It's funny, but the original Call of Duty, a PC-only WWII shooter released way back in 2003, was revered for its ability to convey a genuine sense of "war is hell, bring a change of underwear." Right, that's enough of that... next! Flash forward to now and Call of Duty's sixth iteration, Modern Warfare 2, where "war is a Jerry Bruckheimer movie, bring your American Hoo-ah."

Yes, the game will stir emotions and rattle core beliefs, but all in the name of cathartic entertainment, where D.C., Rio and Russia are the stage and the players merely, uh, players. Its utility as a training simulation for effective (or potentially wayward) soldiering has about as much merit as Need for Speed netting someone a driver's license.

For all its reverence with the subject matter, its delicate balance between cautionary tale and reactionary patriotism, Modern Warfare 2's most serious intent is to make a game out of war, as videogames have been wont to do since computers were invented along with smash up driving and popping mushrooms so as to kick Goombas to the curb.

It's modernized as far as weaponry and plausible scenarios go, startlingly realistic in its depictions of locales, people and the common and high tech weapons of war, but fallacious when it comes to the where and wherefore of it all. Like all games, it's also pleasantly ridiculous about the permanence of death. Dying to death is merely a means to "repawn" and have another go, Achievement unlocked, pain killer awarded.

As a single player campaign, you'll play from the first-person perspective as a few different soldiers, one at a time, in a task force and at one point as a mole in a Russian terrorist cell and the controversial opportunity to do some method acting and gun down civilians in an airport. Alternately, you simply watch your infiltrated buddies do the deed while you concentrate on looking like you belong, maybe shooting at cops, which are fair game because they should have realized that fending off a horde of Russian militants in was right there in the job description, right above dental plan and vacation pay, sorry about your luck. If the lot of it is too distasteful, the player can skip the segment altogether and move on to the rest of the game and just kill guilty uncivilians.

Whether this moment and everything that follows is meant to strike a cord in the user or controversy in the media is moot. It's all so preposterous that you simple can't take it seriously any more than you can malign Sigourney Weaver for shooting baby aliens. Granted, comparing a passive movie experience to a participatory game experience is over-simplifying, but no one who has ever put thumb to button in order to affect an otherwise two-handed reload of a weapon has ever confused a game controller for an M4. Or if they did, there's more than videogames to blame.

But for the majority of normal people, experienced gamers or otherwise, it's just impossible to suspend disbelief that high - more so, ironically, because it is so realistically rendered in Modern Warfare 2.

That is, you might swear your walking through the aftermath of a gunfight in an open air market, blood spatter everywhere and apple carts blown asunder, but the moment you walk over a fallen comrade or enemy and the ammunition from their fallen weapon auto-magically makes its way into your inventory, cleaned and sorted and ready to go, well, pop goes any illusion that "this could really happen." That you caused said carnage thanks to an "aim-assisted" thumbstick nudge along with nine deaths and ten "respawns" before you got it right further detaches you from any sense of realism the lifelike imagery conveys. Imagine if a game just ended the first (and last) time you got shot. Yeah, that's immersive. How about mortal wounds healed after a few seconds of quiet time behind a box? That's better, carry on.

Here's the deal: preposterous in a videogame is a beautiful thing. People that choose to decry it or defend it as an affront or homage to men and women in modern uniform might as well argue about Jerry Bruckheimer's forthcoming Academy Award nomination that's never going to happen.

That the game is so popular - and was so highly anticipated before its graceless release date that it broke all sorts of (pre) sales records - is a testament to technical merit and marketing mojo. It's indicative of modern videogames as the preferred entertainment medium of millions, not of a society of gamers gone gaga for "the wrong message."

While Modern Warfare 2 makes a spectacle out of the plausible, it's spectacular. Its lack of credible consequences makes it incredible in all the right videogame ways. It's a cathartic feast for the eyes, ears and rumble sensitive thumbs. It does indeed play like an interactive morality tale, but not at the expensive of its pure entertainment value - a morality tale Jerry Bruckheimer might as well make into a movie for the sake of an Oscar nomination, which just isn't a realistic expectation.

Modern Warfare 2 is a videogame. It owes society nothing except maybe a token nod of appreciation for the technology that made it possible, the beautiful scenery it replicates, the hominids it animates and their spiffy weapons it so spiffily renders. But nothing else. Society, on the other hand, owes Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 $59.99, plus tax where applicable.