I have been on-and-off learning German for five years now.
Through online classes, a dash of Duolingo, and general world-exposure, I am able to get by in most situations and conversations, only struggling with speed and specialised words.
General linguistic wisdom tells a student to immersive themselves in a language, such as reading books and watching films and TV in the target language. But as gaming fought with TV time, I decided I was should start playing games in German to increase my vocabulary.
While I had pondered whether to play a game I knew the dialogue of for a fun challenge, I also had a behemoth of a game on my “to-play” pile, and decided to go for that.
The first game I would play in German would be Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla.
So, let me have an indulgence as I write about my time in Viking England, with a German valkyrie as my avatar guide (because who plays Valhalla as male Eivor? Female Eivor forever!)
“Ich bin Eivor vom Raben-Clan!” – Learning German With Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla
I have written before about the use of other languages in games, even using Assassin’s Creed as an example.
When I had played AC: Unity and Liberation, I set the language for both to French, as Unity is set in Paris and Liberation in colonial-era New Orleans. However, these switches were for immersion rather than to learn, but they had started an interest in me to search for language settings in games.
And actually, Ubisoft, creators of Assassin’s Creed, have a great track record for doing languages in games. So many games, even AAA ones, don’t make a distinction between language audio, subtitles, and game text.
You may want a different language for dialogue, but keep the text and subtitles in another, and most games won’t let you. It’s a luxury in development time and extra tech logic to separate them. But Ubisoft separates the individual components, so players can customise how they would like.
AC: Unity was one of the first games I changed the language, making Paris much more immersive (Source: ign.com).
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One of the main reasons I chose AC: Valhalla for my start in German is for the story. Not the narrative per se, but the nuts-and-bolts dialogue and missions.
If I had played something like Call of Duty in German, I might learn the words for “missile”, “tango” and “terrorist”. Interesting for sure, but not words I would be able to use every day.
A big part of Valhalla is the role-playing aspect, dialogue trees and quest-based design. It would give ample opportunities and for every day words to be used in-game.
So whenever I would play, I would sit down with my pen and paper and when I would hear a word that I could use, I would note the English from the subtitle and write down a phonetic sound-by-sound version of the word..
After playing I would go through and edit my notes to be the correct spelling or straighten up any mis-aligned phonetics.When I started, my focus was on singular words, meaning I could easily match subtitle to phonetic something like “sofort”, meaning “exactly”. I eventually graduated to full sentences and questions.
And after marauding across the English hills for many hours, I had an eye-opening moment. I heard Eivor ask, “Habe ich eine Wahl?” (“Do I have a choice?”) and I could understand each and every word without even glancing at the subtitles.
It was a true light-bulb moment, of words I had learned through classes, exposure, or TV, and my brain made the snap translation almost immediately.
“Was siehst du, Synin?” – Eivor’s pet raven, and one of my first noted phrases (Source: reddit.com).
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Something that I learnt about while playing was German dubbing culture in film, TV, and games.
While a lot of films and TV made in the US or UK are shown in Germany and Europe as a whole, that can be two different ways it is presented.
First is showing the original, but with subtitles (this is how a lot of non-English speakers learn English, and why sometimes they come away with specific accents because of a show they watched).
The second is dubbing, where certain dub actors are attached to one or two actors. For example, Maria Koschny, female Eivor’s German dub, also dubs for Jennifer Lawrence, and does all the films that Jennifer Lawrence has starred in.
Being dub specialists, these voice actors are usually brought in for games and anime dubbing, even if their original voice actor is not present. This led to a great moment where my partner, in earshot of me playing, asked “Why is Julia Roberts playing a Viking princess?”
I have to praise Maria Koschny’s excellent performance, whose voice I now solely associate with Eivor (Source: ign.com).
***
One of the great things about such a deep narrative game as Valhalla is it’s interpersonal connections. Eivor has several deep discussions with allies, enemies, and everyone in-between.
Valhalla has a sprawling 300+ hours of content with main story missions, as well as a variety of in-world encounters and side-quests.
The people that Eivor encounters in each mission life to talk about a whole range of topics such as life, history, politics, and philosophy, mainly advancing character development rather than advancing a plot point.
It was here where I found the most advantageous words and phrases, rehearsed their sounds and how to use them in a sentence, and then brought them out into the world.
And still, when I think of those specific words, my memory returns to those exact moments in the game. Eivor walking through a night-time market, celebrating with friends after a successful siege, arguing with ice giants in Jotenheim, and returning relics to the Saxon king Alfred.
When the end credits came, I was a little emotional. Not only for the countless hours and months I put into the story, but also something deeper. A learning experience, personalised to not feel like memorisation of key words. And so I will continue to change languages where I can and adding to my word list.
But AC: Valhalla has a soft spot in my heart, for being the first and being a great introduction to learning through play.
As someone who played games in the late 2000s and early 2010s, I have played Call of Duty.
Much has been written about the revolution Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare was to the gaming landscape, catapulting creators Infinity Ward and publisher Activision to great heights, but also changing the way games are made and played even to this day.
For a few years it was the gaming king. There were a other major hits around the same time, with Halo 3 for the Xbox 360 selling over 14 million copies in 2007 and Battlefield: Bad Company releasing one year later.
Battlefield and Halo are big series in their own right, but Activision and the teams of Infinity Ward and Treyarch started a tag-team trend of releasing a bestseller game every year.
Two years after CoD4 and the monster smash-hit release of Modern Warfare 2, other developers took the sign that the modern military shooter boom was here to stay and so planned their own “Call of Duty Killer” games.
Electronic Arts, once the leader of the military first person shooter market with Medal of Honor, had been seeing moderate review scores and sales, but nothing compared to CoD. There most recent title at the time, Medal of Honor: Airborne, released a few months before CoD4.
But when ‘modern warfare’ became the genre du jour, EA looked like they were literally stuck in the past, only releasing games set in World War II. So after a three year hiatus they decided to bring Medal of Honor out of the past and challenge Call of Duty in a modern war.
And now over fifteen years later I want to look at this game, what succeeded, what failed, and what it tried to do.
Heroes Aboard: A Look Back at Medal of Honor (2010)
While Call of Duty wasn’t the first game set in the modern day, it was the first to make a big impression and be accessible to a wide range of gamers.
Part of CoD4’s cultural mass adoption is both its time and place. Releasing in 2007, making a note on two recent hazy military conflicts that had seemingly outlived their welcome, it took the imagery of modern warfare yet left the political wrangling to the side.
It’s clear even when looking at the shift from the first Modern Warfare to Modern Warfare 2. MW2’s first mission, “S.S.D.D.”, lists the location as Afghanistan. In Modern Warfare, despite other locations such as the Bering Strait and Western Russia being listed in their opening cards, the ‘Middle Eastern’ locations are never named.
It’s a small distinction, but a notable one; CoD did not want to tangle with ongoing conflicts.
For the majority of World War II games, a lot of the gameplay was inspired by real life locations and events. So when CoD decided for Modern Warfare it would stay quiet on the current wars, Medal of Honor played an interesting card and set their game during the invasion of Afghanistan.
The story would be based around “Operation Anaconda” in March 2002, the second largest operation to that point in the War in Afghanistan. The game retold the events surrounding a two-day operation, playing off multiple angles and operators.
While names had to be changed and events streamlined, the plot sticks close enough that anyone reading the documentation of the operation can match the real operators to the characters.
It’s an interesting hook, an eye-catching and novel move, yet many believed it was disrespectful to play a depiction of an ongoing conflict.
Controversy was further highlighted when Amanda Taggart, senior PR manager for EA commented, “Most of us having been doing this since we were 7 – if someone’s the cop, someone’s gotta be the robber, someone’s gotta be the pirate and someone’s gotta be the alien…In Medal of Honor multiplayer, someone’s gotta be the Taliban.”
Immediately bans were called for across the world and eventually the Taliban were renamed to Opposing Force in-game, but the vibe had been set, MoH was going to stay in the real world. There hadn’t been many like it before, the only high-profile game that tackled a similar aspect was Six Days in Fallujah set in the Iraq War, which was ultimately cancelled in 2009.
So with the context set up, let’s have a look at the gameplay and plot.
Medal of Honor was influential in the WW2 shooter space, but by the 2000s the setting was stale. (Source: YouTube, ViruZ A.G.)
To discuss how Medal of Honor plays and presents its story we must continue to talk about Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare.
But why am I still comparing MoH to CoD4? MW2 had come out the year before MoH. Even comparing it to Black Ops would be a more balanced argument, as both came out the same year and faced a similar uphill battle as the “new” face of the franchise.
It’s because for all intents and purposes, Medal of Honor’s reference is Call of Duty 4. The grounded setting (with a dash of real-world politics) and a mixture of both regular infantry and special forces; that combination catapulted CoD into the mainstream.
MW2 and Black Ops moved the series into a larger-than-life action movie; thrilling for sure, but for those looking for a more realistic depiction of war, CoD was slowly slipping away. So there was a prime spot of gaming real estate for Medal of Honor to quickly step into by catering directly to CoD4 fans.
CoD4 has a total of twenty levels, including both non-combat missions (“The Coup” and “Aftermath”) and discounting “Mile High Club” (as it is not connected with the story).
Medal of Honor has only ten levels, yet they are significantly longer and both games take around the same time to beat (around 5-6 hour mark).
I’ve written previously about CoD4’s excellent pacing, placing the player first in the boots of a Special Forces team member and executing stealthy and surgical engagements before ratcheting up the ante for regular infantry roles. It is the perfect balance of the scalpel and the sledgehammer.
Medal of Honor for the first time in its history was going to have several playable characters. Previous games had been focussed on a single character. The multiple characters approach feels like a direct response to Call of Duty, which had been doing character swaps since their first game.
Those character swaps allow for the excellent pace development and so just like CoD4, MoH starts with a surgical strike by a team of special forces before moving to Big Military engagements.
After an ominous opening where we listen to newscasters and street-level civilians reacting to the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center we flash-forward to an airborne insertion that goes horribly wrong (copying Black Hawk Down) to then a night-time silent rendezvous in Afghanistan two days prior.
It’s a little jarring, but a standard enough opening and echoes CoD4’s first mission, “Crew Expendable”, where a top special forces team readies for an infiltration.
The mission opening also gives us the first bit of chemistry between our Navy SEAL (Neptune) teammates; Mother, Voodoo, Preacher, and player character Rabbit. The codenames are cute and obviously inspired by Soap, Gaz, Roach, and Ghost from the Modern Warfare trilogy.
As Neptune drive into the town in separate vehicles, Voodoo turns off Rabbit’s music on the stereo and makes some jokes with Mother over the radio. The nighttime drive becomes intense as they weave slowly through tight-knit streets and are momentarily stopped by a shepherd and his flock (who Voodoo berates in about three different languages).
But suddenly, bang, whizz, flash, gunfire and explosions come from all angles as Neptune gets split up and Voodoo rams his car through a couple of roadblocks until he and Rabbit can get out safely.
While the mission starts okay with the nighttime drive it quickly loses any tension or build up just by how LONG it is. The mission, titled “First In” from start to full control to the player is OVER SIX MINUTES. It is painful to sit through.
“Crew Expendable” from CoD4 goes from setup cutscene to weapons free in just over a minute.
CoD4 cooly and confidently brought modern warfare to the FPS market. (Source: nerdreactor.com)
It’s also not the best start to the game. It’s a lot of explosions, gunfire, dark pathways and corners. Even with cool night-vision goggles the level seems so devoid of fun; the most generic corridors and streets with the most stereotypical of enemies. It reminded me more of the first mission of Black Ops that released the same year; gunshots, grenades, hysterical shouting, screeching cars, but nothing that would tie it all together. In the end it becomes exhausting.
So the player goes through the standard FPS starter lines; point-click shooting, waiting for friendlies to open doors, primary, secondary, melee, all that good stuff. Players can kick in doors, which is a new feature, but is nothing more than an extra animation.
The truly new feature that Medal of Honor brings to the 2010-FPS landscape is movement. If players sprint they can slide when holding the crouch button ostensibly to get into cover. While in cover (or general gameplay) players can use the lean button to peek out and shoot in any direction they want.
These are two great mechanics, perfectly complementing each other and changing the way I would play the game. All FPS players are used to waiting behind cover before either playing a game of whack-a-mole or having the sacrifice their health in an effort to push forward.
With Medal of Honor the slide encourages pushing forward as well as evasive manoeuvres. Sliding between degradable cover from oncoming fire or out of the splash range of a grenade feels great, evoking third-person-shooters in their style but maintaining the traditional FPS. The slide also drops players into a crouch or prone, ensuring player health instead of getting shot while finding cover.
If the slide is for aggression, the lean is for defence. While at first you will use it to quickly snap over or around cover, its true usage comes when taking enemy fire. While using the lean button the movement stick becomes your axis, keeping you still but allowing you lean in every direction.
This can be exploited to great effect; say your degradable cover is chipped away until you are visible if you are crouching. But if you use the lean button and lean “downwards” the player can effectively still use the remaining cover. When a player realises this it then compounds the slide as you start to see new possible cover places that can be used with the lean.
It’s a great tool for enemy placement as well. You can quickly lean out of cover and see where the enemy are and get ready to counter instead of having to continually stand and crouch like other FPSes. Lean and aim are bound to different keys allowing for quick battlefield surveillance and response with a snap of the fingers. It’s also nice that that you hold the lean button rather than tap it to engage and release. It feels much more responsive and allows for fast-paced fighting.
The SEALs wear traditional Afghan attire to blend in with their surroundings. (Source: store.steampowered)
Back to the first mission. Gameplay livens up a little bit once the four members of your squad rally together and head onto the rooftops of a little fort, eventually doing battle across a town square and playground. It’s an interesting location; a nice solid arena for gameplay while giving a hint of life before the war and also highlights the great landscape of Afghanistan in the background.
If you ask people what is the landscape of Afghanistan most people would probably say deserts and sand-blasted cities. While we do get to trek through some wadis and battle in ancient desert forts, the game does a tremendous job of showcasing the wide-ranging beauty of the “Graveyard of Empires”.
Snow-capped mountains, wide gorges, dense forests, it’s stuff that isn’t immediately associated with Afghanistan, but is 100% true to the location. The little things in said landscape too; goat trails, pilgrimage posts, Soviet wreckages, concealed nests and doors, they give the space a sense of real life, of centuries of warfare and people learning to exist in the harshest of landscapes.
After surviving a booby-trapped explosive corpse the team find their contact Tariq and begin debriefing him. During the debrief we also get a slight injection of politics into the story. When Voodoo starts to interrogate Tariq about the ambush and whether Tariq is on the side of the Taliban or not, Tariq responds;
“Please. I have a daughter. I want her to go to school. I want her to be a person, to have a life. Do you not understand?”
It’s a far cry from Call of Duty and Battlefield whose reasoning for going to war is not even some vague notion of “freedom” or “security”, just head to a vaguely Middle Eastern/Eastern Europe looking area and shoot everyone that you see.
It’s a small moment, not even 10 seconds long, yet it makes a case for why we are here and what is sacrificed if the US leaves. Then BANG, straight into the second mission, “Breaking Bagram”, a more high-intensity mission about retaking a Taliban-held airfield that will be the main base for the invading force.
I wanted to also take a moment here to mention the tags at the beginning of each level. Obviously plucked from CoD, each levels starts with the “name” of the character, their team, the local time and the location. However they are so bland, simple white text on top of the screen that they almost feels like placeholders.
They are in the same position on-screen as the CoD text, but they don’t have any animation, no cool SFX or visual design, they just appear and then get immediately lost among the visuals when the gameplay picks up.
The mission details could have been a place to add some character to the game. (Source: riotpixels.com)
The second mission starts explosively with a daybreak siege on the airport with Rabbit riding shotgun in a pickup truck and spraying at enemies with a huge light machine gun. Arriving at the gate of the airport the calvary splits up. While the Western-backed Afghan National Army storm the front gate the Neptune boys circle around and work through the mortar fields and sniper nests.
The opening is fun and gets the blood pumping, but after getting out of the truck and heading out on foot the level falls back into that generic hallways and spaces like the first mission.
Even something like a missile strike; where MW2 would have you rain down Predator missiles yourself here in Medal of Honor you just point a laser pointer at a single building and then an explosion happens. It feels so anticlimactic.
But after sliding and shooting we finally get to a nice open arena style again, with the radio tower as our goal. Sniper and rockets keep raining down if you stay still for too long or out in the open so it encourages pushes and slides so that you can reach the tower. It’s a cool set-piece and again a great ending to a somewhat drab mission.
The next cutscene shows the Big Military landing and setting up in the airfield and becoming the Command Center for AFO Neptune. We get some back and forth between the young colonel in the base and an older general safe in his office in the USA. I don’t know if these are based on real people, but it’s the most Hollywood-cliche “young buck/old-hand” story and a serious weak point in the narrative.
Onto the third mission, “Running With Wolves…”, and our first character swap, stepping into the boots of Delta operative “Deuce” and the team AFO Wolfpack.
I did research for this piece to see the difference between Delta and SEALs; they are both top military teams, SEALs seem sledgehammer-style and Delta are more scalpel. While it’s interesting to see so many different facets of the giant machine that is the US Military there really isn’t much of a big distinction at this moment of the different tasks the teams will be performing.
We first meet Delta during Tariq’s debrief at the end of the first mission. It’s cool to see these top teams working together on a bigger goal even if it just via radio commlink.
The Delta boys are actually the poster boys for the reboot game. Deuce’s team mate, Dusty, is the guy on the cover of the box, he got all the marketing, he’s the only character in the game that actually has a distinct character all from that glorious beard (an alumi of the Captain Price School for Military Facial Hair I see). He’s obviously modelled of the real-life Delta operatives that were photographed during the battle of Tora Bora, the two-day event that the story is retelling.
A real-life Delta operative training recruits. (Source: reddit.com)
Deuce along with team members Dusty, Panther, and Vegas are outfitted with stealth ATVs and are tasked with monitoring Taliban shipments. The ATVs is our first real new mechanic, driving across the rocky terrain at night…and yet it’s not fun.
Even when having to stop and douse the headlamps so a patrolling group don’t see you, it never feels tense enough. I would say that stealth missions work best as a solo operative and not being hampered by other soldiers.
But CoD4 and MW2 had great stealth missions with a similar objectives, “Cliffhanger”, and “All Ghillied Up”, often highlighted as two of the best levels in the entire series. “Running With Wolves…” should feel the same; sneaking through the dead of night with hundreds of fighters in the surrounding area and having to use speed and silenced weapons to keep ahead and undetected.
Well, we drive around, shoot up some towns here, snipe a couple far-away enemies there and plant trackers on a few trucks. It was here where I was starting to think this is a boring game. CoD is often lambasted for its railroading approach to its campaign, but at least every stop is a fun little excursion. This just felt bland.
Onto the next mission though and back to the Navy SEALs as they begin to push into the mountains. The opening is cool, sneaking through the tall grass near a goat herder, who Voodoo quietly puts to sleep and revealing he has a radio to inform the Taliban of approaching US forces.
It’s in this mission where the real and overwhelming size of the Taliban fighting force facing the US is revealed. Neptune encounter scouts (using fires and smoke plumes to communicate) before finding AAA guns that intelligence missed. This missions is quite fun; moving from small sharp encounters to then longer more protracted battles, having to use cunning and stealth to thin out forces before charging headlong into battle. It mixes up the style of gameplay, which is refreshing.
The scenery is also stunning, looking over the mountain ranges and wide valleys, snow and pine trees litter the landscape, entering small caves and nooks that have the previously mentioned fire stoves, starting the mission in the dead of night and seeing the day break as you reach the final battles, it is something rather special.
The heat vision in Delta missions is very reminiscent of footage later shown on television news screens (Source: gamestar.de)
It also features a nice little connection to the previous Delta mission. Deuce and Dusty put trackers on vehicles in that mission and Neptune are able to call in airstrikes on those said vehicles during their battle. It’s small and we don’t get to shoot the missile, but it’s something.
Back at the airbase, communication errors lead to the US firing on friendly Afghan troops and opening a hole for the Taliban and Al Qaeda to exploit. Again, it’s highly-stylised, probably fictionalised and is the worst part about the game. To plug the gap in their forces the US deploys the Rangers, the closest thing to regular boots-on-the-ground soldiers in the story in their first level “Belly of the Beast”.
This is the best mission of the game, hands down. I felt this way when I first played the game, when I replayed it for this retrospective, and it seems to be the general consensus of the YouTube review crowd too.
The mission starts with a fleet of Chinook helicopters flying into the zone and the crass captain making clichéd remarks like he is an air stewardess and calling the men in his platoon “ladies”. The music ramps up as the helicopter lands and the troops rush out into defensive positions.
The privates rattle off calls of “clear” and the whole thing looks like a damp squib. As the soldiers resign themselves to the long walk to the OP, a rocket streaks across the sky and hits one of the departing Chinooks, sending the bird tumbling down right on top of the recently departed soldiers.
Gunfire erupts and mortar shells start flying as the troops realise they have already been marked in a kill zone and so run for cover to the walls of a nearby wadi. For the first time it feels like you’re on the back foot, having to shift cover to cover and take shots when you can.
The troops start making their way into the wadi to reach the OP, where the game blossoms into one of the most intense gun battles I’ve ever played through. The US are heavily outmanned and outmanoeuvred with enemies streaming down the mountains into the wadi, just visible by their silhouette through the midday sun haze.
The Rangers enter the story and show a different facet of the war. (Source: neoseeker.com)
The only trump card the US have is the bigger weaponry. The player character is the light machine gunner of the squad, carrying a scoped machine gun with 200 rounds ready to fire. While it can pick off headshots of far away enemies its main purpose is suppressive fire, halting the enemy from gaining ground and allowing your own squad to push forward.
Talking of that machine gun, Medal of Honor has some of the most powerful sounding guns I’ve heard in an FPS. Every gun from the silenced pistols to the snipers, shotguns, and rifles, nearly every gun has an excellent “pew” to it. The machine gun is no different with a nice hefty bass giving the the constant ratta-tat-tat a visceral quality. Compared to the Call of Duty of the same time, Black Ops, in which every gun sounded like a toy pop-gun, Medal of Honor really has quality sound effects.
So the troops starting making their way to the OP clearing small villages of fighters and finding old relics of the Soviet invasion. It’s a nice nod to the real historical and political aspects of the location and possibly a history that players may not have known about.
I didn’t know much about the Soviet invasion into Afghanistan, but this throwaway line made me interested in learning more. Anyone interested should read Boys in Zinc by Svetlana Alexeivich as a great non-fiction work focussing on the soldiers and their families.
Door breaching was a new mechanic, developed further in the sequel.(Source: neoseeker.com)
The level peaks in two locations; first is a mounted heavy gun encampment that is keeping other US troops from securing their objective. The squad is tasked with storming the placement, but the player is told to hang back. Being the light machine gunner we must lay down suppressive fire so the other teammates can get close and mark it for an airstrike.
It’s a unique premise after the years and years of both Call of Duty and Medal of Honor making the player character be the sole warrior to defeat the enemy. Now you’re just working as a cog in a machine and is refreshing to see these different facets be included in the game.
Not to mention the gun placement sometimes turns on the player and can quickly degrade the cover you’re hiding behind meaning we have to continually move while trying to deliver suppressive fire.
When the gun placement is finally marked and the rockets rain down, earth is kicked up and the entire screen goes dark for a few seconds before the sun breaks through and all that is left is the haze of debris and dirt. It’s a fantastic close-range look at the destructive capabilities of modern artillery, but while the squad members marvel at the explosion they don’t cheer or whoop like frat boys seen in the previous year’s Modern Warfare 2.
The second peak is the end of the mission. While securing a landing spot for medical transport, the squad are rocked by an IED, an improvised explosive device. Surprisingly the entire squad survives, but the explosion draws the Taliban’s attention and quickly the four-man squad are facing overwhelming odds.
The squad taking refuge in the only cover at the location, a mud hut that slowly deteriorates with each bullet. The player is tasked with aiming just at the enemies with rockets, but soon Taliban fighters try to enter the hut and so the player has to switch between long range precision shots and short range reactive bursts.
The haze kicked up from the air support. MoH does a great job at creating atmosphere (Source: riotpixels.com)
Over time your ammo stocks start to dwindle yet the onslaught never stops. You switch to your pistol and pick up random AKs from fighters that got too close and keep the wave back as long as you can. Your radio man is trying in vain to call for assistance, but eventually your squad leader tells him to stop. There is no way that help will get there in time.
Player characters have died before with Modern Warfare 2 featuring three iconic death scenes in gaming. Yet all were in “cutscene” mode, no agency from the player. Halo: Reach, released in the same year as Medal of Honor also had the player facing overwhelming odds and finally succumbing to their wounds.
Another EA staple, Battlefield, would try something similar with its opening for Battlefield 1 (which I also wrote about).
The moment hangs there for a good few seconds, letting the player’s imagination fill in how the end will look like, how it will feel.
Then a rocket sails overhead and hits the oncoming Taliban fighters. More rockets fire off followed by heavy machine gun fire. Two Apache helicopters come in at the last moment to save your life and forcing the Taliban fighters to retreat.
It’s a great moment, holding long enough to think that all is lost to then see the helicopters in gameplay come overhead and seeing the Taliban chased off. The squad are more than entitled to cheer and whoop at this moment as we shift into the next mission…and into the seat of one of the Apaches.
The Apache mission is a great break from the on-foot sections. We only control the weapons system for the helicopter, but that allows the computer to perform some beautiful low-flying sweeps inches from the canyon floors, or breaking over a peak into a stunning landscape. You can feel the crisp air and the direct sun heat beating down on Afghanistan and from the air the geography looks amazing.
The Apache mission is a fun and action-packed sprint between the FPS missions. (Source: neoseeker.com)
CoD: Black Ops also had a helicopter mission giving the player complete control. Having played both of them for this retrospective I actually have to give it to Medal of Honor. The Black Ops helicopter run while fun at the start devolves into a comical amount of destruction. Medal of Honor’s Apache run is fast and fluid, striking at a few targets then moving on. They know they are outnumbered so they move quickly and strike hard, which is what an on-rails shooting segment should be.
As the Apaches finish up their mission and cross back over a ridge they notice just too late that there is an anti-aircraft gun aiming at them. As they brace for impact a shot rings out across the valley hitting the anti-aircraft gunner in the head and disabling the system.
The Apaches say thanks to whoever it was as we switch back to the Delta boys of Dusty and Deuce, sniper rifle smoking from their shot. I really like these level transitions, they give this sense of a fighting force who each have unique skills and being able to click together on the battlefield. Nearly every mission until the end includes these transitions and they really add something to the narrative.
Back to Dusty and Deuce who are slowly and methodically taking out mortar encampments and foxholes. It’s alright, but there is not really any skill to it, no holding of the breath and only slight wind movement to factor in.
The mission does heighten up though when nearby claymores go off, indicating to Dusty and Deuce that enemies are closing in around them. Switching to your sub-machine gun, Dusty tells you to strike when the time is right. You choose when you starting firing, letting enemies get closer for easier shots or far away for better cover.
Dusty realises the forces are going in a different direction so Deuce pulls out the sniper again and sees Mother, Voodoo, Preacher, and Rabbit also being overrun by Taliban fighters. Deuce begins to pick off enemies and this time the sniping is relatively fun. It’s moving targets, covering our allies, it feels urgent and conveys it well.
Dusty and Deuce get ready to ambush patrolling enemies. (Source: neoseeker.com)
Another excellent transition into the next mission, where we travel across the canyon into the shoes of Rabbit as the rest of the team make their controlled retreat.
As there are only four member of the team, the squad has to “pepper-pot”; lay down suppressive fire and wait until their teammate is in a position to take over, then turn around and sprint down the mountain until they can take over again. It’s a great sequence, all player driven, either the enemy overwhelms you or the NPCs say you’re ready to move and I would be happy seeing it replicated in other games.
The team continue to retreat down the hill, while helicopters and bombing runs try to keep the Taliban at bay. Yet the Taliban have brought RPGs with them, so repeat runs are called off, leaving Neptune at their mercy.
Voodoo dislocates his shoulder in a fall so he and Rabbit swaps weapons, Rabbit taking the M60 machine gun. The new gun changes the rules of engagement; with the previous rifle it was tight shot placement, but the M60 allows for more liberal covering, similar to the Rangers a few missions ago.
A Chinook lands to collect the team before they are overrun. While Mother and Rabbit make their way onto the helicopter, it is struck by RPG fire and takes off early leaving Voodoo and Preacher behind.
It’s a great scene, all done in-engine, watching the two small dots of Voodoo and Preacher retreating while seeing the never-ending stream of Taliban fighters following after them, Mother shouting at the pilot to turn around.
Rabbit keeps the enemy pinned down to give Voodoo and Preacher (left) enough time to escape (Source: gamestar.de)
Mother and Rabbit are ordered back to base by the General but the two disregard and reinsert at the top of the mountain side, playing the same cutscene from the opening.
The screen flashes up “Day 2”, a little reminder that the team has been on-the-go for over 24 hours at this point. It harkens back to the numbered days in CoD campaigns, but if the timestamps at the beginning of levels had also included the day, it might have worked. The fact it only says “Day 2” now, two levels before the end, it feels like an afterthought, needing to place it somewhere in the story but not actually placing it with purpose.
Back to the gameplay, the helicopter starts taking fire and Mother and Rabbit have to jump out while the Chinook goes down. Jumping from the helicopter takes its toll on Rabbit though. He coughs up some blood as he stumbles into cover with only his knife and pistol as his weapons, his night-vision goggles damaged and displaying static every few seconds.
The stumble of Rabbit, which I thought to be part of the cutscene is actually the movement speed of the level, changing how players react. It’s novel and interesting playing a wounded solider having to continue into a firefight.
Atmosphere in this level is top-notch. The howling wind, the dark rock formations, the stuck-solid snow and ice on the ground with limited weapons and poor visibility, the game does a tremendous job of making the player feel totally isolated and alone. CoD at the time had never really done a mission like this; being hunted yet sticking to slow movement and silence, so props to MoH for giving us a unique level.
MoH makes great use of night vision throughout the game. (Source: riotpixels.com)
Rabbit starts to make his way towards the summit, knifing people here, silently shooting others there. He soon regroups with Mother and the two sneak by squads of fighters. They eventually get spotted and Rabbit has to resort to taking enemy weapons to keep himself stocked on ammo. Again, something new, having depleted ammo stocks and having to keep your eyes open for new weapons all while taking fire.
Rabbit accidentally sets off an IED, leading Mother to drag him away to cover while Rabbit gives covering fire. Obviously inspired by the chaotic ending of MW2’s “Loose Ends” mission, this one manages to keep pace with the more bombastic CoD. Small fires dot the landscape, seeing enemy silhouettes breaking through the smoke, only using the pistol, it’s all great stuff.
The two members of Neptune have to retreat, dropping their weapons and sprinting down a mountain path. They reach a dead-end, and decide to trade “broken bones for bullets”, jumping off the mountain in the hopes of escaping the Taliban. The two throw themselves into the air, tumbling down and sadly being quickly surrounded by Taliban fighters and taken away.
As the duo are led away the base can only watch on video link via a drone. We see one more call with the US-based General, who is mad that Neptune disobeyed orders despite the Colonel at the base trying to explain their actions.
The Colonel wants to send in the Rangers as back-up, but the General is adamant that no other forces head up there. The argument gets heated until a communications officer hangs up the video call with the General (claiming “network interference”), leaving the Colonel to order the Rangers up the mountain after Rabbit and Mother.
It’s all very Hollywood and I’m sure if anyone actually did this in real-life they would be court-martialled within a second, but as a way to get us into the mood of saving our boys, I’ll let it pass.
Back in the boots of Ranger Dante Adams for the final mission and our infiltration to the top of the mountain goes as well as our drop off into the wadi. The Chinook takes on fire, bullets shredding the inside of the aircraft and killing several team members.
The helicopter crashes and we are dragged to our feet by our Sergeant, telling us to man the door-mounted chaingun. It’s a short but fun segment blasting away the enemy forces, the gunfire actually felling trees due to the power and rate of bullets being fired.
We are soon told to move and continue the fight outside. It’s very reminiscent of the previous Ranger mission, of being hopelessly outmanned and hoping that tactics and weaponry can solve the imbalance.
The Rangers facing near-overwhelming opposition in final level of the game. (Source: gamestar.de)
One of the other soldiers asks about the SEALs and the Sergeant responds, “We need to unfuck this situation first.” The dialogue for the game hasn’t been terrible, nothing meme-worthy nor truly memorable, but this line is great; it’s believable and shows the differences between the calculated SEALs and the reactionary Rangers.
As we are escorted out the helicopter, the music begins a slow and mournful violin melody underscored by sad cellos and dark double bass’. The music is composed by Ramin Djawadi, composer for System Shock 2, Thief II, Gears of War 4 and 5, and most famously Game of Thrones, for which he won two Emmys.
Early Medal of Honor and Call of Duty games usually had great orchestral ensembles, military-style brass and drums with evocative strings and woodwind emulating the soundtrack to Steven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan (the film that inspired the whole genre as Spielberg and his game company, Dreamworks Interactive, created Medal of Honor with Spielberg writing the storyline. Danger Close, the developer of MoH 2010, is a rebranded Dreamworks Interactive).
CoD’s soundtracks became very modern with heavy use of synths, drums, and in the case of World at War, anachronistic electric guitars and voice modulation.
It could have been easy for Medal of Honor to also take this approach but Djawadi goes mainly with the classic orchestral style instead. The score’s best moments are these sporadic yet beautiful violins solos like the one that accompanies us up the mountain. Another one plays during the previous Ranger mission before the Apaches come to the rescue.
It perfectly envisions the lone soldier; enduring battles and injuries, the rise and fall of combat, the thin air at the mountain top, and is a wonderful touch as the mission continues.
As the mission continues the Taliban’s fiercest fighters come to stop the Rangers. (Source: neoseeker.com)
As the team make their way up the mountain they find a foxhole and split up. The radio man and another private head back to the helicopter for more reinforcements and the sergeant and Adams decide to head into the foxhole.
Despite this being the final level and having made my way through all sorts of different landscapes in the game, entering the foxhole actually made me anxious and I think its all down to playing as the Rangers.
When you play as a member of the SEALs you know they are the best of the best. They run towards danger and and experts at flushing out enemies and putting them down quickly.
Rangers, or at least general boots-on-the-ground soldiers, it’s always felt more like a general securing-the-area/mass invasion force, using sheer numbers rather than skill to overwhelm the opposition. An example would be the mission “Charlie Don’t Surf” from CoD4. The US force is not the highly trained SAS, but it doesn’t matter because they use their hundreds of members to pacify their objectives.
So back to Medal of Honor, clearing these foxholes should be a job for the SEALs. Actually, we have cleared cave systems with them in an earlier mission. But since all we have at the present moment are the Rangers, they ready themselves to go in and clear it out.
The sergeant, Patterson (a nod to the playable character in the original Medal of Honor) is constantly telling Adams to keep up, repeating commands about shot placement and movement. It made me think that the Rangers know they are out of their depth and so fall back on their basic training to get through.
And Dante Adams, our player character, is only a Private rank. He’s probably had a few missions, but this could literally be his second time in combat. He could be an eighteen-year-old kid from Kansas who joined up to “put a boot in Bin Laden” and here he is going into a possible death trap.
It was a great and emotive feeling and I wish the game had done more of it. Have some down time in the base, meet your comrades, read a letter from home, something else to make these characters come alive.
Back to the actual gameplay, Patterson and Adams clear out the cave and find an exit on the other side where they meet Voodoo and Preacher also following the trail of Mother and Rabbit. Again, it’s a great scene with nice details being the different language used, (Patterson calls out “friendlies” and Voodoo calls out “blue” to indicate not to shoot).
Dante Adams in the cave system, one of the top highlights in the game. (Source: gamestar.de)
The four make a impromptu team to head towards Mother and Rabbit and it’s a highlight of the game. It’s a multi-pathed trek up the mountain top, the sun glistening off the snow, Voodoo becomes interim team leader, he and Preacher calling out targets for Patterson and Adams.
A minute ago we were relying on Patterson to get us through tough times (the cave system), now he can rely on Voodoo and Preacher to protect him. Another nice bit of character is Voodoo calling them “sergeant” and “specialist”. It would have been easy to use their names or even slightly insulting languages like the other Rangers did; “ladies”, “losers”, “you two”. Instead, he falls back to the rank and role, a mark of respect despite he and Preacher obviously being the leaders of the operation.
The team finishes the campaign by finding Mother and Rabbit in another cave system with the final cutscene playing from Rabbit’s first-person perspective.
The team carries Rabbit back down the mountain to the downed helicopter that the Rangers arrived in. The Rangers mill about; they know they are out of their depth and the SEALs will say nothing, so they stand around remarking on Rabbit’s condition (“this carbon is really tough” says Pvt. Hernandez). Even Dante Adams leans in to say, “Hang in there, we got you.”
The SEALs try and stabilise Rabbit with Voodoo displaying uncharacteristic softness and tender care, repeatedly telling Rabbit he’s “gonna be okay”. It’s a great scene to show Voodoo’s range. Most of the campaign he’s very into killing people (sometimes brutally with his tomahawk) so it’s refreshing to see the manly SEALs displaying some emotional vulnerability.
Despite calling for a quick extraction the air force doesn’t have any transport standing by for the team, having to wait for birds to come from further away. Both Mother and Voodoo voice their issues explaining that Rabbit is going to die if he doesn’t get care soon as Rabbit slips in and out of consciousness.
As the birds finally fly overhead, Rabbit’s vision blurs and we transition to the inside of the helicopter. The radio call says “eight heroes aboard”, but there are only three SEALs sat at the back of the helicopter. Their brother-in-arms lies at their feet.
They watch on as fast jets bomb the mountain hideout to kingdom come, before Preacher reaches down and fishes out Rabbit’s lucky charm (obviously a rabbit’s foot, but the first time we ever see it), before agreeing with Mother that “this isn’t how it ends.”
And then the game ends.
Well, not immediately. There is a six paragraph endnote thanking servicemen and women of past and present for defending freedom and highlighting the secretive and violent work of the Special Forces. It then cuts to a short teaser for the next game (an out-of-context scene two guys sitting at a cafe and nothing else) and then credits roll.
“This isn’t how this ends.” I assure you it does. (Source: YouTube, MichaelXboxEvolved)
The first time I played Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare I distinctly remember getting weirded out by its depiction of war and how cool it thought it all was. Was it disrespectful in reflecting very real and recent events or was it just cold?
With age I see it is the latter and the graphics, sound, and content give it high-quality verisimilitude, confidently depicting the war some had experienced or at least seen nightly on the news screens. It highlighted the intensity yet never stepped into overblown outlandishness.
Medal of Honor carries that torch. It’s what suckered me into giving it a go. I was never an online gamer, so a single-player story was all I had to look forward to. That initial elevator pitch of real-life stories in Afghanistan, of authenticity, it sold the concept to me. Fifteen years on, it’ll still be the first thing that comes to mind when thinking of the game.
MoH follows CoD4’s blueprints throughout the game; its heroes are soft-spoken and rarely depicted as frat-bro stereotypes. Tasking players as part of the team, sometimes point-man, sometimes support. Giving players overpowered weapons to destroy their enemies, but then making them fearful of ambushes and having to crawl around the opposition.
MoH is calmer than Call of Duty: Black Ops or Battlefield: Bad Company 2, its direct competitors at the time. But I think that calmness, a lot of players felt it was lacking exciting gameplay. CoD4 spawned an entire genre that in turn cannibalised it. So when Medal of Honor appeared three years after the hype train it felt like the most generic of all FPSes from the seventh generation.
And to be honest when I first started replaying, that was my thought. There was a moment where I asked myself “was this worth it?” Would going through this game give me anything new that I hadn’t seen before? And luckily that’s when the Rangers came in. It’s a shame that the best missions are towards the end because any player who is not 100% wanting to see the credits will probably give up before then.
A full game of the Rangers with new recruits experiencing combat for the first time could be great and very unique story in the genre. (Source: gamestar.de)
Beyond 2010, Medal of Honor only released two games in the following ten years. 2012 saw the release of a direct sequel, Medal of Honor: Warfighter, a name that has been memed to hell and back and a game that really doesn’t have much going for it.
Players take control of Preacher (the only member of Neptune without any characterisation in 2010) and weaves a tale of both the personal struggles of married life with a convoluted “follow-the-trail” storyline.
It looks stunning with photorealistic models (apart from Preacher’s daughter, who has a weird haze around her face) and features locations such as a flooded city in the Philippines, abandoned Winter Olympics arenas in Sarajevo, and the bustling streets of Pakistan, all powered by Frostbite 2.0.
But the story…I will give it props that actual active Navy SEALs were brought it to lend it authenticity (for which they were later disciplined for revealing classified information), but it’s a non-linear mess with the most tenuous of links between locations and missions.
The second game, Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond, was released in 2020 for VR devices by Respawn Entertainment, being a major seller according to Steam and one of the most expensive VR productions according to Oculus, but mixed critical reception.
Danger Close were the developers of Medal of Honor and its sequel Warfighter. Previously named Dreamworks Interactive and EA Los Angeles, Medal of Honor was only their second game as the new outfit.
Then three months after the release of Warfighter, EA pulled Medal of Honor “out of rotation” and closed Danger Close, a sad end to a genre-defining studio. Once a market and creative leader, Medal of Honor had fallen and didn’t make its way back into the mainstream.
Gunfire, explosions, and intrigue, yet none of it gels well in Warfighter. (Source: gamepro.de)
One wonders if it will ever come back. CoD has kept reinventing itself with titles that could be described as high-budget sci-fi epics, avant-garde Cold War thrillers, and buddy-cop-feminist-alt-history gems.
Battlefield has run the gamut from beloved to boycotted within one sequel (Battlefield 1 to Battlefield V).
Medal of Honor released at the wrong time. A few years earlier, it might have caught the wave. A few years later it could have taken both CoD and Battlefield as they were languishing in creative mires. But in 2010, CoD was king and MoH couldn’t stand toe-to-toe.
It’s sad to not see Medal of Honor around. Modern Warfare CoD has been mocked for its stories, all four-dimensional chess battles between Captain Price and Makarov. Battlefield’s single player is always too short and sometimes neglected all together in service to the multiplayer.
There is space there for a strong narrative-driven shooter, and Medal of Honor with its focus on true stories and real-life events could corner a section of the market that looks for something a little deeper in a shooter.
I respect Medal of Honor 2010. It did something new and creative in one of the most saturated genres at the time and that second half has some of the best levels I’ve played in a military FPS.
If you decide to pick it up, give it a chance, and it might surprise you into enjoyment too.
Banner Photo Source: YouTube, “The Virtual Commute”
With the announcement in 2020 that IO Interactive (makers of Hitman) were working on a James Bond video game, I became curious about the past games of 007.
A lot of these games, Nightfire, Everything or Nothing, even the poorly received Goldeneye: Rogue Agent, were staples of my gaming childhood.
I hadn’t played these games in fifteen to twenty years and there was a dual sense of familiarity and moments lost to memory when I went back to play them.
But one game in the back catalogue of JamesBond really took me by surprise. Even now, looking back at the games that come before and after, it seems like the odd-one-out, a possible start to an entirely new franchise.
In 2005, Electronic Arts, creators of the 007 games, were in a bit of a jam. Pierce Brosnan, the main lead in the past four Bond films and of the game Everything or Nothing, had been let go from the role. EA still had a license to develop 007 games but they had no 007.
While one of their efforts in 2004 put the player in the role of a Bond villain (Goldeneye: Rogue Agent), in 2005 they took a remarkable leap of courage and got another actor for the role of James Bond…Sean Connery.
Yes, 2005 saw the release of Sean Connery’s video game debut, From Russia With Love.
Red Wine with Fish – From Russia with Love: The Game
It’s very strange looking at the entire filmography of James Bond and thinking From Russia with Love would be chosen to be a video game. Even Sean Connery’s later 007 films, Goldfinger, Thunderball and You Only Live Twice are much stronger on the action and could deliver bigger set pieces.
From Russia with Love, while being an excellent film (usually ranked high in fan ratings and being Sean Connery’s favourite) is much more of a slow-burn thriller than an action film, with large parts of the film being set on smoky Istanbul streets and Bond using stealth and subterfuge rather than blasting baddies away with a gun.
According to Executive Producer at EA, Glen Schofield, the film was chosen because “it’s one of the more popular films”. It makes sense, and as a name, From Russia with Love has the same association as Casino Royale or The Spy Who Loved Me, so ingrained in culture that even if you have never seen a Bond film you could probably associate the title with him.
And yes, the other strange thing being Sir Sean Connery is on voice acting duties for 007. These aren’t clips from the film or a soundalike, it’s the man who got so fed up with the role he once said, “I have always hated that damned James Bond, I’d like to kill him.”
Sean Connery, recording his lines from his home in the Bahamas. (Source: jamesbond.fandom)
But Sean Connery decided to return, partly because of his love of the film, partly because his grandkids were big fans of video games, and that it was a whole new and interesting creative vision.
In the lead up to the game, Connery said, “As an artist, I see this as another way to explore the creative process. Video games are an extremely popular form of entertainment today, and I am looking forward to seeing how it all fits together”.
And in fact, it was a bit of a different creative process than the film. EA described the project as a “director’s cut”, expanding on the action and story of the film. Only eight of the fourteen levels can be tied directly to the original and nearly every action set piece ramps up the enemies and explosions.
I understand From Russia with Love was chosen for name recognition, but there is enough new material here that could have been a wholly original Bond story.
The game delivers its own pre-title sequence, of 007 fighting terrorists at the UK Parliament and protecting the Prime Minister’s daughter (surprisingly portrayed by pop star Natasha Bedingfield). It’s an exciting and explosive start to the game, watching Connery take down baddies with his classic silenced pistol, leaping across chandeliers, and finally climbing onto the roof, where he commandeers a jetpack and fights enemy helicopters around Big Ben.
The first if many jetpack rides in the game, with huge arenas for destruction (Source: eurogamer.net)
Speaking of the jetpack, a few of the non-FRWL levels are based on later Connery films, and fan-favourite vehicles such as the gadget-filled Aston Martin DB5 from Goldfinger and jetpack from Thunderball appear throughout. The final mission is Bond dismantling the villain’s base inside an island volcano, taking the setting from his fifth film, You Only Live Twice.
Alongside the items and design choices taken from the 1960s, a lot of Connery’s acting quirks make it into the game.
There is a quote attributed to Dana Broccoli, wife of the 007 film producer Cubby Broccoli. When they were first casting for the role of James Bond, after Sean Connery left the audition the producers weren’t too sure on him. But Cubby’s wife Dana convinced them, saying that Connery, “moves like a panther”. He’s confident, measured, quietly powerful. I feel the animators really went to great lengths to capture that essence.
They way the character runs at a constant beat, the slight body tilt while strafing, holding a machine gun in one hand and braced against his hip, the judo roll to cover ground quickly or dodge incoming fire, it’s all fluid and conveys the idea that this is man who is confident in his abilities as a secret agent.
The designers also talked about much detail they went into their animations, such as modelling how Connery would hold his gun in the films, as well as in his fighting style. Connery’s Bond was more of a grappler, throwing enemies to the ground or dealing them a swift Judo chop, which was added to the game.
Each move is mo-capped excellently, with Connery using several Judo throws (Source: imdb.com)
The game takes the standard third-person shooter conventions of the time. Cover mechanics, lock-on shooting, it’s smooth in animation and snappy in its combat, putting greater emphasis on character movement that on shot placement. One article I read in research compared gameplay to the film series John Wick and I definitely see the comparison.
One facet of the combat I really like is creating cover. If Bond is in a room with a table, he can knock it over and automatically ducks behind it. It’s a nice touch and feels very Bond-like.
And since the game is primarily a third-person-shooter, we get to enjoy the highly detailed model of Sean Connery throughout the game.
The model is a tremendous feat of artistic wizardry, incredibly detailed and expressive, all on the sixth console generation, machines not known for their technical power. It’s the perfect balance of facial scanning and artistic license.
One aspect of the game that I unexpectedly loved is the fashion of Bond. When exploring the levels, players can find outfits that Bond can wear.
These are all outfits that Bond has worn at some point; his Black Tuxedo and Grey Suit from FRWL, his White Tuxedo and Stealth Suit from Goldfinger, and a Snow Suit (a possible reference to On Her Majesty’s Secret Service). At one point Bond has to wear an enemy uniform to sneak past patrols undetected.
None of these outfits give bonuses like a certain tuxedo giving more armour or whatever, but it’s a taste of role-playing, of getting to play our version of Bond.
A secret infiltration, the perfect opportunity for a stealth suit…or white tuxedo, you choose. (Source: denofgeek.com)
The role-playing aspects are further exemplified by the Upgrade Shop, ostensibly Q’s Workshop in MI6.
Earning points throughout the game, the player can invest in technology for their weapons and gadgets, improving their abilities as they go. As the player collects and keeps weapons and gadgets over the course of the entire game, the investments work almost like an RPG, finding your preferred way to play and upgrading with your favourite weapons.
It’s not a full RPG character builder such as putting skill points into being stealthy or non-lethal, but for the time this was new territory for Bond games.
The upgrade points can also be used to unlock new characters in multiplayer. The multiplayer here is solely bad guys, almost like a SPECTRE civil war (seen in the previous game Goldeneye: Rogue Agent). It’s here where the the “director’s cut” approach to the film is full realised. Characters like Kronsteen and Morenzy, who are major players in the film but are absent from the game, are playable characters and modelled on the actors.
The cast of the film return in digital form, including Bond’s nemesis Red Grant, modelled on actor Robert Shaw, (Source: jamesbond.fandom)
Dr. No and Goldfinger show up (the villains in the previous and following films in the series), along with a few normal enemy soldiers, but there are three characters that only exist in multiplayer and do not appear in any media form, be it the film, original book, or the game story.
Three female characters, Leyla Karistarin (an exotic mercenary), Portia Lovejoy (a mercenary from the English upper class) and Zora Casonovic (a volatile Russian enforcer), each are given a simple one-line description and nothing more.
I’ve been obsessed with these characters for fifteen years; where did they come from? Were they meant for the game and never got added? Are they just to boost the male/female ratio in the multiplayer?
They have so much character to them just in their designs, I’m captivated with finding out more. I’ve been searching for images of them to show here, and I can’t. These character have no presence outside of the game. That is fascinating, that these visually striking characters are just there, it speaks to a care and dedication for the creative work.
Really, that care and dedication is emblematic of the entire game. Based on a film over forty years old, tweaking aspects, adding dashes of modernity, yet staying true to the basic beats and themes of the story, I’m beguiled by the fact that this thing actually got MADE.
As I mentioned at the beginning, you could almost see it at the start of another franchise. After Connery could be Lazenby and a retelling of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. Next would be Roger Moore with Moonraker (come on, you know it would have to be that film). And after that would be Timothy Dalton and License to Kill. Think of an expanded version of the 007: Legends game, where key movies from each Bond were adapted and the lead Bond actors returned, instead of Daniel Craig standing in for all of them.
007: Legends re-created several films from the series, but was met with critical and commercial failure (Source: demonews.de)
But sadly, From Russia with Love was a one-and-done, marking the end of Electronic Arts’ work on the franchise.
Speaking of, that run of EA 007 games will probably never be bettered. Mixing different gameplay elements and styles, enthusiasm and care to representing the series, by talented teams at the height of their creative output, EA managed to knock out nearly one game a year for half a decade and all of them (even Rogue Agent), deserve to be remembered for what they brought to the genre.
And From Russia with Love, while it might not be the best of the bunch, deserves to be remembered for its artistic and technical feats, its fast and frenetic gunplay, and the creative confidence to adapt a story from nearly half a century ago. It’s weird and wonderful and a game I will continue to treasure, pining that one day it will be backwards compatible.
He started a franchise, was a standout for the start of the seventh generation, and defined an entire series…yet he’s only appeared in one game.
Over a decade and half after his first and only major role in video games, Altaïr Ibn-La’Ahad is still referenced and idolised in the Assassin’s Creed series.
Yet as I mentioned above, he only got one major game to himself, with only short extra chapters in Assassin’s Creed: Revelations tying him in with the more famous Assassin, Ezio Auditore.
So who is this man? How did he start this franchise, and does he deserve more accolades for his action? I want to study him.
“Nothing is True. Everything Is Permitted” – What Makes Altaïr a Great Character
As with any character study, there are points of contention that must be addressed. Firstly, the game is not just about Altaïr during the Third Crusade in 1191, but about his descendant Desmond Miles in the modern day.
Not all memories available to the player (and Desmond) flow in a sequential order. At many points the Animus, the machine Desmond is using to relive his ancestor’s memories, skips forward to a more recent one.
For the most part the skip ahead is during travel or resting periods at the Assassin Bureau, it is something to keep in mind as it leaves sections of Altaïr’s life out of the picture.
Second, at the start of the game Altaïr loses all of his Assassin abilities and gear, having to earn his rank back over the course of the game. While this is to facilitate the gameplay loop, it is something to keep in mind, no matter how silly it is.
Finally, the Animus adapts speech for Desmond and the player to aid communication. The first AC is set during the Crusades in the Levant, comprising of modern day Syria, Israel, Palestine, Lebanon, and Jordan, meaning that Arabic, English, German, and French would have been spoken.
Not only are translations to be made, but also updating the language from 12th Century to modern day, as the Animus is known to do. Some languages don’t have exact word-for-word translations, so it’s something to keep in mind when thinking of meaning.
But with that out of the way, let’s begin.
The first thing to come to mind when discussing characters is their names. Names can tell us so much about a character from their meaning to their social status to the etymology, it’s quite fascinating.
For example, from Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, the main character, Eivor, last name changes depending on the gender picked by the player, between Varinsson or Varinsdottir, based on Icelandic and Viking tradition.
Altaïr Ibn-La’Ahad, translated from Arabic means, “The Bird, Son of No-One”. Birds are a well-known trope in Assassin’s Creed. “Altaïr” is the name of the brightest star in the Aquila constellation, which means “eagle” in Latin. Despite being Latin, a lot of stars have Arabic names, with one of them being Altaïr.
I believe though that Altaïr is not a given name, but rather a nickname that has been given to him by the Assassins around him. As mentioned in his Revelations database entry, the other Assassins knew of his “sixth sense” and had dubbed it “Eagle Vision”.
It would seem serendipitous that Altaïr’s name literally matches up with the name that his fellow Assassin’s would name it, but I believe the clue to “Altaïr” being a nickname or chosen name can be found in his last name.
“Ibn-La’Ahad”, literally translated as “Son of No-One”. Altaïr’s parents are only briefly mentioned in-game, during his Codex pages. But in the companion book, The Secret Crusade, we learn more about Altaïr’s life before and after the events of the first AC.
His mother, Maud, an English Assassin, died after childbirth, leading Altaïr to be raised solely by his father, but this was short-lived.
Maud, Altaïr’s mother, in one of only a few images of her, in Assassin’s Creed Initiates. (Source: assassinscreed.fandom)
***
When Altaïr was only eleven years old, the Saracen leader Salah Al’din laid a siege on the Assassin stronghold of Masyaf. Umar, Altaïr’s father, was sent to deliver a threat stealthily to Salah Al’din, but was spotted and had to kill a nobleman to escape.
Salah Al’din’s uncle, Šihab, was sent to broker peace, demanding the Assassin that killed the nobleman to be executed. Umar agreed and was beheaded in front of the Assassin stronghold, with Altaïr watching on.
While Al Mualim in the first game says that Assassins “do not fear death, they welcome it!” (3:12), it could be still thought that some sort of honour system exists during the time period or location. When Altaïr is stripped of his rank, Al Muslim refers to it as “lost honour” (18:40).
Other instances of honour include when Altaïr flees Masyaf thirty years after liberating it from Al-Mualim. His Assassin rival, Abbas scream after him, “I will have your head for the dishonour you brought upon my family.” (25:00). Altaïr comments later that Abbas feels, “shamed by his family’s legacy.” (26:23)
Even so, if it wasn’t a strict hierarchical honour system, the fact Umar had to kill to escape rather than slip into shadows may have made others think that he wasn’t a gifted Assassin, and had to die to restore his honour.
As one Assassin says to Altaïr in the memory “The Mentor’s Keeper”, “He was a fine man your father. He lived just as he died, with honour.” (0:38).
Concept art with Altaïr and eagle imagery. (Source: assassinscreed.fandom.com)
***
If others made callous remarks about Umar, these jabs would have eventually comes to rest on Altaïr. So with the death of both his parents and trying to escape his disgraced father’s shadow, a name which translates to “Son of No-One” would make sense.
There is another theory however, as according to Altaïr’s Codex Entires found in ACII, his parents weren’t the most caring. He writes in #24,
“Some days I miss my family… Or at least the thought of them. I never knew my parents well, despite them both having lived within these walls. It was our way. Perhaps they were sad, though they showed no sign—it was not allowed.”
So “Son of No-One” could just be a reflection on his parents distance to him, biologically his parents but in no way crossing into social parentage. In the same Codex entry, Altaïr muses,
“Some day I will have a child—such is the way of our Order,” which also makes it sound as if there used to be no real love or companionship when deciding to become a parent, just having a child so they too can be inducted into the Order.
This is further compounded by Altaïr in AC: Revelations, when Al Mualim compares his excellent skills to his father, Altaïr responds, “I did not know him as a father…he was an Assassin above all.” (9:32).
Just before his death, Umar calls out to Al Mualim to take guard over Altaïr and induct him into the Brotherhood. Al Mualim accepts and guides Altaïr into adulthood and it is hinted that Altaïr sees Al Mualim as the father figure that is always there for him when he needed him most.
Indeed, twice in his Codex from ACII, Altaïr refers to Al Mualim as his “father”(#24) or “like a father” (#1).
It’s a hope of a father figure, but even at a young age knowing the boundaries of the Order does not allow anything, leading to a coldness later on.
Even when Al Mualim asks if Altaïr regrest living as an Assassin, Altaïr shrugs it off saying, “How can I regret the only life I’ve ever known?” (9:40). He response is nonchalant, not bitter at a possible other life, resigned that his skills are suited to being an Assassin.
Wise and powerful, Al Mualim is a cunning adversary, whose treachery is found only too late. (Source: assassinscreed.fandom.com)
***
Altaïr grows into a gifted fighter and Assassin, the youngest person in the Order to reach the rank of Master, and proves himself worthy time and time again to wear the hood and hidden blade.
By the start of the first gamethough, he is cold, arrogant, and foolish. The earliest memory in-game that we see of Altaïr is “The Mentor’s Keeper” (set in 1189, two years before the start of the first AC) where he directs other Assassin’s to drive the Templars back and saves Al Mualim’s life.
However, during his talk with Al Mualim after the siege, Altaïr doesn’t strike me as arrogant or aloof. When directing the other Assassins, sure he is brash, but not the “my way is better” approach in the original AC. What changed?
Answers can be found in the Nintendo DS game, Altaïr’s Chronicles. Set a year before the original game, Altaïr is sent by Al-Mualim to retrieve another fabled artifact, this one called The Chalice, before the Templars reach it first.
Altaïr’s investigation leads him to find that the Chalice is not an object, but in fact a woman called Adha. After freeing her from the Templars and escaping together, the two fell in love and planned to run away together. Altaïr even assassinated an Assassin spy to safeguard their flight, even though he knew it would mean being outcast by the brotherhood.
This did not go to plan however. Adha was once again captured by the Templars and taken aboard a ship, sailing away from Altaïr even as he called out to her that he would find her. He pursued the Templars across the sea, but Adha was executed not long afterwards.
As mentioned in #7 his Codex in ACII, Altaïr writes;
“I had thought Adha would be the one to lead me to rest, that I might lay down my blade and live as a normal man. But now I know such dreams are best left to sleep…
…I hunted each man—one by one—until all responsible were gone from the world. But there was joy in this. No satisfaction or release. Their deaths did not bring her back. Did not heal my wounds. After that I was certain I would never again feel for a woman as I had for her.
I am fortunate to have been wrong.”
Adha (in the middle) as she is shipped away at the end of Altaïr’s Chronicles. (Source: YouTube, Assassin’s Creed Series).
***
Up until meeting Adha, Altaïr would have been the model Assassin student, but on encountering love and romance for the first time, his resolve in the Creed fails. He finds it limits him, denying him a true and powerful feeling.
Coupled with the knowledge of his parents’ relationship, he obviously believed that being in love and being an Assassin are antithetical.
So at the sight of a new and exciting life ahead that was snatched away, you can see Altaïr becoming disillusioned with the Creed, leading him to break all the tenets during the raid on Solomon’s Temple. It’s not a rebellion in an edgy “I-don’t-play-by-the-rules” way, but cynicism and almost a nihilistic approach to life.
And so after fleeing Solomon’s Temple, Altaïr head back to Masyaf and inadvertently leads the Templars straight to the gates. Despite this, Altaïr is one of the Assassins tasked with trapping the Templars after performing a Leap of Faith.
Just as a sidenote, it’s interesting that Altaïr is placed almost in the same way as his father was twenty years previously. Both lead a foreign army to their door and both symbolically die to drive the forces back, the only difference being Altaïr physically survives his ‘fall from grace’.
After stopping the Templars, Altaïr is sentenced to death and Al Mualim stabs him with a dagger, only later to be revelled as a ruse to warn other wayward Assassins. Again, it’s another marker of Altaïr being symbolically cutting him off from his old life, allowing him to be reborn, with Al Muslim literally saying, “…you slept the sleep of the dead, of the womb.” (6:24).
And it really does seem like this wakes Altaïr from his nihilism. Reduced to a novice rank and given a list of nine targets across the Holy Land, Altaïr throws himself into his assignment, systematically taking down those that profit from the war without a hint of the arrogance or nihilism of before.
However, in being ‘reborn’, it is almost as if this has washed away the mental supports of the Creed, leaving a belief system that only needs a few choice pressures to fall apart, but also freed Altaïr from its confines as well.
After every assassination, Altaïr extracts a last confession from his targets. And while they try and moralise their work to Altaïr, they also begin to sow the seeds of doubt within his mind. About why these particular men and their intentions, so much that Altaïr begins to ask Al Mualim about it.
Altaïr extracting a confession from Sibrand in the “Memory Corridor” (Source: assassinscreed.fandom.com).
***
Despite these invasive thoughts, Altaïr does seem to develop as a character, and it can be seen in the confessions. At the start of nearly every assassination Altaïr tells the target to be at peace, laying them down and letting them slip without judgement into the void.
In “The Mentor’s Keeper” he relfected with Al Mulaim that, “No man should pass from this world without knowing some kindess.” (9:07), and he seems to have found it within himself again.
With Abul Nu’qoud, scarred and deformed, and who killed other nobles for their cruel mockery of him, Altaïr says, “Be at peace now. Their words can no longer do harm.”
When talking with Sibrand, Altaïr tries to connect on a spiritual level during the dialogue;
Sibrand: Please, don't do this.
Altaïr: You are afraid.
Sibrand: Of course I am afraid!
Altaïr: But you'll be safe now. Held in the arms of your God.
When speaking with Majd Addin, Altaïr finally seems to have developed a conscience, reflecting on his former viewpoint;
Addin: I killed because I could, because it was fun! Do you know what it feels like, to determine another man's fate? And did you see the way the people cheered? The way they feared me? I was like a God! You'd have done the same if you could. Such power!
Altaïr: Once perhaps. But then I learned what becomes of those who lift themselves above others.
And when Altaïr learns of the Templar Grand Master Robert de Sablé’s plan to unite the Holy Land against the Assassins, he argues the case to strike before permission with Bureau Leader Malik.
Malik: Look, Brother. Things have changed. You must return to Masyaf. We cannot act without our Master’s permission. It could compromise the Brotherhood. I thought... I thought you had learned this.
Altaïr: Stop hiding behind word, Malik! You wield the Creed and its tenets like some shield. He's keeping things from us, important things!
Malik is another integral character to Altaïr’s story, with Malik losing an arm and his brother due to Altaïr’s mistakes. (Source: assassinscreed.fandom.com)
***
Alongside the development of skepticism on Assassin ritual, Altaïr has learned to take a moment with his targets, seeing them not as enemies but as humans, with their own fears and ambitions.
All of this develops into a greater understanding of the world, which then brings Altaïr into direct conflict with Al Mualim.
While the master and student do finally face-off, the downward spiral can be seen throughout their interactions with every Templar Altaïr hunts.
At first Altaïr comes back to Al Mualim with curiosity of the seeds of doubt the Templars sowed, but towards the end he begins to demand answers, confronting Al Mualim for speaking cryptically.
In the end, when the two meet for the last time in the Masyaf Garden, Al Mualim chastises Altaïr, demeaning him for his supposed failures as an Assassin, of being blind to the bigger picture, and falling to emotion rather than logic.
Al Mualim then reveals the Piece of Eden’s power and explains that he tried to force Altaïr to bend to his will, yet couldn’t.
‘Who you are and what you do are twined too tight together. To rob you of one would have deprived me of the other.”
Altaïr strikes back with words every time Al Mulaim tries to lecture him and I believe this is how he eventually bests his former Master.
Al Mualim could have easily stabbed Altaïr as he did at the start of the game, but Altaïr goads him into a fight, and Altaïr, now quietly confident in his required abilities, quickly dispatches his teacher.
He fights both with steel and his wits, learning that a closer emotional resonance with the world around him will lead to greater things, and so takes this facet with him from the garden and applies it now that he is Grand Master of the Assassin Order.
“…and he that increaseth knowledge, increaseth sorrow.” Altaïr sees through his master’s hypocrisy cynicism and vows to undo the damage caused. (Source: assassinscreed.fandom.com).
***
This development of a greater pastoral care can also be seen in his Codex. First in #4, Altaïr tries to break down the Creed and the Order on a moral level, but every time he thinks he has found justification, there is always one nagging doubt at the back of his head that they cause more chaos than peace.
Later on in #14, Altaïr resolves himself that they must continue to do violence, but only when the time is right. He views domestic abuse and children sold in war and slavery and writes;
“…On these days, I do not think that dialogue will make a difference. On these days, I can think only of how the perpetrators need to die.”
And in #6, Altaïr resolves to remake the Order, abandoning the rituals but not the Creed, seeking ways previously thought unwise, and in his own words, “We will be born anew…”
In #27 he realises that the Order is growing, and to teach those that seek understanding. He writes;
“More make their way to our fortresses every day…Each tells a similar story—of having discovered the first part of our creed: that nothing is true.
Too often, though, the revelation undoes them. They lose their morality, certainty, security. Many are driven mad. We must guide them. Help them heal.”
It is a development of mellowing and maturing with age, very similar to Ezio in Revelations compared to Brotherhood.
And while some of it comes from Altaïr’s self-discovery over the course of the first game, I believe two people helped him on this course.
One was Malik, the previously mentioned Bureau Leader in Jerusalem. Malik and his brother Kadar were alongside Altaïr in Solomon’s Temple. During the ensuing battle Malik lost an arm and Kadar was killed, leading Malik to foster a grudge against Altaïr.
As Altaïr rises through the ranks again duringthe story, the connection between him and Malik softens. Malik helps Altaïr infiltrate Masyaf to assassinate Al Mualim, and becomes Altaïr’s right-hand-man as Mentor, and is mentioned many times in the Codex.
The other person that helps Altaïr develop his inner self is the “templar Tomboy” Maria Thorpe. Their first interaction lasts no more than a minute, yet it sends ripples throughout Altaïr’s life and the Order of Assassins.
“I sense you expected someone else…” Maria acts as a decoy for Altaïr’s true target. (Source: assassinscreed.fandom.com)
***
The pair meet when Altaïr is sent to kill the Templar Grand Master Robert de Sablé, who is attending a funeral for the Saracen Regent Majid Addin (a nice connection between a previous target).
When Altaïr finally defeats Robert, the Assassin demands to see the latter’s face before striking the killer blow but he is shocked to see a woman underneath the helmet. Maria taunts him and explains Robert’s plan to unite the Holy Land, before Altaïr lets her go.
Maria is confused at this, she thought he would take her life as he had done to the last eight targets. He says she was never a target, so she is allowed to go.
It’s a long way from Altaïr at the beginning of the game, killing an innocent without a second thought, or even Altaïr during his Hunt for the Nine, who would kill any street preacher that he interrogated.
The two meet not long after though, in the PlayStation Portable game, Altaïr’s Chronicles. Set one month after the main game, the Templars have been weakened after Altaïr’s assassinations and flee Acre. They leave to Cyprus, so Altaïr follows them to eradicate them and uncover the Templar Archive rumoured to exist on the island.
Maria is with the Templars at the start, but without Robert vouching for her, she is now at their mercy. She is not trusted, thought to be a trickster and harlot, with the new Templar Grand Master saying that, “…it is through women that the Devil weaves his strongest web.”
As the Templars begin to turn on Maria, Altaïr repeatedly rescues her. And over time, Maria slowly warms to him as they make and break alliances against the Templars.
WhenMaria and Altaïr travel to Cyprus together, the first hints of romance begin to blossom (Source: assassinscreed.fandom.com)
***
During their first conversation in Altaïr’s Chronicles, Maria remarks, “the man who spared my neck but ruined my life”. It could be a sense of honour that binds Maria to not strike back against Altaïr, despite many chances to do so, instead fleeing each time.
Maria tries to make it back into the Templar’s favour, but when she Altaïr discusses the philosophy of the Assassins and Templars, Maria starts to become disillusioned.
When she confronts the twin ruling Templars of Kyrenia, Shalim and Shahar about their oppressive methods, she asks;
Maria: But our Order was created to protect the people, not rob them of their liberty.
Shahar: The Templars put no stock in liberty, Maria. We seek order, nothing more.
Maria: Liberty? Or enslavement?
Shahar: You can call it whatever you like, my dear.
Shahar went to subdue Maria, but Altaïr rescued her again, and she dispatched two of Altaïr’s pursuers before fleeing again. This was the turning point for the duo, as Maria now began to actively fight against the Templars, with and without Altaïr.
Once the duo had defeated the Templars upon Cyprus and buried the Archive, the two reflect with each other on the docks, preparing to leave the island.
Maria says, “Everything I worked for in the Holy Land, I no longer want. And everything I have up to join the Templars…I wonder where all that went, and if I should try to find it again.”
It’s the same revelations that the people coming to the Masyaf fortress discovered, the first line of the creed, that “nothing is true.”
Altaïr bonds with Maria, telling her that;
“For a long time under Al Mualim, I thought my life had reached its limit, and that my sole duty was to show others the same precipice I had discovered.”
Altaïr asks what she will do now, and Maria says she wants to travel, possibly to the East. She returns the question and Altaïr ponders while looking at the Apple of Eden. He too wants to travel to satiate his newly developed curiosity.
And when Maria asks where he wants to go first, Altaïr thinks for a second before saying, “East”. As the final cutscene plays with Altaïr writing in his journal, Maria moves close to his shoulder, reading over his notes.
It’s such a small touch, one word and a closeness that wasn’t there before, but it implies the start of a romance. And in the Codex page relating to the story of his love for Adha, Altaïr finishes writing with the line;
“I am fortunate to have been wrong.”
Again, it’s a small touch, both his previous mentions of Adha and not even mentioning Maria by name. Maria doesn’t even get named until ACII, by Desmond when he experiences the Bleeding Effect outside the Animus.
Speaking of, the vision Desmond has is the first indication of Maria and Altaïr together in the main games.
The vision starts with Altair chasing after a hooded “target” across the rooftops of Acre. Only when the target is cornered at the top of a tower that she pulls down her hood, revealing her face, and beckoning Altaïr towards her. It hints at a playfulness that has developed between the two, followed by a night of passionate lovemaking beneath the stars.
Altaïr and Maria, having just conceived Sef. The player perspective enters Maria’s womb when the scene ends. (Source: assassinscreed.fandom.com).
***
In the novelisation The Secret Crusade, the narrator Niccolò Polo says to his brother,
“This [time with Maria] represented a mainly peaceful and fruitful period for the Master. He talks of it little, as though it is too precious to bring out into the light.”
It could be read as a continuation of Altaïr’s parents, something which isn’t discussed or important to the Order, something to be held inside. It could also be Maria’s background. Being the first Templar to switch sides to the Assassins, a lot of the Order would have held her in suspicion.
But Maria proves herself, helping Altaïr and their two sons Darim and Sef in learning the ways of the Assassins, aiding Darim in his assassination of Genghis Khan, mentioned in #29 of Altaïr’s Codex.
However, tragedy strikes when they arrive back to Masyaf after the family’s time working in the field. When Altaïr and Maria come back through the gates, they find Abbas, another Assassin Master having taken over the Order, killing Malik and Altaïr’s son Sef.
Abbas wants the Apple and sends the other Assassin’s to take it, but in the struggle Maria is killed and Altaïr has to flee for his life. In the novelisation of the events, Altaïr leaps once again from the platform that allowed him to defeat Robert, another “fall from grace”.
We do not see or hear of Altaïr for another twenty years. Nothing has been even speculated as to what he has been doing, only that he returns to Masyaf first to talk with Abbas, and leading a full-on revolt as more Assassin’s join his side.
There are whispers in the village of an old man saving a merchant in the next valley over, and using a hidden blade. Even at over 80 years old, Altaïr is still protecting the innocent, but in the novelisation, he is almost killed, his age slowly his reflexes. At first I thought this was a relapse of his nihilism drawn from losing his lover again, but its actually Maria’s memory that keeps him going.
Before Altaïr fled Masyaf, Maria tells him, “Resist your desire for revenge…speak truth and they will see their error…speak reasonably, and reasonable men will listen.” As they continue into the Masyaf Garden, Altaïr says they may be walking to their doom, and Maria replies. “We may. But we walk together.”
When Altaïr returns it is this message that emboldens him, to fight the honourable fight and if it is his time to die then he will face it.
As the Assassins turn to his side and face off against their former brothers, Altaïr shows that pastoral care that he developed when he took over as Mentor. He says only those that have, “…raised their blade against an innocent,” should die for they have comprised the Order and the creed.
When fighting against Abbas’ minions, he orders the Assassins to, “…spill no blood if [they] can help it,” calling back to Maria’s final words to him.
Many in the Assassin Order do not trust Maria, no matter her actions for the Brotherhood. (Source: assassinscreed.fandom.com)
***
Once he frees Masyaf from Abbas’ grip, Altaïr disbands the entire Order in its current form. He sends the townspeople away and empties the castle. Ezio remarks when he visit the castle with Sofia Sartor, “[Altaïr] built us up, then set us free. He saw the folly of keeping a castle like this. It had become a symbol of arrogance and a beacon for all our enemies.”
Altaïr alone stays in Masyaf with the Apple. As opposed to Ezio who earned comfort in leaving the Piece of Eden, Altaïr still yearns to seek truth even in his dying days.
He says to his son Darim, “When I was very young, I was foolish enough to believe that our Creed would bring an end to all these conflicts. If only I had possessed the humility to say to myself, I have seen enough for one life. I have done my part. Then again, there is no greater glory than fighting to find truth.” (36:23).
In his final Codex entry, Altaïr ponders about what will happen to him once he dies, what of his consciousness and identity. He thinks back on his time with the Apple and there was no greater force stopping him from abusing its power. He is even tempted to look back into it to see if there is some way to extend his time on Earth.
These two sections are a perfect distillation of Altaïr’s entire persona; a life of contradictions and internal struggle, a journey of finding the secrets of the world, yet conflicted by his connection to the Order and his life.
And so he looks one last time into the Apple, before heading to his library vault, cleared out of all his possessions. He douses the fire in the brackets, and hears Maria’s voice calling out to him, telling him to abandon the Apple, and him regretting not listening to her. (38:25).
A man once known for his cold and calculating air, with his final thoughts, remembering those he loved, a departure from the Creed he grew up with.
“No books. No wisdom. Only you…fratello mio.” (Source: assassinscreed.fandom.com)
Conclusion
It’s been interesting to look back on Altaïr, especially for the shadow he has cast long after his one game.
I think he got forgotten quite quickly due to his follow-up, Ezio (who I’ve also written a character study about).
And I get it. Ezio is a lot of players’ entry point to the series. He’s fun, he’s cool, his story is better. There were a few nods to Altaïr in ACII but they could be brushed aside if you hadn’t played it.
I remember at the time of Revelations that there was a sense of fatigue in the air surrounding the game. It was another Ezio game, another Desmond game…and then also partly an Altaïr game.
I think he got lost again, a call back to something players had already forgotten about too, with the audience ready for Edward to sweep them off their feet again like Ezio had done at the beginning of his trilogy.
Yet I feel Altaïr has made his way back into the pantheon. His outfit has been an unlock able in Unity, Syndicate, Origins and Mirage. There have even been talks about a remake of the first game.
And while Ezio may have the accolades and the high praise, it doesn’t take away the fact that an entire franchise started around this quiet and unassuming man in a white hood.
Altaïr is still one of the prominent figures of Assassin’s Creed, influencing countless others along the way, and that’s why he deserves to be remembered.
The three titles spanning from the first game released in 2002 to the New Orleans-inspired third setting from 2016 is one of my favourite gaming series, up there with the Ezio Auditore and the Hitman trilogy.
The whole package was remastered recently, with a remake of the first Mafia released in 2020. There has been speculation over the next game and setting, with many tidbits indicating the next release would be set in the 1970s in Las Vegas.
But this year at Gamescom, developer Hangar 13 released a trailer for the newest title in the series, titled Mafia: The Old Country. The trailer is just over a minute in length, but it has set the Mafia fanbase abuzz with excitement.
And as a proud Mafia fan, I thought I could speculate too on what we might find in the game. Let’s start!
An Offer You Can’t Refuse – Speculating over Mafia: The Old Country
1. The Location and Setting
Both the title and the trailer give clues as to where and when the game is set.
“The Old Country” as a phrase is in reference to first-generation immigrants, usually to the United States of America. So for Italian immigrants, Italy is the “Old Country”.
“The Old Country” was even used as a chapter title in Mafia II, where during WW2, protagonist Vito Scaletta was part of the US Army invading his home island, Sicily.
We can hone in on Sicily as the exact location through the trailer. The first is an image of Saint Rosalia, covered in blood droplets. When members join the mafia, the go through an initiation process where they drop their own blood onto a chosen saint. Saint Rosalia is the patron saint of Sicily, which would indicate that this would be the location.
Another image from the trailer is the final landscape shot, with a distinct building with two towers. A building very much of this likeness was also a key location during Mafia II’s Sicily chapter, so it’s plausible that these could be the same location.
Saint Rosalia in the trailer. She is frequently depicted holding a skull. (Source: YouTube, Mafia Game)
The unnamed narrator’s first line in the trailer speaks of “This Thing of Ours.” This is also a veiled reference to the Sicilian Mafia, also known as “Cosa Nostra”. “Cosa Nostra” literally translates to “This Thing of Ours”, a way to obfuscate any officials listening in on the activities usually associated with the mafia, but indicates again that Sicily will be the location.
It will be interesting to see how the landscape is laid out in the game. Sicily is a mix of mountain ranges, dense cities, dry landscapes, and clear blue sea. The original Mafia included a countryside, but later entries just focused on cities.
The series has also always used fictional cities such as Lost Heaven, Empire Bay, and New Bordeaux (Chicago, New York, and New Orleans respectively). Palermo (Sicily’s main city) is heavily tied in with the lore of Mafia, so I wonder whether they keep their trend of a fictional city or will finally base it in a real city.
While the trailer doesn’t give a concrete indication of the time period, the fact it is called “The Old Country”, a rotary telephone can be seen in one frame, and a figure is seen wearing an old-style waistcoat would indicates the early 1900s, the earliest time period the series has ever been based in.
Sicily would be a new and interesting location for games in general, moving away from the standard US setting (Source: Youtube, Mafia Game).
2. Characters
While we only got a brief glimpse of one character in the trailer, we can infer possible cameos, ancestors, and families from looking ahead to the other Mafia games.
To be made a full member of the mafia, a man must prove that he is from Sicily or is a descended from Sicilian roots. People from other nations can work for the mafia, but can never join as full members.
Several important characters in the series started their criminal life in Sicily before moving to the USA. From the first game, Don Ennio Salieri and his consigliere Frank Colletti grew up together, setting up dog races as children and winning bullet casings and other trinkets. Another Don from the same game is Marcu Morello, who also moved across from Sicily as a child.
Official artwork showing a Lupara amongst the lemons, imagery associated with the Sicilian Mafia. (Source: mafiagame.fandom)
In Mafia II it is the same, with major characters like Leo Galante, Frank Vinci, and Carlo Falcone, all emigrating in the early 1900s. Alberto Clemente, another Don from Mafia II, had to flee Sicily after killing a police captain in Palermo. One of Clemente’s lieutenants, Henry Tomasino, was also born in Sicily, fleeing at his father’s request after Mussolini took power.
With all these characters being born somewhere between the 1880s and the 1900s before moving across the Atlantic Ocean and setting up business there, we could see a few of these family members making their start in organised crime. As mentioned above with Saint Rosalia, the image of the saint is used during an initiation, so it’s highly likely that that same imagery will be in the game.
I don’t really want any previous characters to be the playable protagonist (I would rather it be someone new to keep some mystery as to their life story), but those character could be featured as cameos for a few chapters. With so many leaving for the United States, it could be a nice bittersweet moment. When we think of people leaving for a better life, we rarely remember those they have to leave behind.
From L to R: Eddie, Vito, Joe, and Henry from Mafia II. Maybe we’ll see their ancestors in The Old Country. (Source: vg247.om)
3. Story
This won’t be a general outline, but more ideas that I think may turn up in The Old Country.
The series as a whole is heavily influenced by cinema and cinematic presentation, usually taking situations and themes from films such as The Godfather and GoodFellas and replicating them in the game.
Portions of both The GodfatherPart I and Part II are set in Sicily, with families taking revenge during funerals and shipping their children off to America when it becomes too dangerous for them to stay. With all the characters that left Sicily to move to America, this is probably a major story point in the game.
Artwork in the trailer includes Jesus Christ on the cross as well as the Greek myth Acis and Galatea, with common themes about love, jealousy, and eventual death. They would be easy story points to add into the game.
The 1900s was a tumultuous time for Europe, so it has to come up at some point in the game. With WWI from 1914 to 1918 and Italy being a major force fighting against Austria-Hungary, the war setting could easily be a way to have the player character have a general knowledge of how guns work.
1918 also was the year that the Spanish Flu was widely recognised across Europe. While I don’t think it would be a major part, it’s an interesting fact that Saint Rosalia is also the patron saint invoked during plagues. Maybe it will be a background theme or giving a character a death scene much like Arthur Morgan in Red Dead Redemption II.
The main historical point in Italy in the early 1900s is the fascist Benito Mussolini’s rise to power in 1922. There was a very public and concerted effort by Mussolini to destroy the mafia, with special prosecutors sent to root out criminals in Sicily and elsewhere in Italy.
I think this will be the main crux of the game, seeing the Sicilian Mafia be built up and then crumble as more and more flee to the safety of America and Mussolini cracks down hard on organised crime. We probably won’t be fighting old Benito ourselves, but maybe a special prosecutor who is brought in.
Some of the artwork for The Old Country looks very reminiscent of Mafia 2‘s Sicily level. (Source: mafiagame.fandom).
It’s also of interest to note that in Mafia II, the Italian Blackshirts surrender due to the local Don, Don Calò, who is a real life person and supposedly helped the Allies invade Sicily. Just a little something to think about, as a neat way to keep the tradition of seeing Vito Scaletta in every game.
So those are my thoughts on Mafia: The Old Country. We won’t be waiting long until we see more of the game, as Hangar 13 promised more in December of 2024. I for one can’t wait to see more!
The Xbox 360 Marketplace finally shut down last month on July 29th.
With its passing, a great host of work was lost; cool, punchy, exciting games that only released on the Xbox 360 and had not made the leap over to the most recent hardware, leaving a library to rival Alexandria to our memory cards and receptors.
I had only recently got my old 360 out of storage to reminisce on some good old-fashioned shooty games (seriously, its been twelve years and nothing has surpassed Max Payne 3) and found one little game that is now lost to the wind.
I want to talk about it, partly due to its now-lost status, and also that its seems unique in its story, setting, and humour.
Say hello to Office DisOrders.
Working 9 to 5 – Office DisOrders and the Chaos of Cubicle Work
Office DisOrders is a life simulation game focussing on the trials and tribulations of a bland, faceless corporation and its employees. Players are in control of Jennifer, a temp worker at the company.
The developer, Moment Games, are former alumni from Maxis, so the game takes similar elements from The Sims. While getting on with Jennifer’s daily tasks, the player has to manage her hunger, thirst, energy, and bladder.
Like The Sims it’s a pretty simple core loop. And while The Sims was a veiled skewering of American Consumerism (yes, really, here’s proof, (1:07:25)), Office DisOrders aims its sights at jobs and the corporate marketplace.
From start to finish the game is full of great gags. (Source: Xbox Live Indie Games (XBLIG) Documentation).
One of the first tasks Jennifer is given is to sign a non-disclosure form for her time at the company, Incomputech (rivalling Dundler Mifflin for the vaguest company name ever).
The task is a simple affair, just logging onto the computer and getting Jennifer to read and sign the form.
When The Sims would do loading screen as part of the expansion packs, they would hide little jokes in the loading screen. For example, for the Vacation expansion, there would be messages like, “Loading Weather data”, “Screening Entertainment Talents”, and “Establishing Hotline”.
Office DisOrders takes that similar tongue-in-cheek approach to its progress screens. That said disclosure form starts normal enough; “Reading Summary”, “Organising Thoughts”, and “Analysing Legalease”, but sprinkled in are increasingly paranoid thoughts like “Re-reading Subtext”, “Contemplating Implications”, and “Imagining Consequences”.
These are sight gags, on screen for a second at most, yet drew a laugh from me at the familiarity of thought processes when knee-deep in contracts.
Day One is normal enough though (aside from another sight gag of the range of middle managers doing nothing put playing Solitaire on their computers). But as the days progress, Office DisOrders slowing tweaks the surrealism dial up. Re-re-reorganisations that require everyone to move chairs multiple time a day, “downsizing” where people literally get shrunk, and hedge fund managers that are actual vampires.
Now that Marcela has been downsized, she can’t reach the photocopying supplies anymore. (Source: YouTube, BrandoPlayer).
Part of Office DisOrders charm also lies in its art design and location.
The characters are all simple designs, with square heads and only the most basic of features (some of the characters don’t even have mouths), yet it works. It doesn’t need super expressive faces, you get all the emotion from the text box voice lines, and it keeps the revolving doors of middle managers recognisable when they are ultimately fired, re-hired, promoted, and demoted in the same day.
The design of the Incomputech office is also oddly a strong suit. Just like The Sims, the office is laid out in “walls down” mode, allowing the player to see into every room with ease. But with bare white walls, strategic plants, and that EXACT grey heather carpet colour that every office has, it hits the perfect note.
I also love that when characters leave the office, they just step through the door and out into a dark void. It’s obviously meant to be like that as just a space to load in and out, but it gives the sense of the office being stuck in a liminal purgatory to add to the surreal vibe.
Jennifer is getting ready for a Power Nap. Notice the different meters at the bottom of the screen. (Source: Xbox Live Indie Games (XBLIG) Documentation).
After only a few days as a temp, Jennifer becomes a full time worker and then CEO as the reshuffles continue. When an AI computer called “The Bubble” is brought in by Harry the Vampire (and hedge fund manager), Jennifer is told to feed it a mission statement and vision board so that it can direct the company moving forward.
First the mission statement which the progress screen says is made up of; “Collating Disagreements”, “Ameliorating Differences”, “Mishmashing Options”, “Exaggerating Prospects”, “Bridging Contradictions”, “Rewording Gibberish”, and “Obfuscating Techno-Babble”.
Once that is done it’s time for the vision board. No-one knows what that actually means though, so Jennifer steals a pair of glasses and combines it with the notice board from the kitchen and feeds it to the machine, which makes the poor AI promptly blow up in her face.
It leads to one of my favourite dialogues in the game;
Worker: The Bubble you and your Wall Street friend created burst!
Harry The Vampire: Who knew bubbles could do that? Oh dear, look at the time, gotta run.
Various Workers: My 401k is wiped out! My husband lost his job! My house got foreclosed on!
Jennifer: But this is what Wall Street wanted me to do!
Comedy games can be rather hit or miss with their jokes. Sometimes you get stunners like Portal 2, but rarely do games age well with their jibes and tone. Yet with Office DisOrders being made in 2010, two years after the financial crash, even in 2024 the jokes still hit a perfect combination of low and high-brow quips and zingers.
The game continues with political satire later on as Jennifer heads to Washington DC to ask for a bailout for the company. Again, it’s a bitingly funny scene just from the arguments the player can choose from, such as why potatoes are great, to “Family Values”, and the concept of America.
But even after securing a hilariously huge pile of money (as it is listed in the inventory) Jennifer gets fired, only to find herself back at Incomputech four months later with palette swaps of all the characters, causing her to shake her head and turn right back around.
The game ends with a simple text box; “Just another day at work.”
Washington D.C. is suitable and surreal finale for the game. (Source: YouTube, BrandoPlayer).
In research for this piece I had a look for similar titles that are also set in offices spaces and turns out there were quite a few more than I would have thought.
I already knew about The Stanley Parable, which merges its office space with surreal and liminal horror, while also being darkly humorous, with nineteen different endings.
One of the premier titles for VR is Job Simulator, a riotously funny game where the player is tasked with many jobs, with a section dedicated to office work filled with all manner of jibes such as firing staples at your colleagues and playing with your executive toys.
And Say No! More tasks you as a defiant intern who after being treated terribly by their company and having their lunch stolen by their supervisor, learns the power of saying “no!” to any request, and blazing through the company on a righteous mission of destruction.
The office space is a fruitful playground for games, allowing a power fantasy that can be drawn from both personal experiences and pop culture tentpoles such as The Office, Office Space, and even non-fiction books like Bullsh*t Jobs.
So while Office DisOrders may be lost to the digital wasteland, new games follow in its footsteps, and we that had the privilege to play it can reminisce about it, even now the servers have finally shut down.
Banner Photo Source: YouTube (Xbox Live Indie Games (XBLIG) Documentation)
I was thinking back on an article I wrote a few years back about noticeably older playable characters in games and a thought occurred to me, “Would I be able to name any child playable characters in games?”
A few examples came to mind quickly such as Link in The Legend of Zelda, Max in Life is Strange and the two siblings in Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons.
An odd one from a few years ago also popped up, 2019’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, which had an entire level where players are in the shoes of a child during an invasion. And a short while ago I wrote about the great time I spent with Rockstar’s Bully.
But recently during a game sale I picked up a title that does a great job of recreating childhood, of giving that sense of wonder and exploration that children have.
The game is called Alba: A Wildlife Adventure, and is one of the most charming and adorable games I’ve had the pleasure of playing recently, so I wanted to talk about it today to pass on this gem of a title.
State of Play: Alba and the Wonders of Childhood Holidays
Alba follows the titular character of Alba as she visits her grandparents for summer holiday on a Spanish island of Pinar del Mar they have retired to.
Alba’s holiday starts standard enough; eating ice cream and paella, spending time at the beach, and playing with her island friend Ines.
But when it turns out the island mayor is ready to tear down the nearby nature reserve for a luxury hotel baron, Alba and Ines decide to create a nature club and rebuild the reserve, gathering signatures for a petition to stop it.
The island of Pinar del Mar gets involved to help Alba and protect the wildlife (Source: psnprofiles.com).
Many other games have child or teen characters in stressful or strange environments, but for Alba it is an environment to learn from, to learn about through exploring, and in general a refreshingly calm and stress-free place, where standing up for your beliefs and challenging authority is a main bedrock of the title.
The main loop of Alba is creating a database of the animals that inhabit the island. Alba is given a nature guide and a phone app by her grandparents to try and catalogue all the animals that live on Pinar del Mar.
Alba is an open world game, so the main section of playtime is spent researching the animals in the database, learning about their unique markings, habitat, and call, before tip-toeing through the biome and taking a picture of them.
Alba originally standard as an iOS game and I could definitely see the same style working here, popping in for a few minutes every day, wandering around the incredibly detailed world and taking a few picture before heading off again.
It’s a charming little loop that I ended up spending many hours in, just learning about different animals and feverishly trying to fill out the entire book, staying out way beyond the time when Alba’s grandparents texted her to come home just to get that one last animal in a certain biome.
Some animals can be found quite easily, others require knowledge of their habitat and routines. Source: polygon.com
Some of the animals for the book are only spotted in the sky, meaning you have to find the perfect spot to zoom in and out with your camera and get a good chance of catching it as it flies by.
The island of Pilar del Mar is split into eight different biomes; the beach, town, terraces, farmland, forest, marshlands, and the mountain. You would think with such widely diverse locations that Pinar del Mar might feel disjointed but each location flows seamlessly into one another.
Alba has a map that can aid in traversal, but the game’s world is easily navigated just through sight.
Need to go to the mountain? Just look upwards pretty much anywhere in the game. Want to go bird-watching by the beach? Head down the hill and you’ll get there. Buying supplies in the town? You can just see a chimney across the way, maybe the town will be somewhere close by.
It’s always lovely to play an open-world game that can give players a clear HUD, especially after years of experiencing POI to POI marker.
The map of Pinar del Mar with all the different biomes. (Source: medium.com)
For a moment during the opening chapters I thought there might be a speed upgrade, something like Alba getting a bicycle to help make the trek across the island (another hallmark of holidays, bike trips). But nothing like the sort came, and I can see two reasons why.
One, the bird-watching loop. Many a time I would be trekking through the world and see an animal I hadn’t catalogued. It’s a little hard to do that if you’re speeding through the island.
The second reason is such a small one but I was charmed every single time it happened; Alba’s animations. Alba walks and runs normally, but every now and again she’ll change it up. Sometimes she skips, sometimes she runs with her arms out like a plane. These little animations give such detail to Alba and her childhood play, I wish other games would do something similar.
Throughout the game players will journey all across the island and none of it is locked by progression through the game. While some animals will only appear later in the story, the player can easily wander anywhere on the island, cataloguing animals they can see, or interacting with Pinar del Mar and its population.
Talking of the islanders, part of Alba and Ines’ mission is to get fifty signatures from the townsfolk to petition the mayor to stop the hotel build. While some of the signatures come from rebuilding the wildlife reserve the rest need to be collected from the townsfolk, each with their own little stories or dilemmas.
Clara the head of the Wildlife Association, Simón the local vet, María the carpenter, each have tasks like cleaning up the trash left by people, clearing away pesticide spillages, or fixing bird boxes across the island.
Heading into Town, where most of the island residents can be found (Source: zkm.de).
There are are other characters who are just there by add a little extra charm to the island. Jaineba the ice cream merchant (who gets Alba to test new flavours), Laura the strict and stern police officer, or the two nameless older women who spend their time near the church and talk of their weekly bungee jumping classes.
Every character can be interacted with and will have a few lines of dialogue about them or the day and it gives and extra incentive to explore every nook and cranny of Pinar del Mar. It got to the point where I would interact with my favourite characters each day, despite it never being more than one or two lines, it was a joy to pass by so many recognisable faces.
I also appreciate the diversity of the cast. There are a wide range of skin tones across Pinar del Mar, different languages spoken, some same-sex relationships, and a few visible signs of faith (such as the character Alia, who wears a hijab).
Alba also fits into this diverse cast, with her last name Singh and flying to Spain from the UK, it could be referenced that she is of British, Indian, and Spanish descent. And the game doesn’t highlight any of these points, but just quietly and confidently places the characters into the world.
One of the reasons I was initially drawn to Alba was the apparently short run time. I really like quick and condensed games and according to How Long To Beat the 100% runtime for Alba is around 4 hours. Yet I know I spent far longer in the game.
The satisfying loop of bird-watching, trekking across a beautiful island populated with a fun cast of characters, I whiled away Alba’s days, scouring every biome, sneaking to the perfect picture spot and even returned after the game was done to soak in the atmosphere again.
It’s a charming little game with a strong message about care and conservation, standing up against authority, and that with teamwork anything is possible. If you’re looking for a new game that is a change of pace, for something both calming and enjoyable, and can be enjoyed by all ages, I recommend it wholeheartedly.
I always have a sense of excitement and trepidation when picking up a new Call of Duty game.
I don’t play online shooters so I know I’m not the target audience who love their team deathmatches and their Battle Royale modes, rather I drop my cash for the story.
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare sparked an interest in this sometimes-maligned side of CoD with its depiction of stealthy SAS toughs behind enemy lines as well as the big bombastic spectacles of an invading US force.
When Modern Warfare got rebooted in 2019 I picked it up to see what new narrative threads had been added. I wasn’t too bowled over (you can read more here), but I was interested to see where the franchise went next.
And so a few days ago I played through all of the new Modern Warfare games to get a full overview of the for a deep dive analysis.
“Bravo Six Going Dark” – The Modern Warfare Reboot Trilogy: An Analysis
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare is one of the best paced games in the history of gaming.
Its sense of timing and when to ratchet up tension is perfect displayed by its two playable factions, the SAS and the US Marines.
The SAS sneak and use subterfuge while the US Marines use every weapon known to man to obliterate their enemy.
It is a balancing masterclass of the scalpel and the sledgehammer.
CoDs from World at War through MW2, Black Ops, MW3, and beyond dialled back the scalpel in for more sledgehammers, until 2019 when the first of the MW reboot released.
This game is 90% scalpel, a complete reverse of the previous CoDs and in retrospect quite refreshing.
Super sneaky “tactical” games had been popular in the years preceding CoD4, mainly helmed by the Rainbow Six series and it seemed that the new CoD was going to take more of a stealthy approach to a first-person shooter.
This is exemplified by the most well-known mission from MW 2019, “Clean House”. The player works as part of the SAS and clearing out a terrorist cell that has set up shop in a town house in north London.
Bathed in the green light of night vision with hardly any musical notation, the mission is tense, with many tight corners, hidden terrorists and tough calls needing to be made on the use of lethal force.
A night-time raid on a house in Camden Town is tense and thrilling, with tight corners and hidden enemies. (Source: callofduty.fandom.com)
The coin-flip of rules of engagement and civilian presence is highlighted quite a lot in the game, with “Embedded” and “The Embassy” asking the player to leave unarmed civilians to be hanged or shot and “Old Comrades” putting the player on the other side and threatening a terrorist’s family with a gun.
These missions show the new face for the story in relation to the hot contemporary political topics of the time. CoD4 visually referenced the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, and CoD 2019 takes similar inspiration with terrorist attacks in highly populated areas, siege events like Benghazi and female-led resistance forces.
Speaking of which, the character of Farah who is the head the resistance of Urzikstan (the fictional Black Sea country and centre of conflict) is very welcome in a game series that does not have much space for female roles. She speaks both English and Arabic, and its refreshing to have entire sections with subtitles, again, something that until recently wasn’t widely accepted in gaming.
Players experience a lot of key moments with Farah and her brother Hadir, with a memorable missions including the two as children and having to use improvised weaponry like scissors to defend themselves from invading Russian forces, or being waterboarded when they are taken prisoner.
The rest of the cast are also good characters, with CIA instrument “Alex” being entrenched with Farah and the rebels, his handler Laswell (another female character and one in authority), and then the two British lads, Kyle “Gaz” Garrick and Captain Price. All the actors put in stellar performances.
From L to R: “Alex”, Price, Gaz, and Farah, the main characters of Modern Warfare (2019). I was happy to see all of these characters returns across the trilogy. (Source: metro.co.uk)
However, the reasoning behind Gaz and Price being involved in the story is an annoying stretch. Price is with the SAS and Gaz is part of the CTSFO but then the CIA spook Laswell can just call up and get him to seemingly abandon his post to hunt down a terrorist leader.
It’s a weird exceptionalism that was pervasive towards the end of the previous MW trilogy, of Price playing four-dimensional chess with his enemy and being excused because he is the only man capable of averting world destruction.
Price even says that to Gaz towards the end of MW 2019. Gaz is frustrated by the rules of engagement in the CTFSO and so Price recruits him for his taskforce. But when Prices threatens and unarmed woman and child as “leverage” over a terrorist, he moralises it to Gaz, saying,
“End of the day somebody has to make the enemy scared of the dark. We get dirty and the world stays clean.”
Price talks about the blood on his hands and lines in the sand and it feels like it’s going to crescendo with a message, a personal story of violence and limits to rationalise his view, but it’s left as it is and ends more as an encouragement rather than an indictment of morally grey warfighters.
In “Hometown” a seven-year-old Farah has to defend herself from Russian troops, but doesn’t have the physical strength to pull the trigger. (Source: callofduty.fandom.com)
The game ends on a sledgehammer peak with all the characters joining forces and sieging a Georgian chemical plant and taking back Farah’s homeland from the invaders.
It’s notable also for the death of “Alex”, who doesn’t go out in a blaze of glory, firing his weapon with one hand and killing several enemies, but instead with a smile and a “yes ma’am”.
The bombs the team places are damaged and someone has to stay behind to detonate them. Farah is ready to sacrifice herself to her cause, but “Alex” tells her someone still needs to deal with the rogue Russian General Barkov and that should be her task.
“Alex” says, “I’ve been on assignment my whole life. This…is one I believe in.” While he is dedicated to the fight, he can’t win the war for her. It has to be Farah to free her country from Barkov and in the end she “orders” him to blow up the plant while she defeats the general.
It’s a great moment of small heroics and knowing where one is placed in the grand scheme of the world and the only downside is that “Alex” is a warm and calming presence in a game of dark and cold look through inhumanity.
“Alex” and Farah’s connection is one of the lighter points of the story and something rarely seen in shooters, let alone a CoD game. (Source: YouTube: BabyZone)
So the world is saved, Urzikstan is freed, and Price talks with Laswell about a new taskforce with some choice friends from the SAS. He names himself, Gaz, Soap, and Ghost as his core team and gives them the name 141.
Obviously being a reboot there were going to be some mentions of characters, places, events and reworks.
Garrick being revealed as Gaz was nice and lends a smidge of diversity to the core characters, but apart from that there wasn’t any big or well-reasoned connections to the original.
Sgt. Griggs returns in a blink-and-you-miss it role in “Hunting Party”. General Shepherd, Zakhaev, Pripyat, and Al-Asad all get name dropped in the end credit scenes.
The most egregious references for me were of memes from the original Modern Warfare.
The line “check your corners” in CoD4 became an internet joke due to the way Price performs and repeats it in the level “Crew Expendable”.
The line is used again by Price in the reboot during a terrorist attack in “Picadilly” and would fit the moment…expect it has over a decade’s worth of meme-baggage attached to the phrase.
The same happens in the mission “Highway of Death”, where while testing a high-powered rifle the player is asked to shoot a piece of fruit.
When a shot is landed a friendly NPC says, “His fruit-killing skills are remarkable.” Again, it could fit the scene, but just pulls me out of the moment.
But with that final note, let’s move onto Modern Warfare II.
For the following, MW2 will refer to the 2009 game and MWII will refer to the 2022 game.
From L to R; Alejandro, Soap, Ghost, Price, and Gaz, the leads of MWII and TF141. (Source: callofduty.com)
Modern Warfare II follows in its namesake’s tradition of being bigger, bolder, and brasher than its predecessor, dialling in a few more sledgehammers but having them disguised as scalpels.
Like the original MW2, the story in the previous game is mostly left in the past, with only passing references to the Al-Qatala (AQ) terrorist organisation and Urzikstan. Instead MWII carves out its own special forces story and to most intents and purposes it succeeds…just.
Just like MW 2019, it has a great collection of characters who perform the hell out of the script, with interesting locations and missions.
Mexican Special Forces characters Alejandro and Rodolfo are cool additions to the multi-culti team of 141 and add the sense that global terror can lay anywhere (with a large dose of dialogue in Mexican Spanish with subtitles).
Ghost and Soap join the gang, with a fun buddy-cop dynamic between the two adding a great dose of levity throughout the game. Farah returns for a fun vehicle-based mission, and Gaz and Price seem to have grown further than a simple mentor/mentee connection. Everyone gets more to play with and there is a real sense of teamwork and camaraderie between the factions.
We also get a clearer introduction to another player in the MW series, Shadow Company and its leader, Commander Graves.
Shadow Company always struck me as an curveball inclusion in the old Modern Warfare series, but that was before I understood what PMCs were and what they did.
Still, it was unclear what Shadow Company’s role was in relation to Shepherd in the original, but in the reboot I think their uneasy quasi-affiliation with TF141 is an interesting comment on the nature of a modern war setting.
Graves is charismatic and calculating, always with a smirk on his face. No wonder he became a villain. (Source: rumble.com)
Like the original MW2, the story of MWII focuses on the power vacuums left after Western aggression and what fresh horrors arise when left unchecked.
The stealthy aspect is back with the majority of missions featuring silencers and night-time settings.
Some standout set-pieces including infiltrating an Amsterdam harbour through water, avoiding enemy patrols in Mexico during a rainstorm, or breaking into a cartel lord’s mansion for a face-to-face confrontation.
Every other mission feels new for the series with dialogue sequences, improvised weapons, swimming, climbing, and rappelling, and rarely are they one-and-dones, trotted out for a single sequence and then dropped like previous titles.
Instead most missions layer these aspects atop one another, leading to a more versatile play session.
The references to previous games are a 50/50 split on how they land. Two missions highlight it perfectly. First is the mission “Recon by Fire”. Taking notes from what is considered to be the best mission in CoD history, “All Ghillied Up”, “Recon by Fire” is a sniping/stealth mission on a remote island.
Price and Gaz are in Ghillie Suits, they have their long range silenced rifles, and they are heavily out-gunned by the occupying force, just needing to get to their objective with as few casualties as possible.
It even remakes the hiding-in-the-grass-as-enemies-pass scene from CoD4, with Price voicing a one-to-one recreation of MacMillan’s lines. And it just doesn’t work for me.
Part of “All Ghillied Up”’s charm was its tension. You had to use stealth and tactics because you were extremely outgunned. When the tanks rumble past as you hide in the tall grass, it’s meant to make you feel small and powerless.
In “Recon by Fire”, no tanks roll past, just a squad walks around you. A squad that two minutes later I could take out with my rifle with no issues.
The game goes semi-open world with how to approach its objectives and how to shoot, giving the complete opposite of having to be stealthy and tactical because at some point the bullets have to start flying.
A lot of the news posts and videos name “Recon by Fire” as “All Ghillied Up 2”. Nearly twenty years on it is still the high point of Modern Warfare. (Source: sportskeeda.com)
Contrast this with “Dark Water”, a double mission where the player first has to infiltrate an oil rig hosting missiles and then a container ship close by which has the launch capabilities. It is a direct reference to “Crew Expendable” and “The Only Easy Day…Was Yesterday” from the first two MW games respectively.
But while it recreates similar settings, it has the player do different tasks. On the rig it’s a search and destroy rather than a rescue, leading to different tactics. On the ship, the cargo containers are sliding around, creating hazards and blockages for the player.
That isn’t to say that MWII is just a greatest hits of previous levels. One levels that I feel is unique is “Borderline”, with Mexican Special Forces leads Alejandro and Rodolfo seeing an Iranian major smuggled over the US border wall and following him over despite knowing they are breaking the rules of engagement.
The mission is a suspenseful evening chase through the backyards of a sleepy border town, with short but punchy engagements and civilians getting mixed up in the action.
Several times the civilians will threaten and attack Alejandro and Rodolfo as the two follow their target. The NPCs hold baseball bats or reach for guns with the player instructed to “de-escalate” the situation…by aiming their gun at the other person.
It’s a little shocking at the start but questions start to arise as soon as it appears. Alejandro and Rodolfo break into these peoples’ houses to follow their target. They could easily call out that they are Special Forces to pre-emptively de-escalate the situation and move on as quickly as possible.
In later levels the game uses a wide branching dialogue system so the thought could be why not use it here to verbally de-escalate? Instead the only option is to threaten anyone who gets in the way.
Branching dialogue is used a lot in “Recon by Fire” between Gaz, Price, and Laswell and it’s delightfully charming and light banter, something I wish the game had more of.
“Borderline”‘s pacing and escalation of combat encounters are good, with spikes of controlled gunfire punctuating the tense atmosphere. (Source: medium.com)
But a final point I want to make is that while we have these great set pieces and characters…yet there is an underlying hardline conspiratorial edge to the story.
While the Americans in MW 2019 annoyed me for their frat-boy egos and Captain Price unnerved me with his “Hard Times Deserve Strong Men”-esque speech, MWII ties together both Middle Eastern terrorist organisations and the Iranian Military with Mexican cartels and traffickers.
It sounds like the most buzzworthy radical viewpoints born out of too much Fox News and a Tom Clancy marathon. They even try to rationalise it when Alejandro says, “terrorists don’t cross the southern border”, only for Laswell to reply, “They know that and we know that and that’s exactly why they are going to do it.”
There are multiple conversations between Gaz and Price and Alejandro with the rest of 141 about how the relationship between Iran and the cartels work, but most of it comes down to “money” or nebulous “power”, without any further dissection of the topic.
While the original MW trilogy could never be thought of as critical of American military might or nuanced with geo-political matters, it never got deep into outright paranoia over the enemy.
All the previous Russian baddies were labelled as “Ultranationalists” to differentiate them from the state and people of Russia. In MWII it seems as if the baddies are a cabal of different groups all bent on weakening the West.
As usual with MW sequels, there are several twists and turns on loyalties and alliances throughout the campaign. While I saw breadcrumbs to a final surprise, in the end I was preparing for a curveball that never came.
There are subtle references that the Mexican army have taken over cartel business, or that fan-favourite Ghost was taking orders not from 141 but General Shepherd and Shadow Company and it felt like there would be one final twist on who can we trust.
But no, MWII ended rather like how MW2 ended, with Shadow and Shepherd pushed to the sides so that the stage was free for series baddy Vladimir Makarov to take centre stage in time for Modern Warfare III.
The great moustachioed one returns, with new actor Barry Sloane giving Price both warmer tones and darker shades. (Source: news.blizzard.com)
Modern Warfare III released only one year after MWII with a development time of only sixteen months.
It was an incredibly rushed development schedule and I do not want to pour scorn on the developers, artists, writers, producers, QA, sound, and anyone else who helped make these games.
It seems every aspect of the game from campaign to multiplayer has already been criticised for its lower quality, but I wanted to make a mention of it before I got to my position first.
Because the game does have some excellent moments, including its opening.
We start literally and metaphorically in the dark, with only a submarine’s sonar blips for a soundscape. We see soldiers in wetsuits preparing for a stealthy mission, swimming through the darkness and surfacing outside a island prison fortress.
The missions title “Operation 627” indicates that this will be a breakout mission, referencing MW2’s famous “The Gulag”.
As the team ascends the fortress walls and picks off lone guards, they all speak with British or American accents. They use slang words commonly used by Price and Gaz. Their use of weapons and tech indicates they are highly trained.
A diversionary explosion allows the soldiers to slip into the prison, where they then descend, taking out guards along the way and freeing prisoners as an extra layer of chaos for their escape. The intruders reach their end goal, freeing a prisoner in solitary confinement, who turns out to be Vladimir Makarov.
The whole operation was a bait-and-switch, giving the impression of a 141 mission but instead conducted by Makarov’s private military.
Makarov was front and centre for a lot of the promotion, being almost a deuteragonist of the Modern Warfare brand. (Source: pixground.com)
It’s a cool opening, heavily-scripted as the start of most CoDs are, and it has a great contrast of both scalpel and sledgehammer woven throughout. While some may call it a cheap switch trick, I think it’s a short yet strong opening to pump players ups and get them into the action.
We’ve had Russian characters speaking English before (one of the most infamous lines from CoD is “No Russian”) and the 627 is more a wink and a nod to players who remember.
Makarov’s return was inevitable, yet it seems to have fallen rather flat in comparison to the original.
While Makarov was also first introduced at the beginning of MW2, I think players saw him as a “bogeyman”, always being just one step ahead of the player, in our minds but never in our crosshairs.
This was strengthened by “No Russian”. Having Makarov next to you gave him a sense of permanence. In MWIII, I feel he has a cutscene quality, always somewhere but never a strong presence.
While names in a reboot will always bring a form of background knowledge, Makarov’s credentials in MW2 were strengthened by his association with original MW baddy Imran Zakhaev.
Here, he’s just a guy who wants to watch the world burn. But maybe the vague impulses of Makarov will come clearer later in the game. So let’s move onto the next mission, “Previous Cargo.”
We welcome the return of Farah…and then blink and scratch our heads at the return of “Alex” and Commander Graves, both apparently alive and well after their supposed explosive ends in MW and MWII respectively.
When I saw “Alex” and Graves return I had to search if I had missed a cutscene or a line of dialogue that indicated they had escaped alive in either campaign.
Sure the player never sees a definitive end of the two characters, but “Alex” being alive negates his character development in MW, and Graves being alive and then also a “friendly” hurts the Shadow Company arc of MWII.
I think this is what people refer to when they criticise the game, the fact that two dead characters, one from nearly five years ago, just pop up without a hint of how they survived.
Farah’s mission twists unexpectedly with the arrival of the “Konni” group attacking Farah’s militia and stealing missiles. While Konni haven’t been mentioned by name before in the series, they did feature in one mission in MWII, and are Makarov’s private army.
I’ll forgive the name not being dropped previously. Game scripts get cut and shuffled around numerous times so it could have been a point that was announced earlier that didn’t make the final cut.
I do actually like the background we get on Konni being a private military army with an aim to bring glory back to Russia.
“Timing…is everything.” A lot of the cutscenes in MWIII focus on Makarov and his Konni soldiers, fleshing out the organisation. (Source: dotesports.com)
Makarov’s abilities in MW2 and MW3 were always a bit tenuous, committing a terrorist attack and framing the USA, that works. But then the logical leap to Russia invading the USA, then Makarov somehow orchestrating an invasion all of Europe as well. It just stretched plausibility on how logistically it all works.
Having Makarov’s soldiers be a private military group with a stated goal of restoring a nation’s glory, and have funding and resources for their “missions”, it works better than what in the original seemed to be a single terrorist cell conducting World War Three.
Konni steal missiles that the USA had been giving Farah to use if her country was ever invaded again with their next target being a chemical plant in Russia. 141 deploy but arrive too late to stop Konni from taking them.
Some of the chemicals get leaked and Price nearly succumbs to the gas, falling unconscious once he gets outside. It’s interesting to see the lead character and face of the franchise be put into a situation like that but as Price is a superhero he just sleeps it off on the helicopter ride out.
In the helicopter ride the team discuss what type of gas was being stored there and Gaz mentions that it is, “remnants of Barkov’s program.”
The rogue Russian general that invaded Urzikstan in MW 2019 and the invasion and chemical weapons are mentioned a lot in MWIII, which makes me think that this story might have started as a direct sequel instead of MWII.
I have no inside knowledge on the development of the story but just the connections made with MW 2019 and the return of “Alex” and Farah outside of cameos that were completely absent in MWII make me suspect they could have been plot points that just got shuffled into the sequel.
“Alex”‘s appearance gets little explanation (apart from him now having a prosthetic leg) and has only one in-level appearance in the story. (Source: theloadout.com)
So with both Farah’s missiles and the late general’s chemical weapons, Makarov combines the two and plans to launch from a disused Soviet bunker, and Price and team along with Farah go to stop, but only succeed stopping one missile, which hits Russia.
The whole mission is a reversal of “Ultimatum” from the original MW, of missiles being launched from disused Soviet bunkers.
In the original MW the launch was during gameplay while here it is in a cutscene. It would have been nice with today’s graphics to see such a jaw-dropping sight in-game, but it’s a small thing in the grand scheme of things.
Since the missile that was fired originally belonged to Farah’s group, the world starts to believe that they are committing terrorists acts on Russia. Makarov then sets up another terrorist act, one which looked to be familiar…
Of course the sight of Makarov in an airport, in front of departure boards sent anyone with memory of “No Russian” reeling. Of all the missions to recreate, that one? Well no, not quite.
Again, reboots play with names and iconography and “No Russian” will go down as one of the most infamous missions to ever be in CoD, and the new mission, “Passenger” does try and hit the same note, but with less of an interactive component.
Playing as a retired member of Farah’s female militia, Konni members kidnap the player mid-flight and straps a bomb to her chest, allowing her to take the fall for their plans. There are moments of fighting against air marshals and Konni members, but for only a few minutes.
The missions ends with Konni and Makarov escaping via parachute, and pushing the player character back into the passenger area. While the character pleads with other passengers to help them disarm the bomb, instead the other passengers attack and subdue her, with the bomb exploding and the plane crashing in the wild.
As with “Recon by Fire” and “All Ghillied Up”, “Passenger” is referred to as “No Russian 2.0”. (Source: dotesports.com)
With two terrorists attacks to their name, Farah knows the world is about to turn on her militia and country, and so head to the crash site first to delete any data that would incriminate her forces. She does so…and then it never comes up again.
It’s a bit odd that this thread just ends, instead of Makarov having maybe some backups or other events ready to go, instead betting all is hopes of these two events. The story feels like it has three ending peaks…and its actual ending isn’t any of those peaks, but we’ll get to that later.
With 141 and now the US military on the hunt for Makarov, the team once again join forces with General Shepherd and Graves’ Shadow Company and Price tells the story of his first meeting with Makarov.
Cue flashback sequence, where 141 are responding to a terrorist attack in the fictional city of Verdansk, with Makarov having two locations which may have bombs in them but only enough time to stop one. It’s a classic Dark Knight villain plan and it’s a cool mission, fighting Konni troops in a football stadium filled with fleeing civilians.
It culminates with Soap and Price seeing for the first time Makarov in the flesh, arresting him and exfiltrating, only for it to be revealed Makarov planned another decoy, detonating bombs in a different location.
Makarov attempts to flee in an ambulance, a nod to the ending of MW2‘s “No Russian”. (Source: gameranx.com)
Makarov sneers at the team as their helicopter flies away and tries to goad Soap into shooting him, but they instead let him go to prison, hence his breakout.
Okay, so we get the reveal of why Makarov was in prison, it works, I get it. But the arrest of Makarov doesn’t really fits with the characters of the reboot.
As mentioned before, Price has threatened innocent civilians with a gun and in the original has beaten targets to a pulp. Later he will carry out an illegal assassination in the seat of military power in Washington USA. But here…he leaves Makarov to face his crimes.
Also Makarov seems overly evil. Sure, he’s a terrorist, but I feel Makarov from the original was always a bit cowardly, never fighting his battles, always fleeing or getting others to do his bidding, which gave him some texture. Here he is right in the action and begging 141 to kill him so they are reduced to his level.
Again, this feels like a direct sequel and a wow pop ending for CoD, of getting Makarov but failing the mission, of his indirect win over 141 (ya know, the second in a trilogy always being the darkest thematically), and his cryptic threat of seeing Soap again at a later date.
Back in the present, Konni are about to detonate a bomb in London, and obviously the four Brits that compose 141 are not about to let anything happen to their home turf.
The team fight their way to the bomb site, where Soap and Price work together to try and detonate the bombs…when Makarov appears out of nowhere and shoots Soap in the head, killing him.
Lots has been said about the scene, about the casual way Soap, THE original playable character in CoD4 and a figurehead of the Modern Warfare brand, is offed without a big show, just during an incoherent scuffle and then boom…yeah it does kind of sting.
Soap does die in the original trilogy in MW3. Players help carry a wounded Soap through an entire level and then see Price break down into sobs and screams as his friend takes his last breath and all in-game as well.
It’s then followed up with another iconic scene, “Why in bloody hell does Makarov know you?”, creating a bookend to the character across the trilogy.
Soap’s death in the original MW trilogy was drawn out for extended pathos. In the reboot, I wish we had got to spend more time with the man. (Source: callofduty.fandom.com)
And then MWIII ends. The three remaining 141 boys scatter Soap’s ashes, Graves and Shepherd escape their comeuppance at the Supreme Court so Price kills the latter.
Makarov escapes to fight another day…which I guess makes this trilogy analysis a bit underwhelming, as it’ll be another untold amount of games until the one-man war between Price and Makarov ends.
***
I’ve had a whole lot of feelings across this trilogy.
When I first saw the announcement trailer with Price and the name Modern Warfare being used, I thought it was a purely cynical release.
CoD had been struggling in the years before the MW reboot.
2016’s Infinite Warfare’s trailer had at one point the second most-disliked video on YouTube. CoD4’s remaster, releasing at the same time, was only available via Infinite Warfare’s collector’s edition.
2017’s WWII was seen as a naked attempt to course correct from the increasingly future-based combat, and then Black Ops 4 didn’t even have a single player story mode.
So it seemed to me and many people that 2019’s offering was going to play it safe, a nice jaunt down memory lane with Captain Price and be nothing more. And while I had issues with MW 2019, I was interested in seeing where it went afterwards.
Not to mention, in 2020 there was Black Ops: Cold War, one of the best first-person shooter campaigns of its generation, which also took a series which was skewed to sledgehammers and did the same 90% scalpel reverse to tremendous results.
Everything in Cold War, from its characters, to its pacing, twists, and even how it ties back to the original game make it one of the best CoD campaigns to date. (Source: news.xbox.com)
MWII‘s story and new additions have grown on me the more I played it with time, and I wished that it had carried over a few more points into MWIII.
Speaking of which, MWIII isn’t bad. And I get the story is probably the thing which takes lowest priority in comparison to multiplayer and Warzone. Not to mention the incredibly rushed development time probably wasn’t the best place to write in.
But with Makarov only really coming into the trilogy in the final game, coasting on his reputation from the original, and then fleeing the scene just before the end credits, the death of Soap, and the muddy nature of continuity, I just have to say I’ve lost my spark of interest for now.
Give it some time and a proper development schedule and I’m sure it can come back to greatness. I think that’s a wish we can all get behind.
I’ve recently been doing a backlog binge of older open-world games I never got to play the first time around.
Titles have included the Guy Ritchie-inspired The Getaway, which simulates ten square miles of London for its story. Another is Mafia, which uses its city more for immersion into its 1930s world than for regular open-world hi-jinks.
The other old open-world game that I’ve been playing and has captured my heart is the infamous Bully.
Bully (also known as Canis Canim Edit) is such an unique game, even among Grand Theft Auto clones.
Despite releasing originally on the sixth generation PlayStation 2 and then re-released on the seventh, eighth, and now ninth console generation, the game never got a sequel, which I feel is a terrible pity.
I wanted to write about my experiences playing, because Bully deserves to be experienced, even so long after its time in the spotlight.
Dog Eat Dog – Why I Love Bully
Bully was developed by Rockstar Vancouver, a Canadian offshoot of the “Rockstar” brand, known for Grand Theft Auto.
While Rockstar North developed GTA, other studios effectively built GTA clones. Rockstar San Diego created Red Dead Redemption in 2010, and in 2006 Vancouver created Bully.
It’s both amusing and interesting to see GTA, the ultimate adults-only game, have to fit the mould of a schoolboy simulator.
Each new scenario took me by surprise as Bully would put its own spin on the standard GTA tropes.
The missions, vehicles, characters, authority, Bully has all the ingredients for GTA but they are tweaked just a little to accommodate both the cast and the age rating (Bully was released as a 15+ rather than the 18+ of GTA).
Things like spray-painting offensive words onto walls, riding a BMX into town to go to the carnival, Halloween pranks, Christmas snowball fights, Sports Days, it creates a charming atmosphere of being made for rebellious teens who aren’t allowed GTA, but doesn’t patronise the player either.
And while some games could lose shine as more time is spent in them, this charm of “new-yet-familiar” kept me coming back to Bully, both for the boarding school role-play and simulation, as well as the wilder moments that it invents for the story.
Hiding from the prefects after dropping a firecracker down the toilet…again. (Source: rockstargames.com)
Bully does actually play a lot like a roleplaying game with its school timetable. There are six classes; Chemistry, English, Art, Gym, Shop, and Photography.
While some main missions require a particular level (the second half of the game focuses a lot on photography), a player can easily play truant and miss out on classes all together, with no real consequences unless they are caught.
However these classes give you different abilities once you pass. Chemistry allows for restocks of the player’s arsenal (all schoolboy things like firecrackers, bags of marbles, and stink bombs among others).
Art allows the player to kiss girls and boys for a health boost, and Shop lets the player upgrade their BMX, one of the better ways to get around the world.
The game also works on a yearly calendar, starting with the beginning of school term in September and finishing sometime in the summer. This allows for standout missions around Halloween and Christmas, but it’s more than just one-off episodes.
Being set in New England, the seasonal change is dramatic. At the start of the game, the leaves are coloured anywhere from red to yellow and occasionally fall from the trees alongside the odd the rain shower.
In the third chapter winter has come to Bullworth, with the cast now sporting big coats, hats, and gloves. The trees are leafless and it gets darker earlier. New props such as snowmen, snowballs, and shovelling snow as a detention are only available in this season.
Once the snow is gone and the trees sprout their new leaves, the rain continues to pour until the final chapter where the sun comes out and signals the start of an endless summer.
Climbing a tree and raining down chaos with your slingshot…a true schoolboy experience. (rockstargames.com).
Bully doesn’t have the most expansive of world compared with stablemates Vice City and San Andreas, but I think it is far more detailed that either of those games.
The school on its own is rather impressive with dorms, a library, gym, locker rooms, football stadium, basketball court, swimming pool, frat house, auto repair shop, and observatory.
Then the main building also houses the headteacher’s office, cafeteria, and the four classrooms, all of which are open and explorable in the game.
The town of Bullworth is split into four distinct areas. Old Bullworth Vale is for the preppy students and faculty members, with mansions overlooking the water and lighthouse.
Bullworth Town is a major shopping district where the Geeks hang out in the comic book store. New Coventry is an run-down urban estate for the Greasers, and finally Blue Skies is a trailer and industrial park where the Townies stay.
On top of the four neighbourhoods Bully also has a map full of extra locations that are used for maybe one mission or are just window-dressing, but give an extra flavour to the world.
Things like the Happy Volts Asylum, a fully working train yard, The Bullworth Dam, a church and graveyard with a preaching vicar, abandoned tenements, Billy Crane’s Travelling Carnival, and the half-sunken pirate ship next to of one of the many islands off the coast, each one gives a little extra spice or history to Bullworth and makes the city fun to explore.
Bullworth Academy is only one part of the map, but could easily be its own game. (rockstargames.com).
Bully does suffer from the same strong neighbourhood lines that were in Vice City and San Andreas, where distinct seams were visible between say the shopping district and the industrial estate, but it’s forgiven for its age.
And despite its small size, I think it feels richer, mainly due to the level of detail that could be afforded a smaller world.
One thing I do enjoy about the game being a small map is that I get to see the same characters again and again wandering around Bullworth.
While in GTA and Red Dead you do see a few of the same faces in the gang hideouts or the saloon, they soon became background characters to the main character’s individual pursuit, only to be interacted with in cutscenes.
With Bully, I always felt this growing sense of getting to know characters, even if there isn’t much outside of a simple positive/negative comment that I can throw out at them.
It perfectly mirrors being a new kid at school, slowing getting to know people as they pass by in the corridor or school grounds, some saying hello or others stopping you with a quest, some that don’t have any greater role in the game or cutscenes that just being a recognisable face in the crowd.
School’s out…but sliding down the handrail will still get you into trouble. (Source: rockstargames.com)
And after a while it’s fun to pass through the school and be able to recognise people; Gloria the kleptomaniac, Mandy/Pinky/Angie/Christy of the cheerleading squad, Algie the nerd, Russell the slow-witted but beefy tank, and Pete, the only sensible and rational character in the entire game.
But as the location is a school, it’s not just school kids walking around. Teachers walk around from class to class, giving a real sense of a school working to a timetable, rather than just cycling through character and animation loops.
And Jimmy Hopkins, the playable lead, seems alright. He does act like a proto-form of a GTA character; he’s brash, confrontational, with streaks of sadism and misogyny, but I’ll excuse it due to him literally being a fifteen year old child.
While Jimmy is definitely ruthless, he is also shown to comfort other characters when they are feeling down and being heroic in other instances like putting out fires in the school.
Jimmy is actually quite interesting as a Rockstar lead, mainly due to his ambivalence to the entire school system. When he first arrives at Bullworth, Jimmy doesn’t look to take over and become its leader. He just wants to get through with the least amount of hassle and then leave.
It’s only to get back at the sociopathic schoolmate and current school ruler Gary that spurs Jimmy forward. The plot is relatively simple in its driving force, but once again it’s the surrounding essence that makes it shine.
The fact that Jimmy has to defeat all the head of the school gangs before ruling the school, how the different cliques vie for control and actually fight in the corridors and grounds, and how most the cast that give missions act like adults in a GTA game when none of them are older than sixteen is endearing.
It reminds me of games like Yakuza or films like Brick, where young characters have latched onto what they thinks makes someone “cool”, where in reality they are just massive dorks acting like their are in their own personal movie, with Jimmy being one of the only “straight men” in the game.
Every character in the game takes themselves way too seriously and it makes for some of Rockstar’s funniest work. (Source: rockstargames.com)
Like I said right at the start of this piece, the theme of Bully is its strongest suit, but that’s not to diminish its other qualities. It’s a classic sixth generation console game, with a strikingly detailed world, a strong and hilarious story, and a great mix of action, exploration, and set pieces.
So if you’re waiting with anxious breath for GTA VI and wanting something to hit that Rockstar itch, or you are just looking for a open-world game that has a different pace and flavour, I think Bully might just be the thing for you. And hey, maybe one day we’ll get a sequel…
One-on-one combat is such a thrilling experience, knowing that through reading your opponent you clutch a win or deliver a flawless victory…it can’t be topped.
I’ve dabbled in all types of fighting games; the traditional martial arts of Street Fighter, Tekken, and Virtua Fighter, to the sword fights of Soul Calibur, and the magical fantasy of Fantasy Strike.
My first proper fighting game though has been a single release, never got a sequel or a re-release, but is still one of the most fun games I played as a child. It is the movie tie-in game for Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith.
The mid-2000s were a goldmine for licensed games, being some of most fondly remembered gems of their generation.
Spiderman 2 from 2004 brought physics-based web-swinging into gaming.
King Kong brought one of the best first-person immersive survival games ever.
And X Men Origins: Wolverine brought a level of gore and violence hardly seen in any previous or following incarnation of the character.
And then on top of those greats, Star Wars comes out with one of the best sword-fighting simulations of all time. So today I want to talk about it.
An Elegant Weapon, A More Civilised Age – Star Wars and Lightsaber Duels
Episode III is for the majority of the time a brawling game. Playing as either Anakin Skywalker or Obi-Wan Kenobi, you fight droids, clones, and a few low-level Jedi through the locations of the film.
But every so often, these two will enter a duel with other fighters such as Count Dooku, General Grievous, Mace Windu, other Jedi Masters, and eventually each other in spectacular one-on-one fights.
Alongside the game’s storyline, you can participate in one-on-one fights either against an AI opponent, or in couch co-op.
While you only start out with Anakin and Obi-Wan and one location (the Jedi Temple), with each duel in the game’s storyline unlocks a character and the location.
By the final credits there are nine fighters to choose from: Anakin, Obi-Wan, Count Dooku, Mace Windu, General Grevious, Jedi Masters Cin Drallig and Serra Keto, and finally Ben Kenobi and Darth Vader from Episode IV.
The duellists that you can choose from. For mirror matches each character has an alternate skin. (Source: Youtube – mrnygren2)
While it would have been easy to give all of these characters the same general moves and only a few signature moves, each one plays totally differently, giving players a proper choice in regards to playstyle.
Anakin is fast and powerful whereas Obi-Wan is slower but has the better defensive option. Count Dooku is based more on parries and thrusts, similar to a fencer.
Mace Windu is slower but has good reach and strong attacks, while General Grievous can overwhelm opponents with his four lightsabers and get a few cheap shots in with his concealed blaster.
Non-canon Jedi Serra Keto and Cin Drallig (the latter being SW combat choreographer Nic Gillard, his name reversed) are two unique styles, with Keto employing two lightsabers and multiple acrobatic moves, and Drallig being able to literally blur himself during combat.
And finally, Darth Vader is the strongest but one of the slowest fighters in the game, and Ben sacrifices some speed with stronger attacks and Force powers.
One of the strongest characters versus the best defensive option…who will win? (Source: Youtube – CJR Gaming)
The combat is similar to your standard string-based fighting game like Tekken or Guilty Gear, meaning that inputting the attack buttons in specific orders will net you different attacks and sequences. As I said previously, each string gives a unique animation, which elevates the game higher than a standard movie tie-in.
Attacks are broken into light and heavy varieties, but what gives Star Wars a bit of flair is the Force, which adds a whole new system of control and power into the combat.
Despite eight of the nine characters being able to use the Force, it’s actually the thing which is most standardised across the fighters.
Every fighter has two variants of Force Push, one as a general move any objects around you, but then a more controlled version where they pick up a singular object and throw it, which can also be used on opponents.
All fighters can throw their lightsaber like a boomerang and can even heal themselves using the Force. The only main difference is the Force Stun (for the Jedi) and Force Lightning (for the Sith).
Force Stun…well, stuns the player, leaving them vulnerable for a few seconds to be attacked or for the opponent to heal, whereas Force Lightning is purely offensive, draining the health of the opponent. It’s an interesting trade off, going with a more offensive option or one that can be both offensive or defensive.
Anakin in the Duel Mode actually changes between the two as you progress in the story mode, using Force Stun until he falls to the Dark Side, where he will then start using Force Lightning.
Serra Keto is unqiue for her two lightsabers and her slow but unblockable Force-infused attacks. (Source: Youtube – RGLD Gamer)
General Grevious is the only outlier being a non-Force User, but he gets some additional help, with a rapid fire blaster replacing his Force Push and a charged-up shot replacing Force Lightning. His signature four-armed attack takes the spot over the Saber Throw.
The stages are all taken from the story mode, being unlocked at the same time as the other characters.
Since they are all focussed on Episode III, the locations span space-stations, landing platforms, the Jedi Temple, and the impressive vistas of both the sinkholes of Utapau and the volcanic rivers of Mustafar.
The locations in the game are broken up by area into smaller chunks as well. Take Mustafar for instance.
The first section is the landing platform that Anakin and Obi-Wan first clash sabers. It’s a wide area with several explosive crates to throw at your opponent.
The second area is the control room, with command tables splitting the room, allowing a player to be out of range of lightsaber attacks, and either regain some health or use a long range attack to keep their opponent back.
Out from the control room onto the third section, the balcony. It’s cramped and linear, the complete opposite of where the fight started. To add even more to the mix, the explosive crates are back, but since the area is so small any explosion could impact you as well.
Dropping down from the balcony onto the “Control Arm”, again a linear section, but extremely long, not the cramped quarters of the balcony.
And while there are no more explosive canisters, the control arm is constantly getting rained down on by lava, stopping players from either retreating or advancing, having to riskily jump towards their opponent or wait until the magma has cooled.
Finally, the fight culminates on the Lava Platform, the smallest map in the game, barely big enough for the two fighters to deliver their most devastating moves.
That’s just one planet and it gives such a variety of locations that either compliment or hinder certain styles of combat, with every other location also containing environmental hazards, barriers, or extremely linear or cramped fighting halls.
Darth Vader unleashes force lightning on his former master on Mustafar. (Source: ign.com)
In research for this piece I wanted to look at other players and see how they related to the game and found a small but thriving community that still plays the game competitively today.
Using a PlayStation 2 emulator, players have been continually hosting tournaments even up until a few months ago, with rulesets to keep things interesting (the main ones being no Force Heal and no Mustafar Lava Platform stage).
The fighting game tech has gotten so meta that players will use a particular save state that allows them to choose Anakin with Force Stun instead of Force Lightning.
It’s amazing to watch, with clutch matches and spectacular finishes, and the added bonus that it is a Star Wars game, with the characters, fighting styles, weapons, locations, and music that we all know and love.
There has been a brief upsurge in announcements, with names such as Quantic Dream, Zynga, Ubisoft, and Skydance all developing some sort of game and a wide range of genres including strategy and interactive drama.
And while there were Star Wars games dedicated to duelling before (Masters of Teräs Käsi for PS1) and after (The Clone Wars – Lightsaber Duels for the Wii) neither have had the impact and staying power of Episode III.
Just like with Ep.I Racer, you can see the outline of a game that would sell great today. Having duellists from all three eras, different and expansive locations, selectable force powers and fighting styles, customisable lightsabers, and of course online play. But sadly I think the time has passed.
In my research I found several players reminiscing on playing the duel mode and wishing for more. Even I bought the game nearly fifteen years after it released because I hadn’t found anything that simulated lightsaber combat so well.
It was the duelling game that did Star Wars well, and it deserves to be remembered and played to this day.
TOM CLEMENT | GAME PRODUCER | NARRATIVE DESIGNER 