Since the dawn of gaming, very few games have achieved such levels of fanboy love and hype upon release than offerings from the Call of Duty franchise. And Modern Warfare 2 takes it to the next level, having the most preorders of a game ever, highest week 1 sales ever, and even achieving over 1 million people playing online at once on Xbox Live, a very impressive feat. But immense sales do not guarantee a great game, a prime example being GTA IV. Not to worry though, as Modern Warfare 2 lives up to the hype, and is a definite contender for GOTY.
Traditionally, Call of Duty games have had a short but terrifically fun single player campaign, and a massive online component. MW2 uses the same formula, but also adds a separate mode called Spec Ops, with 23 individual missions for you to complete ranging from the fairly easy Alpha missions, to the probably impossible Echo missions. A lot of people pick up this game solely for the Multiplayer, but they are missing out on one of the most fun, action packed campaigns ever, which is where I will start this review.
Call of Duty 4 received a fair amount of criticism for its short singleplayer campaign, and not surprisingly, so has the sequel. The thing is, with the original, the game took 4 or so hours to complete, and not much happened, there were no memorable missions besides the AC130 gunship mission, which truth be told wasn't even that great. But Modern Warfare 2, which is slightly longer, is absolutely packed full of memorable sequences, and the 4-5 hours it will take to complete the game will still be as rewarding as any other game with a 10+ hour campaign.
The first thing you will notice when you jump into the single player is how awesome the graphics are. If you ask me, they are better than Uncharted 2, but only superficially. What i mean by that is that environments look more impressive, but actual textures quality is lower. Still though, weaponry has been done in more detail than UC2's, and animations are just as slick, not bad from what is essentially a dinosaur of a game engine. Explosions and smoke plumes are suitably huge and impressive, giving a real sense of intensity that other games can't match.
Before I get into the actual details of the campaign, another thing that really deserves a mention is the sound. It is exceptionally awesome, guns sound brilliant, there is a large amount of chatter between allies, and the music is for me the best from any game ever, and thanks to the talent that is Hans Zimmer.
As is the norm for the series, you will fight as several soldiers throughout the game in an effort to take down massively powerful terrorist groups. The missions take you right around the world in a variety of locales. Some of these missions require for a highly tactical and/or stealthy approach, while others are just an all out brawl, except with guns and explosives instead of fists. Locations range from Rio de Janeiro, to Kazakhstan and Afghanistan, the terrorist belt of the world. Environments are well designed and cluttered with objects. Levels have been well designed to allow progression at a bewildering pace. My only complaint is that the game is too linear. I'm not asking for free roam or anything, just some openness built into the level design that allows me to do it my way. I see why they haven't done this, as making it more open will invariably slow down the pace of the game, but a studio as experienced as IW should be able to work around this.
The controls are sublime as has come to be expected from the franchise. You have a massive amount of freedom in your movement. Unlike the controls in Killzone 2 which make it feel you are hauling a small plane on your back, in Modern Warfare 2 you're movement is almost unrestricted, it feels good to say the least.
Each level fits its purpose perfectly. For example, one mission has you sitting behind a mounted turret patrolling city streets, which seem to be swarming with enemies. The catch is that you aren't allowed to fire until fired upon yourself. This is done to build tension, and it does so brilliantly. When the enemies finally engage, it's on for young and old. To no avail though, as your driver is shot, forcing you out of the Humvee, from where you proceed to slug it out on foot. The intensity continues and even ramps up to a new level once you reach the heartland of America. There are also plenty of other adrenaline pumping moments, such as a snowmobile sequence that has you fleeing for your life before pelting down a mountain at what seems the speed of sound at least, with trees and rocks whizzing by just as they come into focus.
One level that got a lot of attention for all the wrong reasons was 'No Russian', which see's you and a group of terrorists in a bust airport shooting up hundreds of civilians. I didn't like this level at all. Not because of any moral reasons, just because it was boring. The level is optional, and comes with a warning that it may be found disturbing, which is down to personal feelings. The mission is concluded brilliantly, and the event, which I'll leave you to discover, lays the foundations for the rest of the game in terms of why the war is happening. I know why the level is in the game, but I'd prefer it if it weren't, if only because it's not enjoyable, or even confronting as perhaps IW hopped it would be.
One problem that the game has is that a lot of the story is told while missions are loading in the traditional Call of Duty manner. The thing is, I couldn't be bothered listening to some guy waffle on, because the gameplay itself was so fun. If they had done the story telling with a non skip-able cut scene or preferably in actual gameplay, the game would be better off. As is, I got to the end of the game without really understanding how or why I got there, possibly just because I didn't listen to a boring voice over during loading.
Next up, Spec Ops. Spec Ops are a series of story-free missions that are essentially modified bits and pieces from Modern Warfare 1 and 2. The tasks you have to complete are quite diverse. Some operations will have you fighting off waves of enemies, while others will require you to take a tactical and stealthy approach, such as creeping around in a blizzard planting explosives on strategic objects. My favourite of all the Spec Ops is a 2 player AC130 gunship mission that brings back memories from the first Modern Warfare, which has 1 player, the gunner raining death from above to protect his ally, a foot soldier from hordes of enemies.
Three or so of the missions require you to either go online to find a friend to help you, or hook up a second controller and play split screen, while the others give you the option to do this without it being strictly necessary. If you are going to fight with a friend over the internet, it is a really good idea to make sure you both have a headset hooked up, as communication is vital, at least in some of the later missions. Missions from Delta and Echo are not for the weak though, some seemingly aren't worth trying they are so over the top, but completing them will be rewarding. Some of the missions aren't all that fun unfortunately, but for the most part they provide good 15 or so hours if you are a moderately skilled player to finish them all on Veteran difficulty.
But of course, being Call of Duty, the online is where it's at, and crickey is there a lot to do. This time you can rank up to level 70, and to do so you will need to earn points by killing enemies, completing challenges and objectives in objective based game modes. Ranking up and completing challenges nets you more perks, guns, weapon attachments and even kill streak bonuses. Even perks are upgradeable now, and generally require you to kill a certain amount of people with it equipped to do so. Once upgraded, they gain a secondary ability and give a better chance of survival. One appalling thing about the perks however is that martyrdom remains in the game, despite being shit canned by every reputable gamer in the world since its conception.
You start off with 5 standard kits to choose from, and as you rank up get extra slots with which to make your own custom kits. Even if you’re team isn't the most skilled, if it has the right combination of kits it can be unstoppable. Things such as tactical insertion flares which let you spawn on a certain point, perhaps behind the enemies, allow you to wreak untold damage and allow you’re team to regroup or get a strong foothold in a strategic location. They are most effective in objective based modes, but don't count them out in death match, as they can provide a real boost.
Death streak perks are a new addition, and are there to help new players find their feet, and kick in after 4 or so deaths. There are only a handful of these though, including copycat, which allows you to steal an opponent’s kit in kill cam, which is an ingenious idea that replays your demise, potentially giving you ideas for how to tackle the situation when you next encounter it so that you can be more successful. There are a few others but once you get some experience under your belt, you likely won't be needing them unless you come up against a monster of a team.
There is a huge array of kill streak rewards to choose from in Modern Warfare 2. Although you can only have 3 rewards equipped at once, meaning that you have to select the ones you think will give you the greatest advantage. Again though, the kill streak rewards largely ruin the game. For example things like chopper gunner require no skill to use, let allow you to easily rack up huge amounts of kills. People like these things because it makes them feel special for getting huge kill streaks, but who cares when it requires no skill, and they camped to get the kills required to get the chopper in first place, not me anyway. There are a couple of other aerial attack vehicles that do the same thing although slightly less effectively. I strongly wish they would remove each and everyone one of them though, and make the game back into what it shoot be, an infantry based shooter. No aerial vehicles, no turrets, and no martyrdom thank you very much.
Completing certain tasks in multiplayer also unlocks call signs and emblems, very similar to Killzone 2's, although implemented on a much grander scale, that help to lighten up the atmosphere a bit without being too silly. Other than that, there's not much to say about the online, other than that the variety of playlists is extraordinary, while on the downside, graphics are slightly worse online than in the single player.
In summing up, Modern Warfare 2 manages to improve in every way over the already impressive original. Graphics are great, sound quality is second only to Crysis' in my book, and the single player is thrilling almost all the way. Online can be challenging for some, but even a moderately skilled player like myself can break even in terms of kill death ratio (I have 8 more kills than deaths, so pretty close to 1:1). Spec Ops can be frustrating and some even a little boring, but they are a bonus so its hard to complain, and they are actually very good in their own right.
The original Modern Warfare and Modern Warfare 2 games have been drawing players back in
I really hope we get other activision games on GP soon. My dream would be Scarface but I know the license probably expired
Love me some Scarface! I even bought the comics. Yeah, licensing would probably be an impasse.
I played through Scarface again last year and it still holds up. Such a fun game. I would love for Xbox to get the rights back to remaster Scarface and make a sequel. It sold well and they had plans for Scarface 2, 3, and 4. With how long it takes Rockstar to make games the market is wide open.
That game was so much fun. Expected a cheap GTA clone but it was a good drug empire building game.
They didn't just have plans but there's actual gameplay out there for scarface 2
Seriously man we need games like
True crime
Sleeping dogs
Watch dogs( more like original not legion)
And proper saints row
GTA can’t be the only option we need other games
None of those games had dedicated servers on console in the first place? Were always player hosted. Did something change?
Modern Warfare 2 fans have taken to Reddit to mock Call of Duty for reusing skin designs in the BlackCell pass ahead of Season 4 launch.
not surprised i trued playing the new cod it still very hard for me to find the game 2days ago on pc i clicked the exe watched a cutscene could not skip 5 store ads then spent 10min trying to find were to play the game.
There is more store ads/directories than anything so why not reuse stuff its 80% mt's 20% video game now
Does anyone know were the single player went? never finished it can not find how to launch it on pc
After numerous missteps, Call of Duty, after a good long while, is finally on the right track with Modern Warfare 2 and Warzone 2.0.
