Modern Warfare- Reflex thoughts

I recently got to play around with the inanely titled Modern Warfare- Reflex for the Wii.

Modern Warfare was a huge blockbuster of a game designed to push the envelope in terms of graphics and presentation, so the decision to port it the Wii was a tad odd. On the face of it, it seems as if quite a lot of effort went into this- everything that was in the original PC/PS3/360 release is here, including all of the multiplayer. How, then did Infinity Ward botch the controls so badly?

It's not that they're really bad or anything. You get a large number of preset options (why do developers insist on labelling the Red Steel control method "beginner" when it makes games almost impossible to play?) and The Conduit's ability to tweak everything to you heart's content. But it still feels off. Your aim frequently spazzes out and swings wildly when looking down the scope, and circle strafing feels stiff. The game gives you the option to lean around corners by tilting the nunchuck, which works quite well, but your movement speed slows to a crawl while leaning and it's easy to do by accident in the middle of a firefight.

Again, the controls aren't bad, they're just not as good as what's come before. When your game doesn't match the fluidity and ease of play of a game that came out almost three years ago, you've got a problem.

Also, a word must be said about the graphics, which also aren't as good as Metroid Prime 3's. Environments are frequently muddy and the whole thing has the squinty feel of playing a HD game on an SD TV. Enemies also have a distracting tendency to suffer from jerky animations and delayed reactions.

And of course, there's the writing and voice acting, with the British troops coming across as vaguely evil and sinister and the Americans being portrayed as grunting meat-headed frat boys. Since the game is supposedly gritty and realistic and all that Infinity Ward was probably trying to make some sort of point, but it's diluted somewhat bu the fact that every other military FPS ever made in the history of the Universe does the exact same thing.

Despite all this, Modern Warfare- Reflex isn't a bad game. I'm going to go play it again after finishing this post, in fact. I'm just glad I rented it instead of buying it at full price.