Hey Infinity Ward, What’s Happened To Veteran?
It would be no exaggeration to suggest the enduring difficulty of Veteran, and how much of a challenge completing the campaign on said difficulty proves to be, has become somewhat synonymous with the Call of Duty series. Whilst anyone can attempt and complete the game on Veteran with enough persistence, it is still never-the-less quite an accomplishment to end the campaign on such a climatic note. Instead of taking hours, missions can sometimes take days, often with your body getting acquainted with the floor more so than your gun. Indeed, it is not a challenge to be taken by those with little time, or by those with little patience.
Which is why, with Modern Warfare 2, many people skipped Veteran altogether and dived right in on either Normal or Hardened. For me, neither of those were an option, I was genuinely anticipating the challenge. And so I began battling my way through suburbia and snowy terrain expecting many of the tear-my-hair-out moments Call of Duty 4 provoked. Yet with each passing level, I was still waiting for that challenge to hit.
As I progressed with a steady pace throughout the campaign, I reached the half way milestone and was disappointed I had done so with relative ease. If you think back to past Call of Duty games, I’m sure there will be certain moments in each of the 6 installments that you remember advancing with sheer determination (I have only played 2,3,4, and 6). For example, in Call of Duty 4 the first mission which proved to be a real bastard was Charlie Don’t Surf, where you are in what appears to be a TV studio with Al-Asad’s speech being broadcast. Such levels set the pace for what those playing Veteran want — a real challenge. Why, then, was this absent from the latest Modern Warfare?
The Tomb Raider series means a lot to me, and while I admit it has lost its footing in recent years, I’ve always stuck by Lara. The latest Tomb Raider, however, has been completely re-imagined and – at some points – doesn’t even feel like a TR game. It’s a welcome change, though, and has me well and truly hooked.