For most, there will have been only one game released this week (and that most includes a number of major publishers, who, gun-shy from the competition, have pushed their own releases to Q1 of next year): Infinity Ward’s return to the Modern Warfare franchise they laid down in 2007.
Modern Warfare 2 [Infinity Ward, PC/PS3/Xbox 360]
The developer has twice courted controversy in recent weeks, one for the very unfortunately devised viral video gag (for which IW has yet to offer a formal apology), and the second with early leaked video of what it surely intended as its most emotionally charged level — a scene in which an agent embedded with an arms trafficker is present for a civilian massacre. Infinity Ward were correct on one count: taking the scene out of context is misleading, as the premise is the hook on which the global geo-political fallout that guides the rest of the game is hung, and your involvement in it has its own twist of fate. But they otherwise squandered what could have been a multi-faceted moral quandary and flattened it into a paper-thin action scene with no real ramifications.
Players, who experience the scene looking down the barrel of their own gun, can easily simply play witness to the horrors around them without once pulling the trigger, but IW make it impossible to actually finish the level without killing at least a few of the SWAT team that arrives when the damage is done (unless I missed a route in my hour-long trial to do just that). But simply observing also never overtly raises the suspicion of the rogue team you’re embedded with — that only comes if you deliberately try to hang back away from the group for more than a minute (and, I don’t know, say, distract yourself by taking a closer look at all of the hardcover jackets in the airport bookstore).
Devoid of any real freedom of choice, then, and coming — as it does — far too early in the game for players to first become emotionally invested in its world, its execution (no pun) falls flat. That’s a shame, too, because its bombastic volume drowns out a number of more genuinely affecting subtleties. Chiefly, the return of ‘Soap’ McTavish — the rookie recruit who served as the first MW‘s player-character — as a vet seasoned by your own actions in that game, now guiding and protecting you as an even fresher face (whose approval I found myself actively seeking in our duo levels).
As a summer-blockbuster-esque rollercoaster (and one clearly made by a team in love with the essence if not the lessons of HBO miniseries Generation Kill), it’s hard to come away unaffected by the thrill of its ride, and — as with the original — its true long term draw the unique lite-MMO structure of its multiplayer (that unlocks abilities as you level up through wins and kills), but it’s a shame that it doesn’t require more of you than thinking — in the Colbert-ian sense — from your gut, for as much as it chides you for shooting from the hip.
Spore Islands [Area/Code / Maxis, web]
Also recently launched and well worth your time is one of EA’s first forays into the Facebook gamespace with one of its largest brands: Spore. Created by NYC developer Area/Code (the studio behind masterful iPhone puzzler Drop7) in conjunction with original creator Maxis, the game feels more closely akin to the direction the Spore franchise was headed in in the earliest days of development.
Influenced by the biodiversity (and the high number of evolutionary experiments that died in their tracks) of the Burgess Shale, Spore Islands is a numbers game of statistic modifications to create a creature that can withstand both the elements and the set of creatures that inhabit your island — or, with its deep social hook, the islands of your Facebook friends.
The catch is that your observations (the simulations that let you see first hand how your character is faring and what weaknesses or strengths it needs to focus on) and the DNA point modifications to tweak your character to flourish in its environment are unlocked over real-time (or by purchasing them outright), but it’s one of the games on the platform that’s actually worth that wait, and easily the smartest time-sink on Facebook.
Half Minute Hero [XSEED, PSP]
And finally, another game released just a week or two prior but still eating up most of my time (in very tiny chunks) is the PSP release of XSEED’s Half Minute Hero, a game which tells you more about its premise in its title than you’d first believe.
Created originally as a miniscule freeware indie release that would be expanded to a full commercial production, Half Minute‘s hook is that of a traditional RPG, shooter, and strategy game played out in a world where there’s only 30 seconds before total demonic annihilation.
What this means as a player is that your 8-bit hero is tasked with leveling up via CPU-controlled random battles and player-controlled returns to town for better equipment while staring at a rapidly decreasing timer, desperately trying to save up the precious last seconds to defeat the inevitable time-controlling demon at the end (and undertaking various seconds-long missions in between to get there).
It’s a slow-motion version of the three-second micro-games of Nintendo’s WarioWare series, and — split as it is into easily digestible chapter missions — is the perfect addition to a platform that’s been very much in need of more portable plays. Already too much overlooked even by the hardcore, there aren’t many other recent games that are more deserving of your 30 seconds at a time.