Ten great games with terrible storylines

Nice video game, shame about the plot...

By GamePro staff

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Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2

The boys at Infinity Ward certainly know how to make a sterling FPS -- but they can’t tell a coherent story to save their lives. Not only is the campaign in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 maddeningly short, it’s also messier than a post-nuke Sergeant Jackson.

Roach and Ramirez’s globe-trotting mission feels like a soulless roller-coaster ride that hurls the player from one incomprehensible set piece to another. The character beats are all-too brief, and the plot — with its rapid-fire cross cutting and frequent betrayals — is often difficult to follow. There are several big plot twists in the game that are very poorly foreshadowed; you simply don’t get the emotional payoff that you should. Even the character deaths somehow feel cheap and tacked on.

The decision to unleash hell on American soil also ruins the game tonally. This is B-grade science-fiction dressed up in military fatigues. Sure, the attack on the White House might be thrilling, but it’s also completely implausible. By dialling the spectacle up to 11, Infinity Ward robbed the franchise of its gritty authenticity — it feels more like Starship Troopers than Black Hawk Down and the plot suffers as a result.

We suppose that's the only good thing to come out of Activision's stoush with Infinity Ward -- all the chief writers have now left the company.

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Ten great games with terrible storylines

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2

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