When Bioshock released in the middle of 2007, it seemed like a turning point for story telling in games, as the crafted environments were rich enough to instil a simultaneous sense of wonder and dread, giving players glimpses at strings of story dotted around the corridors and rooms of Rapture, as well as providing us with a style of gameplay that was highly free-form in nature, with ‘sandbox gameplay’ to allow for the emergence of player-created narrative (or ‘emergent gameplay,’ if you will).

At the end of that same year, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare was released to rapturous acclaim, as it, too, contained a well told story that almost served as a counter-point to the techniques used in Bioshock – gameplay in Call of Duty 4 was heavily scripted, while story was relayed through extended conversations and monologues (following in the tradition of previous games from Infinity Ward), but the action was so intense, the presentation so blockbuster-like, and the revelations so shocking, no-one really cared about any of its faults and happily involved themselves in the singleplayer campaign and evolved multiplayer mode.

Continue reading El33tonline’s review of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.