Modern Warfare 2 and Bad Company 2: Notes on expectations, AI and difficulty levels

Over the next few weeks, I will be discussing my views on AI, difficulty levels and what they mean to game play, and player expectations towards games (especially sequels). Under the microscope for this series are the two biggest hitters in the ‘modern war’ first-person shooter category: Modern Warfare 2 and the recently released Battlefield: Bad Company 2.

The first part of this article will deal with some background information about me, the way I play games, and how all that relates to my experiences with both games. The following parts will deal more in-depth with the subject of AI, difficulty and expectation.

(Note: Due to lack of home internet, this discussion will be based purely on the single-player campaigns. Spoilers will be kept to a minimum.)

Part One: Background

I finished both Modern Warfare 2 and Bad Company 2 recently; Bad Company 2 from start to finish over the course of a weekend, Modern Warfare 2 after a long hiatus.

It was actually the break in playing Modern Warfare 2 that inspired this particular discussion topic. Both games feature very similar themes and game play mechanics, and are seemingly attempting to achieve very similar aims (as linear, story-driven single-player experiences backed by an approachable, but deep multiplayer system). They are two games that will be compared relentlessly. “Which game is this generation’s water mark for modern-era first-person shooters?”

Allow me to pick my favourite right off the bat: I think Bad Company 2 is the superior game.

That may seem obvious given the fact that it took me months to finally get around to finishing Modern Warfare 2, and only a weekend to complete Bad Company 2, but it’s actually a little more complicated than it first appears. For one, I often don’t get around to finishing games until months (or years) after I’ve started. Sometimes the games are just too massive to properly get my head around at the time (the Disgaea series), sometimes they’re too long and I’m distracted by other titles that have subsequently been released (most RPGs), and sometimes, even if the game is reasonably short and straightforward, I’ll just stop playing without any thought whatsoever. I’ll be playing it one day, try out something else another, and just never go back. I do buy a large number of games, so the latter two scenarios occur quite a lot.

Not so with Modern Warfare 2, however. That was one of the few games in recent memory that I made a conscious decision to stop playing. The reasons basically boil down to a couple of overriding themes that, for me, spoiled the experience.

But first, some background about me and the way I play games to give some perspective.


The Way I Play

I used to always play games on the default difficulty settings. Part of the reason for that is probably because that is what I’ve always done: purchase new game, boot it up, and get into it as quickly as possible, picking default options along the way. Another part of it is possibly some subconscious desire to ‘experience’ a game rather than be ‘challenged’: the journey is more important than any feeling of mastery over the game. Often, following successful completions of the normal difficulty setting, I will replay games on higher difficulties, in order to see whether the experience is improved or worsened by it being more challenging.

In recent years, however, I have started skipping to the most difficult setting straight away. A realisation that I am a very experienced gamer that ought to be challenged by the games I play, rather than simply playing through them? The knowledge that I don’t have the time I once did to play through games multiple times on various difficulties, so picking the hardest setting from the beginning saves time in the future?

As much as anything, it’s probably down to the release of Halo.

Halo was a game that redefined a lot of preconceptions about first-person shooters on consoles and the way games could be played. Aside from being an extremely well-polished game, with a fairly interesting story, and arguably the best console multiplayer experience since Goldeneye, Halo was at least two games in one. The first was a standard first-person shooter experience; running-and-gunning through levels killing simplistic enemies that were little more than target practice. The second was played on Halo’s highest difficulty level: Legendary.

It was a noticeably different game on the highest difficulty, with enemies acting far more intelligently and being generally more deadly. In many ways, it felt like the game the developers wanted you to play. Tactics played a very important part of the experience; you often felt as if you had to outthink your enemies as much as outgun them.

Few games since have followed this philosophy, sticking instead to the antiquated notion that a higher difficulty level simply means adjusting the values for the amount of damage the player and enemies do, and how accurate everyone is.

Some games get away with it by balancing their highest difficulty level sufficiently; the core game experience takes priority over some damage values in a spreadsheet. Some games do not.

Modern Warfare 2 does not come out of this discussion well...


Stay tuned for Part 2, where our hero discusses just how Modern Warfare 2 gets it so wrong. And why Bad Company 2 just about gets away with it.