Chris Moyse

“This video game is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual events or any real persons, living is purely coincidental. No organization or government agency has approved endorsed or authorized the use of their names or logos or product.”

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare was something else. While it wasn’t the first military shooter – not by a long margin – the 2007 release most certainly became the template for narratively-driven FPS titles, while also popularising many multiplayer concepts that are staples of the genre today. Modern Warfare also, notably, solidified Call of Duty (which had already been around for years) as the shooter franchise to beat – or at least to be.

Every now and then, a title shows up on the video game market that has all the passion and talent of the “AAA gaming” scene, but without the budget or the marketing machine of a Warner Bros. or an Activision in its corner. Despite this, some of these “mid-tier” releases go on to find critical and/or financial success. Titles such as Ninja Theory’s award-winning Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice are an obvious example.

[Update: Since this review was published, I’ve encountered instances of game breaking save bugs that can spawn the player back into locations where they are “locked” in place. This effectively kills your autosave file. This happened on PS4 to me, costing hours of progress, and I have read testimonials of it happening on PC too. Be warned.]

Cool your jets, I’m not going down that route. Do people still care about the answer to that question? Maybe they do. I sure don’t – just games, innit? Sometimes they’re great, sometimes they aren’t. Sometimes they pick you up, and other times they slam you down. They can be both creatively genius and creatively bankrupt, original or derivative and, very occasionally, they transcend their own media as a masterpiece. As long as they keep coming out – and we get plenty of good ones – who cares, re