point to ask why?This bit really confused me. We fight our way, with Captain Price, to the nuclear submarine. Whilst he nips into the submarine we wait outside just killing. After a while there’s a bit of a panic and someone launches a nuclear missile which seems to be aimed at the US. I say someone as I still don’t understand who launched it.If it was Captain Price then this was a silly plan. Though he had been talking about bigger fires and all that, so it certainly could have been him.It could well have been the Russians panicking when they saw a very angry Captain Price coming towards them. I imagine that launching the missile wouldn’t have prevented Captain Price killing them as he seems to kill everyone he meets.I have no idea why we were even at the base let alone why someone decided nuclear weapons would make the situation better.Ironically it turns out that the explosion of the nuclear weapon over Washington creates an Electro Magnetic Pulse that knocks out the invading Russian helicopters. It is entirely possible that in the post war enquiry Captain Price could claim that this was his plan all along. Given the long term affects of radiation on the Eastern Seaboard I don’t think anyone will accept this was a very good plan.The loss of the helicopters in Washington gives the Americans just the break they needed to fight all the way to the White House which had previously been under Russian control. There doesn’t seem to be any reason to go there but it’s good fun and the post nuclear affects are quite good.After Captain Price’s plan goes horribly tits up someone remembers that they think they know where Makarov lives. It hadn’t occurred to them to mention this before now. Well it probably didn’t seem important.Everyone decides to split up and half the team will go to his supposed house whilst the rest of the team go to scrapyard in Afghanistan. Don’t ask me why.At Makarov’s house we discover he’s not in but he has left his computer there with lots of lovely intelligence on it. It must be an extremely heavy computer because we can’t carry it to the helicopter. No, instead we must copy the contents of the hard drive before we can leave. This gives Makarov’s men a chance to attack in waves. Many waves.It does take a long long time to copy the data but eventually we make our escape so we can be rescued by General Shepherd in his big helicopter. As you will no doubt guess, mainly because I ruined it earlier, General Shepherd is pleased to get hold of the data but less pleased to give us a lift. In fact he shoots us legs it.This is the point that we realise that General Shepherd has planned all of this from start to finish. We do not realise why on earth he would have come up with such a strange plan.The other team, in the scrapyard, realise that General Shepherd is not to be trusted. This is largely because there are large groups of his men and Makarov’s men having a massive fight. I do not know why they are there or why they have fallen out with each other.Captain Price is with the other team and somehow manages to get hold of Makarov and persuade him to give us a lift out of the massive fight. The one thing we know about Captain Price is that he doesn’t like Makarov (and he can’t be trusted with submarine based plan). The one thing we know about Makarov is that he doesn’t like Captain Price. We don’t know why. Despite this they have quite an amicable chat and Makarov agrees to pick us up in his plane.He also quite happily agrees to drop us off at General Shepherds secret mountain base.This means we wave goodbye to the terrorist we’ve tearing the planet apart looking for. He gets completely away with it.It also doesn’t explain why General Shepherd has a secret mountain base. It’s not a very good one. It has virtually no amenities but there are lots of heavily armed men there. It isn’t very clear what he was planning on doing there but we don’t stop to ask and rampage through it killing everyone in our way. General Shepherd fearing for his own life attempts to escape in a rubber boat. He doesn’t get far.Then we get the final explanation.It seems that General Shepherd is generally vexed by the recruitment crisis in the US military so he decided to engineer a Russian invasion. That’s it.It’s a massive amount of trouble to go to when this could have been largely resolved through a decent poster campaign.Anyway that’s all I remember about Modern Warfare 2.
If you are intending to play Modern Warfare 2 and do not want the story ruined then you would be better off not reading this. Having said that it is unlikely that I can ruin the story as it makes little or no sense.
To say I intend to include spoilers is a bit of an understatement. Reading this will leave you in no doubt of any plot twist however ridiculous. It is important to bear in mind that most of this is based on my hazy release day recollections and may not actually have happened.
There is a common philosophy in game development to add the story as a bit of an afterthought. This is largely because developers have ideas for levels they want to make or have types of buildings they are really good at drawing. As a result stories are often absurd. This isn’t an accusation that relates purely to Modern Warfare 2 but there has been quite a lot said about the moral ambiguity of one level in particular. In a sense it was unfair for the media to extract the airport massacre level as it was fair to assume that the rest of game would provide context for it. In fact the developers said exactly this.
I thought there might be some use in me writing down what I remember about the game as a whole and seeing if there is any context.
To be fair to Modern Warfare 2 it is great. It is jingoistic nonsense of the first order where you do get to blow loads of things up in a modern setting. That’s all you can really ask of it.
So what happens?
+++++++spoilers+++++++
The most important thing to remember when looking at the story is that General Shepherd did it. Everything that happens in the game is largely his fault. This is the big twist that you won’t be expecting.
The reveal of this twist is cunningly hidden behind the device of not much preceding it really having a grounding in reality.
Act 1
The game begins in the Afghanistan where you are selected by General Shepherd to join some sort of covert special forces group. He’s apparently selected you on your ability to run down a sort of assault course in about 50 seconds. Clearly his recruitment criteria is not too rigid.
Before you can explore the terms of his job offer you must come to the aid of some undisclosed army unit that being attacked by generic terrorists. This sums up the problem with Modern Warfare’s interpretation of Afghanistan. It doesn’t look a thing like Afghanistan we’re used to seeing on the TV.
It actually looks quite nice. It seems to have had some extensive urban development and has a relatively good road infrastructure. In fact it looks stunningly like the unnamed middle eastern country in Modern Warfare 1. I think it was actually a left over level from Modern Warfare and the developers had decided that it was very unlikely that anyone playing would have any idea what downtown Kabul looks like. Except it’s on the news most days so we do know what it looks like. It’s generally more broken.
After blowing some stuff up General Shepherd asks you to join his secret group and off you go. Nothing sinister so far.
The biggest problem with Modern Warfare is that it jumps round the world for no apparent reason and you’re constantly playing as someone different. I admit that I quickly stopped paying attention to who I was playing and what my motivation was.
So we now pop up in Russia (possibly) as some sort of UK special forces. Apparently a satellite has crashed and we need to retrieve the ACS Module. I still have no idea what an ACS Module is.
The rational solution to this would be to establish diplomatic relations and negotiate it’s return in exchange for some sort of cash oil deal. What we actually do is sneak into sovereign territory, execute their sentries and steal the ACS back. It is important to note that before we steal the ACS we decide to blow up their fuel supply. I have no idea why. It seems a bit spiteful. It’s a bit like those people who burgle your house and piss on your pillows.
Despite the evident flaws it is very exciting and you get to shoot loads of people.
At last we get to the, now, infamous airport level. The premise of this level stretches imagination a little bit. We are once again the American bloke from the first level and General Shepherd has persuaded us to go into deep cover within a Russian Terrorist group. I would assume that the intention would be to find out what atrocities the group is planning and thwart them. I have no idea what they could have been planning that is worse than executing thousands of innocent people in an airport but for some reason we are not allowed to stop the attack.
So we wonder around the airport with this bloke called Makarov generally shooting people. It’s a bit gruesome but I must have no morals as I didn’t find it very shocking.
At the end of the level Makarov decides to shoot us in the first of our shakey pot twists. Apparently knowing that we are undercover he hopes to leave a body behind to incriminate the US in the terrorist attack. In itself this is probably reasonable. We know later on that General Shepherd masterminded this so he probably could leak our real identity. It does leave a little bit to chance and is the first indication that Makarov isn’t a very good terrorist.
Once that’s all sorted we are back again as UK special forces but this time in Brazil.
Apparently the forensics from the airport indicate that the weapons used come from an arms dealer in Brazil called Rojas. I was interested to note that Rojas is younger than me; he seems to have done quite well for himself.
We trail someone in a van until they meet Rojas’ friend. He goes a bit ape shit blowing stuff up but we valiantly chase him down by shooting him in the leg. Whilst our colleagues decide to torture him we are advised to go and hang around in favela in case Rojas turns up.
This seems to be a little bit of a random plan but actually works out for the best. Whilst in the favela we quickly find out that Rojas has a very very big group of people working for him. It never really becomes apparent why he would need this many people working for him. As anyone will tell you in large organisations the biggest cost is generally labour. Relating labour to income is key to a profitable business. In Rojas’ case security would obviously be a large consideration but maintaining such a massive group of heavily armed people must be an economic drain. I imagine they were generally not required to do much on a day to day basis.
Unfortunately on this day they were required to die on an almost genocidal scale. As you begin killing everyone that moves there is a vague warning about avoiding civilians. There isn’t a lot to worry about as there can’t be more than 6. This is a bit unusual in one of the most densely packed conurbations on earth.
Eventually we catch up with Rojas’ who tells us that there is a man being held in a Russian Gulag that Makarov doesn’t like. A lot of people died for this completely pointless information. The futility of human life doesn’t concern us to much and we ask for some sort of immediate evacuation. Before this can happen we’re off again.
Act 2
This time we’re just in time to witness the Russian invasion of America. It seems the Russians weren’t too happy about their citizens getting killed and planned this as revenge. Using the codes obtained from the ACS they have disabled the US air defences. This is the first indication that the ACS even held codes. The Russians reaction also indicates that we should probably not have blown up their airfield in retrieving the ACS. They are clearly riled.
There’s not much to say about this level. It’s a big war in an American town.
It’s probably my favourite level of the game and it does nothing to develop the story.
And now we’re back in Brazil. It seems that the war in the US has disrupted scheduled air travel and the helicopter can’t pick us up. Oh no.
We also seem to have lost Rojas. I have no idea what happened to him after he gave us his rubbish bit of intelligence, we probably shot him. Unfortunately as the helicopter can’t pick us up from the large patch of open ground we have to battle our way up to some rooftops where it can pick us up. There is no rational for this and a substantial amount of human life (and chickens) could have been preserved if someone had been a bit firmer on the radio.
There’s lots of jumping about and quite an exciting leap at the end.
That’s the end of Brazil. We killed a lot of people and we learnt that Makarov doesn’t like a bloke in prison in Russia. Not a good return.
Back in the US we aided in our fight against the Russians by a large vehicle called a/the Honey Badger. It’s great at blowing things like anti-aircraft guns up. Just mindless destruction.
Again this doesn’t add to the story until the last bit of the level. After blowing some guns up we’re diverted to a specific address where someone important is hiding in a panic room. We need to get there and rescue someone.
On arriving we discover the important person gone and cryptically the bodies of some, apparently, unusual people outside of the door of the panic room. You would be forgiven that this little gem might be in some way relevant to the story. As far as I can work out it isn’t. I have no idea who we were rescuing or what happened to them.
Based on the intelligence received from Rojas’ the full US military might of the US and UK are devoted to finding this bloke who’s imprisoned in Russia. There is absolutely no logical basis for this. As we will find out later we apparently know where Makarov lives so we could have just cut out the middleman and gone to his house. We don’t.
Obviously before we can go to the prison we have to free some hostages on an oilrig. People who make these games really like oil rigs. I think this is because of Roger Moore’s 1980 classic North Sea Hijack. Classic might be stretching things a bit but every game I’ve played that includes the customary oil rig looks a lot like it.
The Russian prison itself is fairly uneventful. It does have a lot of shooting people and it is good to see that the Russians have a startling ratio of guards to prisoners. Seemingly two or three hundred to every prisoner. Much like Rojas their costs must be astronomical.
Clearly we’re all very excited to find out who this person is that has got Makarov so annoyed. It turns out it’s Captain Price. Yes, Captain Price from Call of Duty 4. I thought he was dead but I didn’t pay much attention to that one either.
It seems he’s been in prison for five years. In all likelyhood it was for a crime he didn’t commit. Needless to say, why is not explained.
On releasing Captain Price we tell him about the war in America and Makarov’s role in the airport and it is fair to say he is very very angry about it. He suggests that the only way to put out a fire is to light another bigger fire under it. He has been tortured for quite a few years so I’m not too surprised that he has forgotten some of the principles of fire fighting but this should have been an early indicator to not put him in charge of anything.
Act 3
There is now a quick level back in the US where we have to fight to secure a building. Lots of killing not much in the way of story.
Despite the warning signs Captain Price seems to be in charge and he insists we all go to a submarine base. This would have been a good point to ask why?
This bit really confused me. We fight our way, with Captain Price, to the nuclear submarine. Whilst he nips into the submarine we wait outside just killing. After a while there’s a bit of a panic and someone launches a nuclear missile which seems to be aimed at the US. I say someone as I still don’t understand who launched it.
If it was Captain Price then this was a silly plan. Though he had been talking about bigger fires and all that, so it certainly could have been him.
It could well have been the Russians panicking when they saw a very angry Captain Price coming towards them. I imagine that launching the missile wouldn’t have prevented Captain Price killing them as he seems to kill everyone he meets.
I have no idea why we were even at the base let alone why someone decided nuclear weapons would make the situation better.
Ironically it turns out that the explosion of the nuclear weapon over Washington creates an Electro Magnetic Pulse that knocks out the invading Russian helicopters. It is entirely possible that in the post war enquiry Captain Price could claim that this was his plan all along. Given the long term affects of radiation on the Eastern Seaboard I don’t think anyone will accept this was a very good plan.
The loss of the helicopters in Washington gives the Americans just the break they needed to fight all the way to the White House which had previously been under Russian control. There doesn’t seem to be any reason to go there but it’s good fun and the post nuclear affects are quite good.
After Captain Price’s plan goes horribly tits up someone remembers that they think they know where Makarov lives. It hadn’t occurred to them to mention this before now. Well it probably didn’t seem important.
Everyone decides to split up and half the team will go to his supposed house whilst the rest of the team go to scrapyard in Afghanistan. Don’t ask me why.
At Makarov’s house we discover he’s not in but he has left his computer there with lots of lovely intelligence on it. It must be an extremely heavy computer because we can’t carry it to the helicopter. No, instead we must copy the contents of the hard drive before we can leave. This gives Makarov’s men a chance to attack in waves. Many waves.
It does take a long long time to copy the data but eventually we make our escape so we can be rescued by General Shepherd in his big helicopter. As you will no doubt guess, mainly because I ruined it earlier, General Shepherd is pleased to get hold of the data but less pleased to give us a lift. In fact he shoots us legs it.
This is the point that we realise that General Shepherd has planned all of this from start to finish. We do not realise why on earth he would have come up with such a strange plan.
The other team, in the scrapyard, realise that General Shepherd is not to be trusted. This is largely because there are large groups of his men and Makarov’s men having a massive fight. I do not know why they are there or why they have fallen out with each other.
Captain Price is with the other team and somehow manages to get hold of Makarov and persuade him to give us a lift out of the massive fight.
The one thing we know about Captain Price is that he doesn’t like Makarov (and he can’t be trusted with submarine based plan).
The one thing we know about Makarov is that he doesn’t like Captain Price. We don’t know why. Despite this they have quite an amicable chat and Makarov agrees to pick us up in his plane.
He also quite happily agrees to drop us off at General Shepherds secret mountain base.
This means we wave goodbye to the terrorist we’ve tearing the planet apart looking for. He gets completely away with it.
It also doesn’t explain why General Shepherd has a secret mountain base. It’s not a very good one. It has virtually no amenities but there are lots of heavily armed men there. It isn’t very clear what he was planning on doing there but we don’t stop to ask and rampage through it killing everyone in our way. General Shepherd fearing for his own life attempts to escape in a rubber boat. He doesn’t get far.
Then we get the final explanation.
It seems that General Shepherd is generally vexed by the recruitment crisis in the US military so he decided to engineer a Russian invasion. That’s it.
It’s a massive amount of trouble to go to when this could have been largely resolved through a decent poster campaign.
Anyway that’s all I remember about Modern Warfare 2.
If you are intending to play Modern Warfare 2 and do not want the story ruined then you would be better off not reading this. Having said that it is unlikely that I can ruin the story as it makes little or no sense.
To say I intend to include spoilers is a bit of an understatement. Reading this will leave you in no doubt of any plot twist however ridiculous. It is important to bear in mind that most of this is based on my hazy release day recollections and may not actually have happened.
There is a common philosophy in game development to add the story as a bit of an afterthought. This is largely because developers have ideas for levels they want to make or have types of buildings they are really good at drawing. As a result stories are often absurd.
This isn’t an accusation that relates purely to Modern Warfare 2 but there has been quite a lot said about the moral ambiguity of one level in particular. In a sense it was unfair for the media to extract the airport massacre level as it was fair to assume that the rest of game would provide context for it. In fact the developers said exactly this (probably).
I thought there might be some use in me writing down what I remember about the game as a whole and seeing if there is any context.
To be fair to Modern Warfare 2 it is great. It is jingoistic nonsense of the first order where you do get to blow loads of things up in a modern setting. That’s all you can really ask of it.
So what happens?
+++++++spoilers+++++++
The most important thing to remember when looking at the story is that General Shepherd did it. Everything that happens in the game is largely his fault. This is the big twist that you won’t be expecting.
The reveal of this twist is cunningly hidden behind the device of not much preceding it really having a grounding in reality.
Act 1
The game begins in the Afghanistan where you are selected by General Shepherd to join some sort of covert special forces group. He’s apparently selected you on your ability to run down a sort of assault course in about 50 seconds. Clearly his recruitment criteria is not too rigid.
Before you can explore the terms of his job offer you must come to the aid of some undisclosed army unit that being attacked by generic terrorists. This sums up the problem with Modern Warfare’s interpretation of Afghanistan. It doesn’t look a thing like Afghanistan we’re used to seeing on the TV.
It actually looks quite nice. It seems to have had some extensive urban development and has a relatively good road infrastructure. In fact it looks stunningly like the unnamed middle eastern country in Modern Warfare 1.
I think it was actually a left over level from Modern Warfare and the developers had decided that it was very unlikely that anyone playing would have any idea what downtown Kabul looks like. Except it’s on the news most days so we do know what it looks like. It’s generally more broken.
After blowing some stuff up General Shepherd asks you to join his secret group and off you go. Nothing sinister so far.
The biggest problem with Modern Warfare is that it jumps round the world for no apparent reason and you’re constantly playing as someone different. I admit that I quickly stopped paying attention to who I was playing and what my motivation was.
So we now pop up in Russia (possibly) as some sort of UK special forces. Apparently a satellite has crashed and we need to retrieve the ACS Module. I still have no idea what an ACS Module is.
The rational solution to this would be to establish diplomatic relations and negotiate it’s return in exchange for some sort of cash oil deal. What we actually do is sneak into sovereign territory, execute their sentries and steal the ACS back. It is important to note that before we steal the ACS we decide to blow up their fuel supply. I have no idea why. It seems a bit spiteful. It’s a bit like those people who burgle your house and piss on your pillows.
Despite the evident flaws it is very exciting and you get to shoot loads of people.
At last we get to the, now, infamous airport level. The premise of this level stretches imagination a little bit. We are once again the American bloke from the first level and General Shepherd has persuaded us to go into deep cover within a Russian Terrorist group. I would assume that the intention would be to find out what atrocities the group is planning and thwart them. I have no idea what they could have been planning that is worse than executing thousands of innocent people in an airport but for some reason we are not allowed to stop the attack.
So we wonder around the airport with this bloke called Makarov generally shooting people. It’s a bit gruesome but I must have no morals as I didn’t find it very shocking.
At the end of the level Makarov decides to shoot us in the first of our shakey pot twists. Apparently knowing that we are undercover he hopes to leave a body behind to incriminate the US in the terrorist attack. In itself this is probably reasonable. We know later on that General Shepherd masterminded this so he probably could leak our real identity. It does leave a little bit to chance and is the first indication that Makarov isn’t a very good terrorist.
Once that’s all sorted we are back again as UK special forces but this time in Brazil.
Apparently the forensics from the airport indicate that the weapons used come from an arms dealer in Brazil called Rojas. I was interested to note that Rojas is younger than me; he seems to have done quite well for himself.
We trail someone in a van until they meet Rojas’ friend. He goes a bit ape shit blowing stuff up but we valiantly chase him down by shooting him in the leg. Whilst our colleagues decide to torture him we are advised to go and hang around in favela in case Rojas turns up.
This seems to be a little bit of a random plan but actually works out for the best. Whilst in the favela we quickly find out that Rojas has a very very big group of people working for him. It never really becomes apparent why he would need this many people working for him.
As anyone will tell you in large organisations the biggest cost is generally labour. Relating labour to income is key to a profitable business. In Rojas’ case security would obviously be a large consideration but maintaining such a massive group of heavily armed people must be an economic drain. I imagine they were generally not required to do much on a day to day basis.
Unfortunately on this day they were required to die on an almost genocidal scale. As you begin killing everyone that moves there is a vague warning about avoiding civilians. There isn’t a lot to worry about as there can’t be more than 6. This is a bit unusual in one of the most densely packed conurbations on earth.
Eventually we catch up with Rojas’ who tells us that there is a man being held in a Russian Gulag that Makarov doesn’t like. A lot of people died for this completely pointless information. The futility of human life doesn’t concern us to much and we ask for some sort of immediate evacuation. Before this can happen we’re off again.
Act 2
This time we’re just in time to witness the Russian invasion of America. It seems the Russians weren’t too happy about their citizens getting killed and planned this as revenge. Using the codes obtained from the ACS they have disabled the US air defences. This is the first indication that the ACS even held codes. The Russians reaction also indicates that we should probably not have blown up their airfield in retrieving the ACS. They are clearly riled.
There’s not much to say about this level. It’s a big war in an American town.
It’s probably my favourite level of the game and it does nothing to develop the story.
And now we’re back in Brazil. It seems that the war in the US has disrupted scheduled air travel and the helicopter can’t pick us up. Oh no.
We also seem to have lost Rojas. I have no idea what happened to him after he gave us his rubbish bit of intelligence, we probably shot him. Unfortunately as the helicopter can’t pick us up from the large patch of open ground we have to battle our way up to some rooftops where it can pick us up. There is no rational for this and a substantial amount of human life (and chickens) could have been preserved if someone had been a bit firmer on the radio.
There’s lots of jumping about and quite an exciting leap at the end.
That’s the end of Brazil. We killed a lot of people and we learnt that Makarov doesn’t like a bloke in prison in Russia. Not a good return.
Back in the US we aided in our fight against the Russians by a large vehicle called a/the Honey Badger. It’s great at blowing things like anti-aircraft guns up. Just mindless destruction.
Again this doesn’t add to the story until the last bit of the level. After blowing some guns up we’re diverted to a specific address where someone important is hiding in a panic room. We need to get there and rescue someone.
On arriving we discover the important person gone and cryptically the bodies of some, apparently, unusual people outside of the door of the panic room. You would be forgiven that this little gem might be in some way relevant to the story. As far as I can work out it isn’t. I have no idea who we were rescuing or what happened to them.
Based on the intelligence received from Rojas’ the full US military might of the US and UK are devoted to finding this bloke who’s imprisoned in Russia. There is absolutely no logical basis for this. As we will find out later we apparently know where Makarov lives so we could have just cut out the middleman and gone to his house. We don’t.
Obviously before we can go to the prison we have to free some hostages on an oilrig. People who make these games really like oil rigs. I think this is because of Roger Moore’s 1980 classic North Sea Hijack. Classic might be stretching things a bit but every game I’ve played that includes the customary oil rig looks a lot like it.
The Russian prison itself is fairly uneventful. It does have a lot of shooting people and it is good to see that the Russians have a startling ratio of guards to prisoners. Seemingly two or three hundred to every prisoner. Much like Rojas their costs must be astronomical.
Clearly we’re all very excited to find out who this person is that has got Makarov so annoyed. It turns out it’s Captain Price. Yes, Captain Price from Call of Duty 4. I thought he was dead but I didn’t pay much attention to that one either.
It seems he’s been in prison for five years. In all likelyhood it was for a crime he didn’t commit. Needless to say, why is not explained.
On releasing Captain Price we tell him about the war in America and Makarov’s role in the airport and it is fair to say he is very very angry about it. He suggests that the only way to put out a fire is to light another bigger fire under it. He has been tortured for quite a few years so I’m not too surprised that he has forgotten some of the principles of fire fighting but this should have been an early indicator to not put him in charge of anything.
Act 3
There is now a quick level back in the US where we have to fight to secure a building. Lots of killing not much in the way of story.
Despite the warning signs Captain Price seems to be in charge and he insists we all go to a submarine base. This would have been a good point to ask why?
This bit really confused me. We fight our way, with Captain Price, to the nuclear submarine. Whilst he nips into the submarine we wait outside just killing. After a while there’s a bit of a panic and someone launches a nuclear missile which seems to be aimed at the US. I say someone as I still don’t understand who launched it.
If it was Captain Price then this was a silly plan. Though he had been talking about bigger fires and all that, so it certainly could have been him.
It could well have been the Russians panicking when they saw a very angry Captain Price coming towards them. I imagine that launching the missile wouldn’t have prevented Captain Price killing them as he seems to kill everyone he meets.
I have no idea why we were even at the base let alone why someone decided nuclear weapons would make the situation better.
Ironically it turns out that the explosion of the nuclear weapon over Washington creates an Electro Magnetic Pulse that knocks out the invading Russian helicopters. It is entirely possible that in the post war enquiry Captain Price could claim that this was his plan all along. Given the long term affects of radiation on the Eastern Seaboard I don’t think anyone will accept this was a very good plan.
The loss of the helicopters in Washington gives the Americans just the break they needed to fight all the way to the White House which had previously been under Russian control. There doesn’t seem to be any reason to go there but it’s good fun and the post nuclear affects are quite good.
After Captain Price’s plan goes horribly tits up someone remembers that they think they know where Makarov lives. It hadn’t occurred to them to mention this before now. Well it probably didn’t seem important.
Everyone decides to split up and half the team will go to his supposed house whilst the rest of the team go to scrapyard in Afghanistan. Don’t ask me why.
At Makarov’s house we discover he’s not in but he has left his computer there with lots of lovely intelligence on it. It must be an extremely heavy computer because we can’t carry it to the helicopter. No, instead we must copy the contents of the hard drive before we can leave. This gives Makarov’s men a chance to attack in waves. Many waves.
It does take a long long time to copy the data but eventually we make our escape so we can be rescued by General Shepherd in his big helicopter. As you will no doubt guess, mainly because I ruined it earlier, General Shepherd is pleased to get hold of the data but less pleased to give us a lift. In fact he shoots us legs it.
This is the point that we realise that General Shepherd has planned all of this from start to finish. We do not realise why on earth he would have come up with such a strange plan.
The other team, in the scrapyard, realise that General Shepherd is not to be trusted. This is largely because there are large groups of his men and Makarov’s men having a massive fight. I do not know why they are there or why they have fallen out with each other.
Captain Price is with the other team and somehow manages to get hold of Makarov and persuade him to give us a lift out of the massive fight.
The one thing we know about Captain Price is that he doesn’t like Makarov (and he can’t be trusted with submarine based plan).
The one thing we know about Makarov is that he doesn’t like Captain Price. We don’t know why. Despite this they have quite an amicable chat and Makarov agrees to pick us up in his plane.
He also quite happily agrees to drop us off at General Shepherds secret mountain base.
This means we wave goodbye to the terrorist we’ve tearing the planet apart looking for. He gets completely away with it.
It also doesn’t explain why General Shepherd has a secret mountain base. It’s not a very good one. It has virtually no amenities but there are lots of heavily armed men there. It isn’t very clear what he was planning on doing there but we don’t stop to ask and rampage through it killing everyone in our way. General Shepherd fearing for his own life attempts to escape in a rubber boat. He doesn’t get far.
Then we get the final explanation.
It seems that General Shepherd is generally vexed by the recruitment crisis in the US military so he decided to engineer a Russian invasion. That’s it.
It’s a massive amount of trouble to go to when this could have been largely resolved through a decent poster campaign.
Anyway that’s all I remember about Modern Warfare 2.
Posted in Games | Comments (0)
November 17th, 2009
I originally posted this as a thread on The Stirrer but then it occurred to me that this is exactly the reason I own a blog which I rarely update. So I’ve plagiarised my own work.
I like a good list. I particularly a good list of things at the end of a decade.
There is nothing quite like judging things on an entirely subjective criteria and placing that within the confines of an entirely arbitrary time frame.
The NME have come up with their list of the 50 best albums of the last decade.
I think it’s a really good list and shows what a really good period we seem to be in for music at the moment.
I’m a little annoyed that The Flaming Lips – Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots didn’t make it in there at all. I would have had them in the top ten. Though I’m a little bit Flaming Lips crazy today as I’m going to see them tonight. Go me.
I’ve bought 25 of their 50 and will certainly look at getting more.
So for no apparent reason here are my top 10 albums of the last decade, largely using their list to remind me when things came out.
1) Sufjan Stevens – Illinoise
2) Grandaddy – Sopftware Slump
3) Flaming Lips – Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots
4) Acoustic Ladyland – Last Chance Disco
5) Jaga Jazzist – What We Must
6) Muse – Absolution
7) The Bees – Free the Bees
8) Arctic Monkeys – Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not
9) Avalanches – Since I Left You
10) Cinematic Orchestra – Man With a Movie Camera
Hmm there is more jazz on there than I expected.
It’s a shame that you can only get away with lists in multiples of 5 or 10 as I would like to include the fantastic The Trials of Van Occupanther by Midlake, I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning and Digital Ash in a Digital Urn by Bright Eyes and Want Two by Rufus Wainwright.
Technically that’s two Bright Eyes albums which would have given me 14 in total. I don’t think you’re allowed to have a list with 14 things on it.
So… it’s been a really good decade for music.
Posted in Music | Comments (4)
June 17th, 2009
I forgot I had a blog. Hopefully I will put a bit more effort in from now on.
I’ve decided to give Google an absolutely free marketing strategy which could play a key role getting them finally accepted as the premier supplier of information services. Though rather than telling them directly I thought I’d put it on here and see if they can use one of their fancy technical things to find it.
Over the last few months I’ve noticed a flattering but probably false trend. During the course of a day quite a few people will either ask me directly or even email me questions. Not necessarily questions that relate to my work but obviously based on a misguided belief that I will be able to answer them. All too often these questions are probably based on whether or not I know someone’s phone number or email address but equally there are some obscure general knowledge things thrown in too.
I’d like to claim that I have a vast repository of general knowledge and frightening memory for phone numbers but it wouldn’t be true. I think I’ve built up a bit of a reputation because I can generally give people answers however obscure their question is. I manage to achieve this through the extremely simple process of taking their questions and typing them into Google.
I assume that I am not the only person that has figured out that Google has quite a lot of information contained in it but it obviously could do with some more promotion.
It surprises me the amount of time people take to ask me questions which they could answer for themselves by just following exactly the same process. Particularly when it seems to take much more time to write an email with the question in than just write the same thing in a search engine.
So there it is. I want Google to start a worldwide “Type it into Google” campaign.
There’s a chance that some people might suddenly realise that my entire knowledge base is typing related but I’m happy for that to happen for the greater good.
I’ve decided to give Google an absolutely free marketing strategy which could play a key role getting them finally accepted as the premier supplier of information services. Though rather than telling them directly I thought I’d put it on here and see if they can use one of their fancy technical things to find it.
Over the last few months I’ve noticed a flattering but probably false trend. During the course of a day quite a few people will either ask me directly or even email me questions. Not necessarily questions that relate to my work but obviously based on a misguided belief that I will be able to answer them. All too often these questions are probably based on whether or not I know someone’s phone number or email address but equally there are some obscure general knowledge things thrown in too.
I’d like to claim that I have a vast repository of general knowledge and frightening memory for phone numbers but it wouldn’t be true. I think I’ve built up a bit of a reputation because I can generally give people answers however obscure their question is. I manage to achieve this through the extremely simple process of taking their questions and typing them into Google.
I assume that I am not the only person that has figured out that Google has quite a lot of information contained in it but it obviously could do with some more promotion.
It surprises me the amount of time people take to ask me questions which they could answer for themselves by just following exactly the same process. Particularly when it seems to take much more time to write an email with the question in than just write the same thing in a search engine.
So there it is. I want Google to start a worldwide “Type it into Google” campaign.
There’s a chance that some people might suddenly realise that my entire knowledge base is typing related but I’m happy for that to happen for the greater good.
(If you’re really arsed you could try Wikipedia as well)
Posted in Misc | Comments (2)
March 26th, 2009
I reckon the development of streaming gaming has the potential to revolutionise the way we think about games as entertainment. There are no other forms of media that are so utterly dependant on the hardware that delivers them.
It’s also strange that gaming is the only form of media that provokes arguments about which form of hardware is the best. Not critical discussions but proper arguments between grown men (I do believe there is a gender bias in this). This is a silly situation.
Looking at Onlive’s Web Site I think the imminent arrival of Cloud Gaming is probably not that imminent. I couldn’t stream the introductory video. Either my connection is rubbish or their servers can’t cope at the moment which means a big fail for it working as a concept.
I have no idea what the technical barriers are to getting this working, but if all of the processing can be carried out remotely then we are surely in a position where the only costs to users are the input device, display and subscription. I would say that I’m sceptical about the claim that lag is unnoticeable but that is probably something that can be resolved.
The timing of this has got to be a crucial factor in whether or not it will succeed. Is there a sufficient number of people that accept the subscription model for games? The money paid for access to XBox Live and the truly daunting number of Warcraft players would seem to indicate “yes”. Though the cost will clearly be a deciding factor.
Tags: Games, Warcraft, XBox
Posted in Games, Media | Comments (1)
March 10th, 2009
I went to Barcelona the other day. It’s very nice. I know it is ridiculous to compare one of the premier cities of Europe with Birmingham but I have a feeling I’m going to do it anyway.
The most immediate difference I noticed is the fantastic use of public space. This is public space in the true sense of the word. Areas that have been put aside for people to congregate in and do things together. This is most obviously emphasised by the large amount of Children’s play areas. They are everywhere and seem to be really well used.
These play areas seem to be complemented by similar areas for table tennis and that crazy European version of bowls obviously aimed at adults. The odd thing about these areas is that people were using them. People of all ages were coming together outside and doing things.
This community activity is something that I couldn’t really conceive of happening in Birmingham. When we create a public space we seem to have some strange fear of putting stuff in it that people might find useful.
The vast majority of development is entirely focussed on retail rather than improving the quality of life. In Birmingham, we have had a debate about a park in the City Centre but that has rambled on for many years now with little evidence of anything tangible appearing.
My theory on why there is a different attitude to space comes down to the British obsession with houses. The status attached to owning your house and having a garden is different to other countries. In the UK there has previously been a perception of living in a flat as being associated with poverty. The stigma of tower blocks has seemingly removed the voice of flat dwellers from urban planning.
In countries where living in an apartment (posh flat) is the norm the expectation is that public space will fulfil the absence of a garden. This attitude is possibly changing with the development of city centre living but such change seems slow. City Centre developments in the UK are solely focussed on the ideal of young professionals rather than fostering community.
Another striking difference about Barcelona is the massive amount of graffiti. It is absolutely everywhere. The odd thing about it is that it doesn’t seem to have brought about the breakdown of society or even really made the place look untidy. Though I’m sure that if you ask people who live there about it they probably get quite pissed off about it.
I think it underlines that small minded politics of urban decay that we are fed in this country. Rather than politicians focussing on the more macro drivers of change that affect all of a community they obsess on the micro affects. If a phone box has a graffiti tag on it makes very little difference to people if they have little in the way of recreation facilities or all their local shops are shutting down.
I’d say my criticisms of Birmingham are not specific to this city. I’m sure they are applicable to all urban environments in the UK. That turned into more of rant than the description of what I did on my holiday that I’d planned.
Posted in Birmingham, Politics | Comments (1)
February 27th, 2009
Clearly the reported mutiny of Bangladeshi border guards is not really something to laugh about but the story seems to include some humourous points.
The Guardian reports how the insurrection occurred :-
“The rebels wore red bandanas and sprayed bullets into the unit’s officer corps at an annual “durbar”, a meeting where the rank and file can bring their grievances to the officer corps.”
It would seem this model of allowing heavily armed people to air their grievances has a rather big flaw.
It apparently occurred because border guards are annoyed that they don’t get to go on peacekeeping operations for the UN. I would think that if you’re trying to make a case for being allowed to maintain peace agreements then you first need to demonstrate that you won’t execute your commanding officers.
A very strange story.
Posted in Media | Comments (0)
February 10th, 2009
Does the world need another post about
Twitter? Of course it doesn’t.
Is that a good enough reason to not write one? Well it probably is but I’ll do it anyway.
The whole world appears to have become obsessed with a medium of communication restricting every contribution to 140 characters just because
Philip Schofield thinks it’s a good thing. That’s just weird. There is no other field of human endeavour where people would sit up and listen to Philip Schofield. If he suggested the Sudanese Government were perpetrating genocide in Darfur most right thinking people would seek a second opinion.
I imagine that when
Jack Dorsey, Biz Stone and Even Williams first began to consider how to propel Twitter from the niche to the mainstream then Philip Schofield wasn’t at the top of their list. I doubt they had him anywhere on the list. I doubt they have a bloody clue who he is.
Twitter executive: “Who can we get to demonstrate that Twitter is an exciting and vibrant platform for engaging with celebrities?”
Twitter employee: “Philip Schofield?”
Twitter executive:”Who?”
Twitter employee: “He used to be a continuity announcer on Children’s TV in the 80’s and was friends with a gopher”
Twitter executive: “Please leave.”
The strange thing about it is that it’s actually worked. Through his admission on This Morning he goes on Twitter and…… talks about things, he’s triggered something in the minds of other celebrities. Looking at
Schofield’s profile you are suddenly struck by one glaring fact. Over 50,000 other people give a toss about what he’s got to say. That’s slightly incredible.
Now I’m no celebrity but I’m sure if I were it would raise a question in my mind. If that many people care about Schofield then how many would I get? This seems to have prompted an unseemly surge of celebrities gasping to tell us what they’ve had for tea.
With a little bit of delving you can put a figure on how good a celebrity is.
Brent Spinner (
Data from Star Trek) has 17,312 followers. When you make a comparison with
MC Hammer, who has 45,140 followers, it is immediately obvious that MC Hammer is 160% better. If you think about it, we all sort of knew that, but it’s nice to put a figure on it.
Twitter has become the currency of celebrity. It is only a matter of time before we someone from Eastenders top themselves because the public have rejected them through Twitter. I think that can only be a good thing.
It has also provided an insight into celebrity lifestyles. The immediate benefit of Twitter is that someone has the opportunity to communicate with hundreds/thousands of their “fans” without the barriers of PR or media censorship. The immediate problem with Twitter is, what if you’re boring? A rather bad example of this is
Dave Gorman, when he’s on the telly, is a very funny man. On Twitter he comes across as a very very serious man. Now that’s not a bad thing, if you’re funny for a living then having to perform like a seal is probably grating to say the least.
Whereas
Richard Bacon who is largely famous for
Konnie Huq and
cocaine (though probably not at the same time), has turned out to be very funny. I’m a little worried that he has removed freewill from his life and replaced it with Twitter but that is his choice. Worryingly Richard only has 11,547 followers. This makes him statistically more rubbish than Brent Spiner, my theory could be a bit flawed.
The most interesting thing about celebrity usage of Twitter is their inverse relationship with it. Most people sign up, search out some friends and then wait for someone to notice them. The inverse perspective is to sign up and then get bombarded by requests for information from people you’ve never met before. This makes the point that when we get the likes of Philip Schofield telling us how great Twitter is, they’re really telling us about something that will bear little or no resemblance to our experience. When it becomes represented in the mainstream as a celebrity stalking tool it loses some of its function and worth.
Tags: Celebrity, Twitter
Posted in Media, Misc | Comments (2)
February 7th, 2009
I’ve been bothered by the recent decision by the Competition Commission to stop the so called Project Kangaroo. My irritation with the decision is odd as I don’t generally use the existing video on demand services provided by BBC, ITV and Channel 4. Though I do like marsupial based technological developments.
BBC iPlayer seems to work fine and Channel 4 OD requires too much software running in the background. I spend a fair mount of my time trying to avoid ITV so the prospect of watching it on the Internet fills me with a bit of dread.
I think the thing that has annoyed me about the decision is the element of condescension within it. They believe the public (us) will benefit from having to visit three different sites to watch UK TV. The market will, apparently, provide us with a better service through making the whole process more difficult.
An analogy would be to say that manufacturers are restricting competition through allowing us to watch more than one channel on our TVs. The decision appears to fly in the face of all moves towards convergence.
I think there is an interesting parallel with the decision to restrict the BBC from developing local news services. The decision was apparently taken in order to prevent local news providers being subject to unfair competition from a state funded organisation. This ignores the fact that the majority of local news providers are a little bit crap. Maybe the injection of competition would force them to raise their game.
We frequently forget that the BBC is ours. We pay for it. We should use it to provide services that improve the quality of our lives. It should not be considered a publicly funded private organisation. We can use it to make developments that raise the bar for other organisations.
The iPlayer itself has set a standard that other organisations are trying to meet. This standard has been set both nationally and internationally and I think we should be proud of that.
In the judgement the Competition Commission seem to have ignored one vital factor to the video on demand market (well they did in the press release, I didn’t read the whole report). The current market is made up of more than the established media providers. Both Sky and Virgin prompted this investigation and to be honest you’d expect them to moan about it.
The competition for providing media services is really coming from the likes of Bittorrent. It is a simple process to find TV you’ve missed for free and download it. Usually with the adverts removed.
It is this problem that mainstream media providers need to address rather than their own protectionism. Kangaroo would have provided a platform with a revenue stream whilst giving us something that we want.
It’s a short sighted decision and one I’m convinced will be overturned.
Posted in Media, Politics | Comments (0)
December 14th, 2008
So Oliver Postgate died then. The reaction from the media was the sort usually reserved for a Pope. Nearly ten minutes of coverage on Channel 4 News goes someway to prove that conventional media is still ruled by men of a certain age.
Watching the IT Crowd the other week I noticed a flaw in the basis for the episode (this is loosely connected). It was based around a web site that gave people stock quotes about football, thus enabling the most nerdish to talk with “real men”. The liberal times we live in mean that you’re just as likely to have a mixed gender conversation about whether or not Gerrard and Lampard can effectively play together; and there’s nothing wrong with that.
No, the last preserve of male only conversation is cloying nostalgia for children’s programmes.
One of the weird consequences of Oliver Postgate’s death is that it proved a catalyst for exposing the facade of chumminess the Conservative Party have been carefully crafting. In the absence of policy the principle reason for the Conservatives claim on Government seems to be David Cameron is a nice BLOKE. He’s the sort of bloke you could go down the pub with and he wouldn’t be afraid to put his hand in his pocket.
In all likelihood David probably drinks pints of gold and frequents the sort of places that wouldn’t let me look at the door let alone walk through it.
The veneer of a sculptured “everyman” was cruelly exposed by Radio 5 on Tuesday. On being told that Oliver Postgate had died David Cameron was asked what he thought. He told Nicky Campbell that he didn’t really understand the Clangers and preferred Ivor the Engine. The idiot.
Everyone knows that Ivor the Engine was a bit crap. They had to write a dragon into it to try and maintain their dwindling audience. The Clangers was set in space with chickens. What is there not to understand?
My reaction to the news that Oliver Postgate was very much along the lines of “who is he?” Obviously I know the programmes as well as everyone else, but I’ve never known the name of the bloke that made them. To be honest if you’d asked me last week I would have assumed he was already dead.
The thing that has most struck me this week, as we’ve been shown clips of Bagpuss and the Clangers, is how relevant they continue to be today.
Much of my time recently has been taken up playing Little Big Planet. It truly is the natural successor of all of those children’s programmes from years ago. The irony is that it is the first game that has given a true representation of real life objects, which works because we can use Bagpuss as a frame of reference.
Also, as we’ve heard this week, such classics as Bagpuss and the Clangers were made in a barn using household objects that had been left lying around. Little Big Planet gives us the tools to create similar scenes in the comfort of our own homes.
So in a roundabout way I’m trying to say that Little Big Planet is a fitting tribute to a man whom I’d never heard of until Tuesday.
Posted in Games, Media | Comments (1)
December 13th, 2008
I reckon it is only a matter of time before Bernard Madoff becomes a truly household name. In a sense he’s already fairly famous what with having run the NASDAQ and being fantastically wealthy.
It now looks like there is a strong chance that all of this vast wealth could have been accumulated through the largest fraud ever perpetrated. It should be noted a fraud that has been perpertrated on some of the richest people in the world but as recent experience has probably taught all of us; when the wealthy are ripped off we tend to be the ones who put our hands in our pockets.
The most wrrying thing about this is that the potential fraud wasn’t dicovered through the diligence of regulators. It wasn’t even noticed as a result of Madoff seemingly outperforming the market in a recession. No, it was exposed because Bernard’s sons had the presence of mind to grass him up after he told them about it. It does seem a little bit strange that nobody really paid too much attention to the inconsistent consistency of such odd profits.
Hopefully the conclusion of this investigation/trial might prompt people to realise that not properly regulating financial services is costing us a bloody fortune. The repercussions of this are likely to reach around the world but one UK company already believe that they have nearly 9% of their total value invested with Madoff. I don’t think they’re going to get it back.
Posted in Media | Comments (0)
