MW24/7 402 Interview

We had the privilege to sit down and talk with Robert Bowling for a Modern Warfare 2 hands-on!

After we sorted out the many questions from our forums we jumped in the car for our meeting with Robert Bowling at Activision Benelux in Amsterdam. Because we were a bit early we sat down next to a life-size statue of Spider-man that looked so real we expected him to take a run with the game as soon as Robert would take it out...

Interview with Robert Bowling

Activision

The original plan was to do a casual meet-up at the FIRST LOOK event in Amsterdam but Robert thought it would be nicer to meet-up at Activision. Here he would have a dedicated setup to show us Modern Warfare 2 better and longer than at FIRST LOOK. This dedicated setup included a TV so big that Ghost (in the main menu screen) actually scared us a little. The great sound system was to make sure we were "feeling" the game. And we did.

When asked, Robert is very clear about the role Activision plays in the development of Modern Warfare 2 - “None”.

"Activision is the publisher and it is their job to handle the business side of the industry. They make sure to get all the games to the stores, worry about pricing and marketing. Infinity Ward is the one focusing on all the creative stuff. The collector editions we came up with are our own ideas and work. Only when the decision is made at Infinity Ward, Activision is contacted to work out all the logistics."

Now that we’re really getting close to launch, we had to ask Robert what he is most excited about for when the game is released on November 10th, 2009.

“Number one will be to get all 69 Special Ops stars. I just want to find me a co-op partner and go through it and beat it all. Because I haven’t played every mission in co-op yet. So i want to do that, but I also want to focus on unlocking callsigns. So I want to unlock the “My name is …” one that I used in one of the earlier promo video because that is by far my favorite - so I want to make it to that.”

Callsigns consist of hundreds of emblems you unlock while playing the multiplayer games the way you like it and it's completely based on your play style. You can get them by shooting down helicopters, making headshots, probably even for making double kills... There is no way of knowing what you will have to do for these callsigns, you just unlock them for doing things you do in multiplayer matches. It's a nice random rewarding system that will make every player unique because there are so many.

The Callsigns are the one thing in the game where I told them “Don’t show me the list of how you unlock them, I don’t want to know.”

Hands On

When we sat down, Robert first showed us around in the main menu. It was pretty exhilarating to see how many options there really were, the music in the background was great and the many different background images were awesome (for the lack of a better word). Robert launched the "Takedown" mission from the singleplayer campaign. Though we already knew what was going to happen, we were amazed by the amount of gore on the dashboard after your driver is taken out at the beginning of that mission. Funny side note, this driver is the character that initially was the one with the spark-plugs in his hands in the image to the left. Sucks to be demoted, but it does make sense now that Ghost is now holding the spark-plugs in the final build. Robert explained how in early screenshots dummy-characters were used when the final characters weren't done yet. In the same image on't the left, it's quite possibly the VIP from the Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare epilogue — Robert wasn't sure about that.

Special Ops

We were able to play some Special Ops ourselves and can confirm it will not easy to collect all 69 stars. Though splitscreen takes a bit from the graphics, it still looks great. But more importantly, the game runs like a silk robe dripping off Jessica Alba's body. It is sweet. The added elements all work out great and feel very natural, as if they already were there for years.
The fact that it will be possible to play Special Ops co-op with a buddy on two different difficulties brought up some questions about the possibility to maybe cheat your way through the highest difficulty by letting someone on a lower difficulty do all the work for you. Before Robert answered this question we first talked about why this option was added to the game in the first place.
As most of our readers are big fans of the Modern Warfare games, possibly the complete Call of Duty franchise, it’s highly likely you got many and many hours into these games already. Being able to play Special Ops on two different difficulties is great for playing split-screen with a friend that’s not as good at the game as you are - maybe even fired up the game for the first time. Now you can play on veteran while you set the game up on regular for him.

"What it basically does is increase the individual skill for you - because the enemy’s accuracy is better, bullet damage is greater for you, but not for him. When you change the difficulty in Special Ops it doesn’t only change the difficulty of the AI (Artificial Intelligence, as in: the enemy), it also changes the difficulty of the mission objectives. If you had to kill 30 enemies before on regular, you will have to kill 30 guys, plus dogs, plus have less collateral damage which will be different for each mission. So it changes the individual AI difficulties for you, but the objectives change for everybody. Even though your friend will be playing on regular, you - as a team - still need to kill the increased number of enemies and have the increased number of challenges, just the AI difficulties are different."

Still sounds like a bit of cheating to be done? Not really. You will only get rewarded for the weakest link. So if your buddy is playing on regular, this is what you will both be rewarded with. Even though you play on veteran yourself.
Special Ops is broken down in Alpha, Bravo, Charlie and Delta which will be unlocked when you’ve earned enough stars for each mission. When you have a friend that just picked up the game and haven’t unlocked anything beyond Bravo, you can still invite him and play a Delta mission that you have unlocked. However, when you completed the mission your friend will not earn any stars for those… So you can basically play locked missions with friend to gain some experience, not stars.
This is just two ways to balance Special Ops and make sure you will not be able to cheat yourself through Special Ops while you can still have fun just to play the game.

One other thing that seems to be working out great for variety in Special Ops is the fact that enemies are at complete random - there is never a set amount of any enemy. You could get lucky and only have to fight one Juggernaut in a mission, could be more. This does not change with the fact if you will be playing on veteran or regular. When you listen closely you can hear the music change to a much more dramatic sound when a Juggernaut is closing in. This is when you really need to be paying attention because they will not stop - until proven otherwise. While this is a great warning system, it’s easily unnoticed when in the middle of a big firefight as Robert found out the hard way...