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With Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4, we have with us one of the best Call of Duty campaigns of all time. It is a new story fitted also with some nostalgic nuts and bolts that will take players back in time.
There is a soldier, whose name you will recognize, dwelling in a unit of South Korean soldiers and who retains his casual way of talk from a previous game. Also a chase in Paris to refresh your memory of the operation that led to the fall of Eiffel Tower in a body of water. Some bits of a snow-covered mountain too, when two Task Force 141 operatives took down an entire military base on their own.
One thing is clear when you will see these moments: You will want to play the original Modern Warfare games again. Lock n’ load soldiers.
Blackout in Hajin City
A unit of South Korean and American soldiers has just gotten out of a store and is walking past the alleyways when all the lights go off after somebody sent a huge electromagnetic pulse in the air and missiles start falling, killing several people. They make a run towards a stadium, their initial objective, while dodging the missiles.
The similar thing happened in original games when Captain Price launched an EMP missile, which disabled everything that was in the air, including helicopters in Washington, and caused US marines to run while dodging falling helicopters. You may remember the final helicopter falling on a doorway from where all the marines entered. A car comes flying in this recreation.
Price vs Makarov
Activision recreated the fight between John Price and Vladimir Makarov all the more thrilling by making Price go full John Wick mode in a Russian club. In the original one, Price chased Makarov to the roof of a high-rise and pulled him out of a chopper before tying a rope around his neck to hang him to death and smoking a cigar while watching him going to and fro from the rope in the lobby.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 gives Vladimir a chance to fistfight with a revenge-driven Price, who turns his face into pulp. Both had a youth-like energy. You’ll see it when Price chases a parkouring Makarov on snow-covered roofs or when they show their hand-to-hand fighting moves in the alley.
The Collapsing Bridge
After defending Hajin City with guns and mortars, an enemy bird appears in the air and fires missiles at them. Allied forces are on a bridge that collapses on impact. Park and Hal are running on a crumbling bridge, which will remind you of the mission in the Atlay Mountains when we killed Imran Zakhaev. It was an enemy hind too at that time, which fired on us and caused the bridge to almost fall.
Chaos on the Streets of Paris
When Delta Force visited Paris in 2011’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 to capture Volk, they had to chase him in vehicles, spreading chaos all over the streets of Paris. After that the team had to extract him, which required so much firepower that it blew the base of the Eiffel Tower in a giffy, making it fall in the water. You spread chaos again in Paris. This time as John Price, who is working with a cartel to keep a weapon of war safe. Enemies will come from all the directions on bikes and cars to stop you. Just remember to shoot.
Avoiding Enemy Helo After the Crash
Allied forces were sneaking into North Korea when bandits hit them in the sky. Their plane crashes in the snow, and enemy patrols are looking for them now. They go on hiding from enemy torch lights and a spotlight from an enemy helicopter. Captain Price and team found themselves in the same situation in Western Russia in Call of Duty 4 just after they had rescued their asset named Nikolai. The team has to move forward, crawling and hiding in the field to avoid getting spotted by enemy patrol and a helicopter.
Memories of Cliffhanger
In North Korea, the allied forces have to blow up a jamming tower to restore their communications with the command. This jamming tower is on a mountain, and when you climb up that mountain, you will transport back to one of the most iconic missions in Call of Duty, ‘Cliffhanger.’ You have to reach the objective using the cover of the blizzard while Kal provides you sniper support like Soap did from that ridge. He even asks you to take the ‘scenic route’ before starting the mission. The blue metal bunkers and the snowstorm… it feels like returning to the same place. You are a “ghost in this blizzard.”
Enemy Tank Appears Out of Nowhere
One of the final missions in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4, called ‘Counter Attack,’ is a huge nostalgia town. You will see allied forces lazing targets and providing support as Sandman and his squad did in Berlin and the Marines did in ‘Wolverines’ by lazing targets. But the best one comes when an enemy tank comes in a hurry, stops with a drift, and cuts the route of our tanks in style.
We mark it, and one of our tanks takes a shot at it. It blows up like a thermite, just as Warpig shot that tank from behind the ally in Call of Duty 4. Interestingly, we also hear the callsign “Warpig-6” in the latest Call of Duty game after we have taken Hajin City back.
Remember? No Russian?
The funniest moment in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 will remind you of the most controversial mission of the original series, ‘No Russian.’ Corporal Dunn, who retains his street-level swagger from Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, hates stairs, so he proposes going through an elevator up the building, while gun fights are happening on different floors. We can see four soldiers waiting for the elevator gate to open, just like the four terrorists in the controversial mission who open fires on civilians as soon as they step out of the gate.
The Slow-mo Breach
It’s hard to forget setting square charges on walls or gates that’ll blow them, and we will enter the freshly made hole to aim and shoot at the enemies behind it in a slow-motion sequence. The original Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 came up with this feature, and we used it mostly while on massive Russian oil rigs, in the Gulag when we were saving Prisoner 627, and in Makarov’s safehouse sitting in the middle of lush green mountains. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 has one moment like this too when you’ll need to breach a door behind which is a big lot of enemies. It comes just after we are out of the elevator that Dunn suggested to use so he can avoid stairs. The enemy has taken civilians inside as hostages, so watch who you shoot.
Saving Price. Again
Final missions in the game don’t give the soldiers any time to rest. They are back to back. The final one is where we are saving Captain Price, just like we did in the Gulag when he was captured under the guise of Prisoner 627, while also aiming to kill the evil Supreme Leader of North Korea. We are an army of airborne birds and chinooks, and rain down fire, much like at the Washington Monument Site in the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 while giving air support. Ghost is with us, this time being the main man, unlike during the rescue operation of the Gulag. He warns that you “keep up” and “don’t get in the way,” in the traditional Ghost way. Send chills down the spine.
We Are Leaving!
Ironically, the ending of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 takes us to the very beginning of this story in Call of Duty 4. Soldiers are given a mission to flood a melting nuclear reactor manually by opening an emergency valve. Park swims to the other side and pulls it but doesn’t make it out of the water in time. Dun and Jae pull him out, thankfully. What he sees after opening the eyes is the flames has painted the entire place orange.
Dunn gives Park a hand and pulls him up as if Captain Price were giving a hand to MacTavish in that sinking ship and yelling, “On your feet, soldier. We. Are. Leavin’!” Water and flames consumed that ship too. A rescue helicopter is waiting for them in both the games, and one soldier almost fell to death in each of them. But no one’s getting left behind today, and the fellow soldiers save their brother in arms. Just in time.
This is a thoughtful nod to one of the most iconic moments in the Call of Duty. A beautiful way to end the series that began in 2007. Feels bittersweet.
Bonus: Ghosts on a Building
Other than the memories of the original Call of Duty: Modern Warfare games, there is a moment that’ll take you straight to the ‘Federation Day’ in Call of Duty: Ghosts when soldiers rappelled down a skyscraper and dropped some soldiers using stealth. It also reminds you of the time when Soap and Price rappelled down to a cave when going after the traitor General Shepherd.
If you were transported back in time after reading this, you should check the list of these iconic moments from the original Call of Duty: Modern Warfare games, our tips for succeeding at the latest DMZ game mode, or how to complete the first Operation in DMZ.
Anurag Batham is a Writer at Thumb Wars, zeroed in on video games, but will also throw himself into anything in association with anime and cinema. As with his favorite video games, give him anything with a linear story, be it Call of Duty or Braid, and he will be happy. He thinks of stories as food and wants to feed his readers something nutritious, food for thought.
