Poking the Hornet?s Nest

[Emphraim]

I agree that the scene was quite week. I know it did wonders for the game's exposure, but it was not a very "controversial" thing for me. The plot and story were so weak that I had lost my suspension of disbelief already and I couldn't feel sorry for the civilians or anything. In fact, I redid the level a few times because I loved the physics and carnage that occurred in the beginning when you shoot that crowd of people in line.

 

[LittleMikey]

Personally it was harder for me to shoot the dogs then the hundreds of civilians.

I do agree that there was no explanation for anything that went on in MW2.

Spoiler

Why did Shepard try to kill of the 141 at the end of the game? They were sent to kill the bad guy... They found information on his computer, but that information was never revealed. Did it implicate Shepard was a russian who secretly organised the invasion of the USA just so he could become a hero? Did he try to kill the president in Wolverine so he would be elected president after the war finished or something like that? It was never explained to me. I know maybe i'm supposed to work this out myself, but seriously, I would like a little indication of why things happened.

My question during the airport mission:

Spoiler

How come if I tried to shoot Makarov when nobody was looking I failed the mission? If this was the big bad guy the CIA were trying to get, why couldn't I simply kill him? It would make sence to me if they were using Makarov to try and get to somebody higher up the food chain.

For example, if we did the mission with out Makarov, just the three random goons and you, but Makarov was waiting in the Ambulance at the end, I feel that it would have at least given the scene some justification. Basically the US saying to Parker "We need you to do this horrible thing, but it's okay because you'll reach Makarov at the end and get a chance to take him out once and for all." But that never happened. As far as I could tell, I was supposed to go shoot up everyone in the Airport, get in the Amublance at the end of the mission, then drive off and have a round of beer with the crew.

But yeah, a lot of the storyline needs explaining to me. Perhaps I'm just a bit dumb, but from the first third of the game onwards I really felt like I needed somebody explaining why things were going on. I figured there would be a lengthy monlogue at the end of the game explaining, but all that happened was Shepard saying

Spoiler

"Tomorrow there will be thousands of Patriots lining up at recruitment centers around the country"

Was the story in this game just a big scam to increase recruitment numbers in the US military? I know recruitment has been dropping in the last few years, but it sounds like the problem could have been just as easily solved with the army giving out free puppies to every new recruit.

 

[TundraWolf]

I have to admit, the OP has a lot of good points here. It really wasn't until I read this article that I truly reflected on the plot of MW2 and realized exactly how shoddily it was constructed. I mean, both times I played through it, there were always little things that nagged at the back of my mind about the story, but nothing too overt. But, in retrospect, there were many things that were not well executed: plotholes that seemed glaring in comparison to more cohesive parts of the story; unexplained decisions on the part of the two main parties that persist through the majority of the game; or even inconsistencies in the canon that Infinity Ward established in the original Modern Warfare.

For starters, the Russians from the first game would never embrace Zakhaev as a war-hero, never mind erect a statue of him in the middle of the Red Square. On multiple occasions in Modern Warfare, you worked with the Russian military to put a stop to Zakhaev. It was because of the Russian military arriving on the scene that Price and MacTavish survived that final encounter with Zakhaev and his Ultranationalists at the end of the game. I think it's safe to assume that the Russian government would take action against the Ultranationalist party. Admittedly, five years is a long time politically, but without any explanation, all we can do is assume that the Ultranationalists somehow took power. And, after the events of the first game, that simply doesn't make any sense.

On a related note, if we just blindly assume that the Ultranationalists took power, how did Soap escape but Price didn't? They wouldn't have just let him go; he would've had to get out of his own accord. There is a lot to speculate on there, but none of it was explained.

On another note (and more retaining to the OT), why wasn't Makarov developed? I'm fine with buying that he was Zakhaev's right-hand man (in fact, I think I recall a reference to that in the first MW), but without any development, I simply can't put credit in either Makarov's "bad guy" status or his plans at world chaos besides his ability to militarize a metric shit-ton of Russians for us to wade through. Similarly, it's never really explained what Makarov wants to do. It's one thing to want to follow in his boss' footsteps and return Russia to it's status as the USSR, but it's another to manipulate the world into destroying itself. Needless to say, I was expecting a little more from a villain who I first thought looked like Gary Oldman.

It was because of the static quality of Makarov's character, the overall flatness with which he was portrayed, that the airport scene simply holds no weight. Honestly, all this game would've needed for that to have more impact was a single mission where you, as PFC Allen undercover as Alexei Borodin, was introduced to Makarov for the first time. You could've been led in by some random henchmen just as Makarov shot some random person in the face, or, better yet, gave you the gun and made you do it. It would establish that Makarov is crazy, and further hammer home the fact that you would need to do things that would not be morally sound in order to keep your cover. He could then lead you and the rest of his thugs on some mission to assassinate someone, or retrieve some questionable goods, or something. A single mission would've been enough to lead up to the airport scene, but there wasn't one, and thus, the character of Makarov seemed less threatening and much more static than I'm sure Infinity Ward wanted him to.

Speaking of villains, what reason did Shepherd have to become a crazed psychopath? He comments at one point: "Five years ago, 30,000 of my men died. And the whole world just f---ing watched." From that, I think it's safe to assume that he led the group that Sgt. Jackson, the American character you play (and die) as from the original MW, was in, but how does that justify killing off Taskforce 141? The only possible explanation I can conjure is that he wanted to cover up the fact that it was because of him that America got blamed for the whole airport incident: he was the one who selected Allen to infiltrate Makarov's group, so it's his fault that America was invaded. But that doesn't stand up because Allen was working for the CIA and not Taskforce 141. Besides, there's no way that Shepherd was the only one who knew Allen was undercover. It just doesn't make any sense to have Shepherd as the main villain of the game.

There are other things that are bugging me, but I'll leave it at that.

Let it be known that I thoroughly enjoyed Modern Warfare 2. I played it through twice and enjoyed it heartily each time. Besides the holes, it has an entertaining story. Y'know, something on par with a Michael Bay movie (with the exception of Transformers 2, which was pitiful): mindless violence and explosions to entertain yourself for an evening or two. But there's no way they can claim that it's pushing the issue of using games as a medium for deep storytelling with important issues included when they can't even form a cohesive story on the whole.

 

[Xanadu84]

Maybe its just me, but I thought the scene was a moment of artistry amidst a string of typical action fare.

When I played the game, I had a intriguing moment of lucidity, one which took common game conventions and challenged my perceptions. I don't like killing civilians in games. It bothers me, and I feel like I have failed in portraying a hero. I go into this airport scene apprehensive. However, I'm not offended, because the purpose behind this characters actions are noble at heart: He is allowing hundreds to die to save thousands (In theory). It's a lesson in Utilitarianism, similar to the end of, "Watchmen". However, the moment of lucidity came when I started shooting civilians. Human nature demands that when put in this role, I play the game in such a way as to maximize effectiveness. Gameing is all about finding and maximizing patterns of efficiency. I do this, and I mow down a few civilians, thinking on the balance between expressive strength and bad taste in my judgment of the scenes narrative. I point my gun down, and see a civilian crawling on his stomach past me. I point my gun at his head, and...

Stop.

My, "Allies" arn't watching me. They aren't judging my actions. The game is giving me no feedback encouraging my actions. I'm simply...doing it. The very framework of my thought process has managed to both match and exceed the most stern demands of the white coated scientist in Milgrams experiment. Even playing a hero, horrified at your own actions, it takes so little context to make me not even recognize my capacity to save a life. What a chilling view into the face of evil! How scary it is to reflect on how fine a line it is between an upstanding hero and a Terrorist. It takes almost nothing to make a man do an evil act, especially when your already given the context of tragedy. The actions of terrorists start to make a disturbing amount of sense, an amount of sense that most people arn't comfortable with, and must retreat into jingoism and macho posturing to deny. I walk through the rest of the airport, only defending myself and shooting walls, in case not shooting at all would be too suspicious. Purposefully missing was surreal. The weight of expectation was heavy, yet logically, I knew that killing civilians here served no purpose. The fact that I even had a hint of cognitive dissonance in not killing people is a horror far deeper then any entertainment ive experienced lately.

Maybe this was a fluke, and they were just trying to add tension to the game, or they just needed a reason to put a war on American soil and develop hate for the antagonist. That's very possible. But I think it speaks VERY highly of games narrative power, that the person experiencing the medium could spontaneously discover beauty in even the most generic of power fantasy. The lesson here, to all the haters and protesters, is not that games are inherently evil. The lesson is that they can be POWERFUl. They can have power equal to written word, the highest of art, the most eloquent of polemics, and that powers authorship is given to every last person who experiences it. People are afraid of games for the same reason that leadership fears a concerned citizen picking up a pen, a fear far deeper then the supposed destruction of values. How great is it that the merest flex of games power could nail a decree to the door of the proverbial church ON ACCIDENT.

 

[duchaked]

ummm I've never been a big Call of Duty player but I did get this game

the villain committed the attack on civilians as a means to gain something higher, not just because he feels like it...so if anything he wouldn't be the "generic evil" in that sense...

I didn't think the plot was so bad but then again I didn't really find it confusing so...

 

[LittleMikey]

Oh, another thing I thought I should add, you know how they give you the option to skip the Airport mission because it "Might be unsettling?"

Because there is an option to skip it, the game designers had to design it so the mission itself meant nothing. You wouldn't all of a sudden have a huge hole in your game if you skipped the mission, the designers wanted the people who would be unsettled to be able to skip it but not miss out on anything.

It occurs to me that this has been the critical flaw with the mission. If you were unable to skip it, you simply had to play, would the mission have been written differently? Would they have written some sort of justification into the mission where you work out why you were doing what you were doing?

This entire culture of "You can still play this game, but if you don't like gore, swearing, or things that make you feel sad, we can turn all those off for you!" just annoys me. IF YOU DO GET OFFENDED BY THIS STUFF, PLAY SOMETHING ELSE AND LET THE REST OF US ENJOY IT. Just because you have the option to skip the "unsettling mission" dosen't mean that the game all of a sudden becomes PG13. It's still a MA15+ game. Just because there is an option to turn off swearing dosen't mean that all of a sudden Parents can feel allright about buying these games for their kids.


Sorry, i'm rambling here. But yeah, to sum it up, if you HAD to play the mission in order to complete the game, I feel that IW would have written it differently. Maybe explained something. But because you CAN skip it, they had to write it in such a way that the poor little toddlers who did skip it could finish the game.

 

[BonerMacTittyPants]

Yeah this scene is supposed to be just a shocker. A marketing ploy.

Now, I was disturbed a tiny bit. A really tiny, tiny, tiny bit. It's actually hard for me to feel disturbed because for some reason I like that. I like to watch weird or shocking things just for that feeling of uneasiness.

Though my emotions went out quickly. For the first 10 seconds of slaughter I was... Moved by it. Then it turned into euphoria ( For some reason I thought "Fuck yes this is awesome!", because... It was something new I guess), and after a brief moment of excitement it faded out. Nothing special here folks, just a shocker for the media to give MW2 some publicity.

And there's no such thing as bad publicity.

 

[Pimppeter2]

I agree.

I believe IW put it in there for the "contreversy". Which in the end is just a publicity stunt

 

[Dalisclock]

At this point, I'm surprised the media hasn't picked up on the disturbing events of the last few missions and tried to call the game "America Hating" or "Unpatriotic", content to focus on "No Russian". I felt dirty in that part, for mutiple reasons.

But that would imply the talking Heads on Fox and Friends actually play video games, instead of just watching the trailers and making judgement out of context. Or just hearing things, like they did with Mass Effect.

 

[Mr.Pandah]

Some scenes were...well, moving is too powerful of a word, but they made me kinda sit back and let it sink in. I'll tell you what scene wasn't this way. The Airport Scene. I felt the exact same way you did about it too.

I was still trying to grasp exactly what the hell I was doing standing next to this guy, and what purpose it would serve if I managed to befriend some evil maniac whom is hell-bent on doing....something(not even sure what that was to be honest). The biggest shock in that scene was when your character gets shot.

They definitely did not put in enough time to develop anything that was going on in that game. But hey, at least the multiplayer is freakin' awesome.

 

[Dalisclock]

[

Argh, that guy pissed me off to no end. I seriously played the game through again just to see if I missed the bit explaining who the hell he was, and who the soldier with the "strange tattoo's" was supposed to be.

The tatoo implied that it was

Spoiler: Here be spoilers

one of Shepherds men from Shadow Company. Too bad we never find out what the deal with Shadow Company was. PMC? Special Ops? Obviously, he knew the countersign, because he got the VIP to open the door from the inside.

I keep wondering if the two harriers taking off from near the house is just coincidence.....

 

[Something Amyss]

Well, as a Russian I still don't like this scene and whole plot, so I won't buy this game anyway.
Overall, plot here is really stupid. What about Americans here? Aren't they offended by this scene where an elite American soldier participate in a terrorist act?

I'm sure a lot are, but I'm not. Not really, anyway. I find the actions of Jack Bauer and many heroes of the American screen (both silver and non) to be pretty reprehensible, a share of them far worse than this and none of them really offend me. not to demean the industry, but they're just freaking games. And, of course, TV shows and movies when addressing the prior stuff.

I like movies. And TV shows. and video games. I spend too much time on the lot of them. But honestly, unless Infinity Wards comes out pro-terrorism, I have a hard time being offended by the portrayal of an American soldier operating with a terrorist group. I might be offended if this was attached to some real world value, like IW was cashing in on a real event, but otherwise, it's just a game.

I understand how others might be offended, I'm just not. I think it's overreacting for the most part, the same way so much else is responded to completely out of proportion. I fully plan to not buy this game, but that's as far as I can go.

 

[aebonhawk]

Games need to leave the Russians alone, they're our freinds now and they are a free people.[/spoiler]

Somewhere in heaven there are a lot of murdered Russian journalists shaking there heads at that free people comment. Also Putin is probably LOLing right now.

 

[Fire Daemon]

*I suspect this is to make people hate him more - all hardcore CoD4 players hate Martyrdom...

Ba-dum Tish. That was actually a good one, kudos.

What I don't understand in the airport level is that security cameras would have seen that Makarov was the leader in this attack, or at least took part. Also, not to mention that other Russian Terrorists were killed in the firefight with police, would that have been noticed as well. I have a feeling that Makarov was working for the Ultra-nationalist government in setting up an excuse for an attack on America but that point is far too obscured. What I would have liked is justification as to why the rest of the world just lets this happen. America's presence in Afghanistan in 2016 (when the game is set) indicates that America might be considered a war hungry nation and not very much liked, but an invasion against America would most likely set plenty of nations against Russia. I wonder where the hell NATO and the UN are in all of us, it doesn't seem likely that they would just let this happen. Thos brings me ot another, how the hell did the Ultra-nationalists get into power and why didn't the rest of the world try to stop them? Unless they were elected legally, which I doubt, seeing as how they have the whole terrorist thing going for them, they must have taken part in a coup d'état or something and the world just let this happen? Why? Why would that happen? And so if the Ultra-nationalist party was in power why would they need to set up the terrorist attack for justification. If the world is too happy to just let them take control of Russia than why would they need a staged terrorist attack to justify the war on America.

What this game needed is some more explanation of the attitudes of the world. This could have been separate from the campaign, maybe a codex similar to what you find in Mass Effect and Dragon Age: Origins, and explain why Russia is able to go to war with America and how other nations respond to this. I'd imagine that all of this would be explained with MW3. I expect World War III to start out, it would make sense to have IW go back to a World War.

 

[Therumancer]

The big question is "would you kill a bunch of innocent civilians to maintain or establish a cover so you could save millions". There is only one answer to that question and it is "yes". If you answer no, then basically you fail and take society down with you.

Hrmm. Put simply with no other variables I suppose I would agree, but outside of hypothetical situations there are many other ways to look; put succinctly, given a choice, there is always another option. That's the space where optimists can reside in the situation, without having to sacrifice rationality. (Really it's a fuzzy area as to where it stops being "rational" to hope for something better.)

That said, your statements do appear to be in contrast with the article in that the article argues that without context the above powerful situation simply doesn't exist. Who is this man, and would participating in this slaughter of hundreds really save millions, and if so, how? Is success guaranteed, and if not, what's the risk of failure? Is there truly no better way? Moreover, it can be argued that, knowing the future outcome of the scenario, the situation is doubly pointless; your actions as player are meaningless in the grand scheme of things. Granted, it's the intention that matters but nonetheless one wonders what the CIA guy hoped to accomplish, and how.[/quote]


It's like this. Part of being realistic and "gritty" is that there is little room for optimism. There is no room for guarantees. It's all about the big picture, and the biggest bastard winds up winning, you just hope he's the one who represents the right side.

Think of it as like Lord Of The Rings type "high fantasy" with clear cut good and evil, and where the good guys can be noble and straightforward for the most part, and say "Dragon Age Origins" type dark fantasy (I'd use Michael Moorcock's writings as an example but many are probably not familiar with him) where you need to save the world despite itself, and while a huge threat looms about to destroy everyone you wind up needing to do things like decide which of two corrupt politicians get to rule the dwarf kingdom before it can go to war, when both are absolute B@stards in their own way.

Modern Warfare 2 is sort of like the dark fantasy version of James Bond. James Bond has a lisecnse to kill, meaning the goverment says it's okay for him to do exactly what the guy in MW2 is doing (albeit for MI-6), it's just that being campy you never see him do things like this, it's all implication based on other missions.

Modern Warfare 2 is sort of like what happens if James Bond-type stuff was to meet a much more real and gritty world. As far as the level of threat being faced... well I'm not a shooter fan so I have not played it. However the hype for the game is that the protaganist winds up operating internationally with setpieces that would make James Bond proud, and even goes into pure science fiction for some space action, and there is an exploding space station involved....

No offense but in the context of the game it definatly seems like the stakes are that high. Is success guaranteed? Of course not, nothing in life is guaranteed, but getting a man on the inside is the best chance you'd have in dealing with an organization on this obvious level (which all told from the scope of the terrorist threat implied would probably give SPECTRE a run for it's money).

Given it's contreversial nature I've read some stuff about the bits in question, and honestly it does not seem to be saying "oh joyeous slaughter, killing civilians is such a wonderful thing to do" but rather making a point about doing the wrong thing for the right reasons, and how argueing against the ends justifying the means sounds great on paper but all the moral principles in the world don't matter when it comes down to "us vs. them" and the rubber meets the road.

They pretty much removed all the glitz and camp from modern adventure like "James Bond" and show it like it could happen, with a realistic take on how this stuff would go down, as ugly as it might be.

Besides, as I also said in my previous response: how exactly is this something new?

The article writer implies that games up until this point had been "training us not to kill civilians". Really? What about all these sandbox crime games. What about games like prototype. Heck, what about Origins "Crusader" series (Crusader No Remorse, and Crusader No Regret) where you would brutally dispatch civilian techs and stuff to steal their money in the course of "cleansing" corperate bases and such.

To me the article seems off kilter, and given what I've seen of gaming I fail to see how MW2 is any more contreversial than anything we've seen for years. Granted people have been criticizing the entire issue of games where you victimize innocent people for a very long time BUT the fact that people are making a big deal about this one leads me to believe someone is trying to make a contreversy where there isn't one to generate hype.

 

[nezroy]

Shouldn't Infinity Ward at least be given credit for being the first to go there?

Except they weren't. Just to quote a recent example, effectively the same moral decision was given to you in Fallout 3, but with an actual motivation and more than one interesting twist. Hell, even WoW has a "torture" quest line that has about the same level of depth and plot development as the MW2 version (i.e. none whatsoever). I'm sure there are many other examples of prior art, so frankly no, IW doesn't get any credit for doing the same thing over again, poorly.

 

[TheBluesader]

The only thing that even remotely bothered me about MW2 is the fact that you can kill dogs with a "break the dog's neck" QTE. Which sounds like the kind of thing Fox News would make up, which meant that when I saw it, I cracked up, then went "Uh...ew."

But the dogs belong to the Russian guards and/or the Brazilian militia, so I guess it's okay to kill them because they're EVIL dogs.

Uh...ew.

Considering the dogs are trying to rip your throat out, yeah, I'll kill dogs. In fact, I hear a bark in a COD game, I shift my fire to the first thing on a 4 legs I see.

And killing dogs is possibly the least disturbing thing in the game.

I disagree. I can't think of anything else in the game that disturbs me at all. The airport shooting spree was so over the top it was funny, the Russian attack on America has been simulated so many times now it's almost a trope, and the only other candidate I can think of would be the opening mission manning the Humvee gun. My Iraq/Afghanistan War veteran brother in law says that that scene really does capture what Iraq was like when we first got there, which is pretty creepy.

At the same time, I didn't go through that myself (spending the invasion of Iraq watching it on Fox News and eating nachos), so it didn't actually disturb me.

But I really effing don't like killing dogs, even when they're after me. It's not their fault. I should have the option to sedate them or something.

 

[aebonhawk]

Although it seems to have ticked you off I found the lack of context to be quite effective. With such a limited scope of the overall picture we are forced to think and question what our role is in the here and now of the story, how the pieces fell into place to allow for such a heinous act to be warranted. As the character walked out of the elevator I began to ask myself questions. What events could turn a man to such hate that he would slaughter his own people in order to destroy his enemies? To what extent could pvt.Allen be pvt.Allen after he took part in this slaughter? Is the destruction of one mans identity in the name of his country really worth it? With only the vaguest scope with which to view these actions I had to fill in the rest for myself. My own experiences, beliefs, knowledge and values determined the answers. This makes the scene different for every gamer. whether its just an idle fancy for shooting things or if the themes and characters in this game can spill into real life and real people will vary based on the gamer you are (if you have the open mind to think about it). To some it might just be pixels on the screen but then why do we play games? i personally enjoy playing games that do have story and depth as well as enough room for interpretation for me to become personally involved in a game. i was so into it by then that I wondered if i even wanted to shoot those NPCs standing in line. I wondered what it said about me as a human being. i knew the game wouldn't really punish me for just walking through that section without killing the civilians so why should I shoot? but as i thought this i found myself firing. it was so reflexive that even as i was thinking of a totally different course of action I did it anyway. And then it hit me that this was just a game a simulation. But If I had everyone in that scenes motives mapped out for me how could I have made that so personal. I'd just be some douche with a gun killing NPCs without thinking about it. Room for interpretation is what gives that scene meaning for me. So it may be just pixels on a screen but then again so was Old Yeller and I still cried at that. That is why we watch movies or play games it is to envelop ourselves in a fantasy that also has meaning and connections to ourselves in the real world.

 

[jad4400]

While I write this bear in mind I enjoyed MW2

That being said, I don't like the plot of this game as compared to the first MW for one simple reason: MW2 requires the player to make a lot of assumtpions about the plot and how it unfolds.

It requires the player to assume that a hated figure from the first game became a beloved figure to the people in his country he was fighting against.

It requires the player to assume that only after five years of brutal civil war that drained lots of resources, Russia had the capacity to launch a large scale invasion of America on the EAST COAST!! (which is practically on the other side of the world)

It requires that the player to assume that their commanding officers was actually coko banannas and was somewhat ploting your demise from the begining.

The "No Russian" leval just further illistrates this train of thought about assumptions. In the game I was led to understand that the C.I.A's whole plan was to get Mackerav, but here I am standing netxt to him happily mowing down civilians. What did the C.I.A call and say that they wanted to get more info on a terrorist mastermind before you killed him? Its an annoying paradox that makes me question the existance of this controversial mission. It makes me think that it was just placed in for shock effect to boost sales and get free publicity.

The mission just seems to be.......usless, you don't find out anything more about Makerov (other than that he knew you were C.I.A), it just serves to be a catalyst for another imporbable event ehich make it seem even more unbeliviable. I would have bought more into the Invasion plot if they Russians had better reason for an invasion, hell the mission you do in the mountains would have made more sense for a reason for war other than "An American helped mow down Russians"

I gotta be honest, I'm typing this while its after midnight and I'm really tired, so maybe I'm just rambling, but still I don't enjoy game plots that require me to take giant leaps of faith very often just to make sense of the plot.

 

[IanBrazen]

(spoilers about level)

I disagree...a little.
I have always liked the CoD series because they try their hardest to make you feel like your in the shoes of a soldier, and for the most part it works.
Weather your in a stand off with a terrorist who takes his own life, or fending off Nazi's as a female Russian sniper, you feel the intensity that comes with the territory.
At least that's how I feel.

What they have never gotten right is actually telling a story.
Sure they make you feel like your in the story, but half the time in CoD4 I would forget why I was chasing the bad guy, and I could never remember the bad guys name.
I felt like I was there, but it was like the only thing my commander told me was, "shoot where I'm shooting."

So about this perticular mission, I start out by the general telling me that I'm going undercover to earn this guys trust.
Fair enough, sounds kinda cool, maybe it'll be like the movie "Donnie Brasko" where Im constantly trying to earn the bad guys trust while also trying to keep myself from going over to the dark side.

The level opens with absolutely no introduction and I find myself in an elevator with 3 other guys armed to the teeth.
This is way too abrupt and I have no idea what im doing at all.
One guy says "No Russian" which I still dont know what it means.
For a second there I think Im about to rob a bank, which would be cool as hell.
The bank robbery in GTA4 was my favorite mission, and Heat is one of my favorite movies.
So we walk out and before I know the other three guys start killing a giant crowd of people.
Even though Im applaud at what I see I start to pull my trigger as well, because you know "shoot where I'm shooting."

As I start to work my way through the crowd killing as I go, I feel a little sick about doing this.
I know its a video game, but still its a terrible thing no matter what.
After I murder a few hundred people, the bad guy says that he knows who I am and shoots me dead.
That sucks, another American main character dead in a gruesome way.
I felt sick at first but now I just feel angry, not at the terrorists at the writers.
Gee this guy died after murdering all those innocents, thanks CoD I was almost getting interested in your story (or lack there of)
If they had actually gone somewhere with this undercover subplot I wouldn't have been so angry at the end.
This is lazy writing at its worst, try harder next time.