Last night, I started the campaign for Modern Warfare 4, the latest Call of Duty game. I fully expected the usual things one expects from a Call of Duty campaign: shoot some bad guys, hide behind cover, maybe even blow up a tank or parkour through a busy city. What I didn’t expect: Parries.
And not just an errant parry here or there, but an entire parrying mechanic, as if it’s a first-person Soulslike. Modern Warfare 4 starts traditionally enough. You play as part of a group of soldiers stationed in Hajin, a fictional city in South Korea.
The North Korean regime bombs the city. You shoot some bad guys, hide behind cover, and blow up a giant truck. Then comes the second mission, “Out in the Cold,” which casts you as longtime Modern Warfare protagonist Captain John Price.
You’re tasked with infiltrating a Manhattan nightclub and extracting information from a Russian asset. Price intentionally enters the club without any weapons. Almost immediately, a lumbering giant of a bouncer raises a fist, and a string of terror-inducing words splash across the screen.
You eventually get a pistol, and the rest of the mission plays out with unabashed John Wick influence. You punch and shoot your way through a series of neon-lit nightclub rooms. Quintessentially 138bpm deep house thrums through the speakers.
The mix of melee and pistol combat in the setting is genuinely quite entertaining. There’s even a chase scene at the end, replete with (hell yes!!!!) a parkour segment through Midtown that’s as smooth as anything from Mirror’s Edge. Then, when you corner your mark, a Russian operative named Makarov, it’s clear you’ve entered a nightmare.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
