![]() ![]() The story gives us an enemy that’s easy to hate in the form of a rogue military group composed of people who were born and grew up on the colony worlds and hate Earth. This stunning visual depiction of space – among the very best I’ve seen in games – went a long way toward me accepting and eventually enjoying the kind of campy campaign. It’s dizzying, disorienting, and just plain gorgeous. ![]() Human folly has set it tumbling towards the sun, and its accelerated spin makes the nearby star come flaming over horizon once every minute or so, burning everything unlucky enough to be caught out in the open on the surface. The most visually striking mission, hands down, takes place on a cosmic rock near Mercury. And the artists have done a fantastic job lighting scenes that transition from the ebony black of deep space to the blinding light of the sun cresting a planet. ![]() We see ships floating majestically in endless fields of floating boulders. Gas giants loom large in the background of many missions, both in space and on the ground. The opening mission on the icy surface of Europa, with Jupiter a silent giant in the sky above, is dazzling. And, good lord, does Infinite Warfare ever deliver on that score. Article contentĪnd yet I’m also a sucker for a pretty space vista. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. It felt like Michael Bay’s Armageddon all over again. There were times in Infinite Warfare when I was intensely frustrated that, say, my character was able to easily run across the outer surface of an asteroid with such a small mass that one good jump should have been nearly enough to achieve escape velocity. Like the Dead Space and Mass Effect games. Normally, I like my science fiction at least a tiny bit harder. Vacuum seems to carry the sound of everything, from engines to gunshots to explosions. ![]() Perhaps most conspicuous of all is that the outer space Infinity Ward has created is damned noisy. Space fighters appear to carry out all their maneuvers with giant F-18-style rear jet engines rather than stability maintaining attitude thrusters. Fluctuations in standard 1 g gravity – like that of Earth – exist only in isolated instances namely, places where the game’s designers figured it would be cool for the player to experience zero- or lesser g. Its massive warships can move at speeds many times that of light, travelling to any planet in our solar system literally in a matter of seconds. Because it’s clear from the get-go that this is not a game concerned with impressing any scientists in its audience. And if you were one of the people who saw the jaw dropping space-based trailers for Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare, you probably knew that military sci-fi is exactly what Infinity Ward was aiming to give us. Which is another way of saying it’s pretty content to break the laws of physics whenever convenient for the sake of making up neat-o stuff that serves the story they want to tell. It generally assumes the audience will accept that the scientists and technologists of the future will eventually be able to do pretty much anything and doesn’t spend time explaining the how. This type of science fiction typically doesn’t concern itself overly much with science, save (perhaps) where it concerns descriptions of weaponry and military hardware. Infinity Ward’s latest Call of Duty game, set some time in the future when humanity has colonized the solar system, belongs to a genre most would call military science fiction. Activate your Online Access Now Article content If you are a Home delivery print subscriber, unlimited online access is included in your subscription. ![]()
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