In 2007 Infinity Ward brought us Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare and overnight it became an instant hit. Modern Warfare’s most addicting part was its intense and fun online play. With many gamers spending not hours but days playing online. Now two years later Infinity Ward is redeploying gamers around the world back into the Modern Warfare battlefield. Luckily for fans of MW Infinity Ward hasn’t fixed things that weren’t broken and has actaully improved the game way beyond anyone could imagine.
Modern Warfare 2 boils down to three different game modes, you have the single player campaign, addicting online multiplayer, and the new Spec Ops mode. The campaign picks up where we were left off, and has a handful of returning characters. While the campaigns story is conceptually great its execution falls way short. Similar to MW1 the majority of the story is told during the load screens, in a voice over for the most part. Now I’m sure most people are like me and don’t want to look at a static screen when I could get right into the action, so you skip as soon as you can and then miss out on the story. Beyond the storys lackluster presentation to gamers, its also very disconnected as you jump from character. While many will pick up the basic story unlike other games you don’t feel like you just played through an epic war movie.Other things that hurt the storyline is that some of it unfolds while in battle, which makes it hard to pay attention to a storyline while your fighting for your life. However its strange even with these issues, you still feel some emotion to whats taking place on screen, for instance the airport terminal level that has gotten the game so much heat and even banned in countries actually makes you feel pure emotion, that what you are doing is wrong. I don’t think this feeling is from the story but more so from the excellent presentation of the actual gameplay. Now with all that said, the campaign is still tons of fun to play. Modern Warfare 2 puts gamers into many different situations besides just running and gunning. You might find yourself on top of a hummer chopping down bad guys, or climbing an ice rock face, and even in the middle of a snowmobile chase. This change of action makes the campaign feel very fresh and not just a rehash of the last game. The length of the campaign varies depending on the difficulty you are playing on, and has been averaging 5-10 hours in length. Now this might seem short but the truth is the most time and energy went into multiplayer and the new Spec Ops modes, as these are the proven money makers of the the game.
Spec Ops. is by far my favorite mode. It’s a 2 player team based mode. You can play it single player with A.I., split screen or with a friend via Xbox Live. As a two person team you are faced with a range of situations. From the simple survive waves of enemies, race snowmobiles, or the most fun, one player taking control of a vehicle while the other player is trying to get to an extraction point. The Spec Ops. modes are placed within some of the great battles of MW1 and MW2, my favorite is one operation that finds one player in an AC-130 gunship while the second player needs to get to a point all placed within the night farm level of MW1. Completing an operation nets you stars which unlock more operations, the harder the difficulty the more stars you can get. Some operations are rather easy and can be completed on the first try, others can take many tries and even a solid hour of your time.
Now onto Modern Warfare’s crown jewel, Online Multiplayer. IW took what they started 2 years ago and made it even better. All the good such as perks, killstreaks, and ranks are still here and they have been improved. Killstreaks can now be customized and also go all the way up to 25 (which is a tactical nuke that ends the match with a win for the person launching it). As you progress you can pick which killstreaks you get at certain points. Now don’t worry you won’t have to deal with people using the big killstreaks at low kills as each killstreak bonus can only be used at a certain kill count. Besides Killstreaks you now have deathstreaks, they work similar killstreaks, if you die 3 times you can use a deathstreak. One of the deathstreaks is “Copycat” which allows you to copy the same load-out as the person that just killed you. There are a few other deathstreaks and they are loaded similar to perks. Speaking of perks they got some love as well. There are a few new ones(Like an AC-130 Gunship, Predator Drone Missile Attack to name two), but more importantly perks can be upgraded. The perk upgrades work similar to weapon upgrades, as you complete certain tasks you get the upgraded perk. The online play, plays the exact same and has the same fast pace action as MW1. Other minor changes are you now have a customizable emblem, which pops up when you kill someone. There are so many unlockables in online play that its very easy to say that MW2 online play will be played much longer by many more players then in the first games outing.
Graphics were great in MW1 and they also have been improved. The biggest improvements have come in the particle department. Rocket blasts and explosions will leave you with a cloud of particles in your way which can be used in both an offensive or defensive ways. Besides dirt particles, items within the environment will shatter and be spraying everywhere during intense gun battles. All these great graphical features aren’t just offline, the game looks identical during online play and during big matches the battle unfolding look amazing. The H.U.D. has also received an overhaul, most information has been relocated to the bottom right corner with online game score details residing in the left corner. The H.U.D. is clean to the point and fits the game well.
Controls have all remained the same and work flawlessly. The D-pad remains your access point to most of your secondary weapons like C-4 and airstrikes. While driving vehicles like snowmobiles are a tad simplistic they work and as its not a big focus of the game they are useable.
The last part of the game is sound, and while MW1 was great in 5.1 surround sound MW2 is even better. The development team scraped all the audio and started from scratch and it shows. All weapons sound unique and the sounds of bullets whizzing past you is scary. The soundtrack is also amazing, scored by the great Hans Zimmer the soundtrack changes dynamically as you play, expect slow melodic music during down times, tense building music during times of tension, and intense hard hitting music as crazy battles unfold. The last audio bit that really ties the perfect bow on the game is all the teammate chatter, your team will call out enemy positions like “two tangos behind white van” and guess what there will be two baddies behind the white van. Besides calling out locations your team of course has all the great banter and most of it seems right out of great US Marine based storys like Generation Kill.
Overall Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 is a grand slam. Infinity Ward out did what they accomplished in MW1. The game is just as addicting and looks even better then its first go around. While the campaign still needs work in its story presentation department, the bread and butter online play continues to make up for the campaigns short comings. Spec Ops. is a great addition to the game and is also very addicting, I hope besides new online maps as DLC we see some Spec Ops DLC. This holiday season Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 should be on the top of everyones wish list.
*We reviewed this game on the Xbox 360 but there is little to no difference to the PS3 version.
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