The Madness Of Modern Warfare

It’s hard to make out through the mucus and froth the exact cause of his intense fury, but one thing is clear: Modern Warfare 2 is to blame.

I don’t mean to come across all Daily Mail but there’s something unsettling about the unadulterated furore surrounding Modern Warfare 2. It feels like a turning point for videogames. I just can’t quite put my finger on why that might be.

Maybe it’s the genuinely staggering facts and figures attached to the game’s release date. Modern Warfare 2 managed to shift 4.7 million units in the US and UK within 24 hours of launching. It generated $310 million which prompted Activision to declare MW2 as the “biggest entertainment launch in history”.

Or perhaps it’s the announcement, per a tweet by Major Nelson that, thanks to Modern Warfare 2, Xbox Live has set a new record with more than 2 million gamers being connected at once. A population twice the size of Cyprus unified by their love for a shoot em up. Staggering.

And it’s not just the industry pundits who are taking an interest. MW2 has attracted attention from a considerable number of high profile public figures. Andy McNab, SAS hero and author of Bravo Two Zero, said the game 'is so realistic it's scary'. Quite the endorsement. Even Russell Brand took some time out of Katy Perry’s panties to comment: ‘Modern Warfare 2 sounds like it might be trivialising the horror of war on remembrance day. What's next? Paedophile boxing 3? For Christmas?’

And Brand wasn’t the only one to pick up on the game’s ‘insensitive’ launch date. Sainsbury’s was forced to apologise to customers after MW2 was advertised over its in-store Tannoy on Armistice Day.

Not wanting to miss an opportunity to capitalize on public outrage, MPs' attacked the game for its ‘realistic depiction of civilian slaughter’. Fox news ran a whole feature on it. This in turn caused Heavy Rain producer Guillaume de Fondaumiere to wade into the debate. His take on the controversy was simple: ‘I don’t see any reason why video games should be treated differently than movies, for instance. I think that we should leave game creators free of expressing their vision as they see fit. I think the guys at Infinity Ward had something very precise in mind when they did this scene’.

A week after its release and Modern Warfare 2 is still sitting pretty in Twitter’s trending topics. A quick glance at Metacritic’s top ten reveals MW2 riding high at number 4 with the original Modern Warfare not far behind at number 7.

And all this from a first person shooter. How gloriously barmy.

There was only one way I could conclude this article: a micro interview with the angry kid in the youtube vid, GuitarJono1170:

Digital Gigolo: Why so angry dude?

GuitarJono1170: well i don't enjoy playing single player and i keep lossing and missing shots on people i prefer call of duty 5 with the zombies and nice place to go

Indeed.