'Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2'

This is a review I did a while ago. I have since had a bit of a tinker with it. 

Just so's ya know.

The first Modern Warfare was, and is, one of my favourite games. Rather strangely, I played it long after I completed the second, which is when I realised what I had been missing. Besides the graphics, the first is head and shoulders above it's successor. Yes, despite it having two years on its older brother, Modern Warfare 2 fails to stand up to its lofty heights. While it may be a total blast in parts, the rest is just kind of saggy. Not exactly what you would expect from the biggest entertainment launch in history.

Let's start with problem one: the campaign. Infinity Ward seems to have got it into their heads that bigger is better, a perfectly valid assumption... meaning they're wrong. The battles and explosions have been amped up past 11, and locales change quicker than a squirrel on speed. It starts in Afghan, then jumps to the snowy Tian Shan mountains for one mission, then to Moscow, then to the suburbs of Virginia, then to Rio in Brazil, then to a Russian gulag, then more snowy mountains, then to Washington DC, then back to Russia, then all the way back to Afghan. You may now breath. Remember that's in the space of a 6-7 hour campaign. Now, a game like Halo could probably get away with this amount of travel and carnage, what with it being a massive space opera and and having a decent runtime. For Modern Warfare 2, a game masquerading as a serious military shooter, it's slightly off-putting.

The story is problem 2. I won't bother explaining it. It's rubbish. End of.

Now the multiplayer, as they say, is a different beast. What you learn in single-player carries over nicely, though you'll still have to learn a few more tricks. It's an addictive mix of tactical, fast paced gun-play and rather overpowered, yet extremely fun kill streak 'pwnage'. . . with a large, ugly splodge of camping, noob-tubing, unbalanced guns and easily-exploited perks. Case in point: the UMP, an incredibly accurate sub-machine gun which floors enemies in two to three bullets, rendering most other weapons about as redundant as an umbrella in a tornado. Another case in point: commando, a perk which gives the ability to make overly long range kills with knife, allowing players to break the universal rule of never bringing a knife to a gunfight. Oh and there's also an insta-kill throwing knife. I mean, Good Lordy! Yes, it's all very addictive, but more often-than-not, I found myself violently removing tufts of hair over the crippling balance inconsistencies. It's a destructive addiction. There you have problem 3.


Of course, all these problems could be made right if Activision was pushing for quality, as opposed to releasing pre-made DLC for 5 times it's worth. Problem 4 (A problem within a problem. Problemcep-! I'm sorry).

The game runs silky smooth, and looks relatively good, though there is not much of a noticeable difference this and COD 4's engine. Gameplay in both sections of the game has not exactly changed considerably from the last installments either: it's the sight-and-shoot mechanic you've all become familiar with and that's a good thing. It works and it's fun. The campaign A.I is the same this time round too: pretty average at best. Enemies tend to not stick to cover enough, which sometimes turns the campaign into a game reminiscent of wack-a-mole. This wasn't so much of a problem for me in previous entries, due to the time in which they were developed and the level design. I just think the franchise should have moved on by now. All that aside, it's entertaining, but not amazing.

Now I've been pretty negative up till now, so I'd better say up-front that Modern Warfare 2 is not a total failure; People wouldn't play if it was absolute garbage. But I just get the sense that everything could've been so much better. The short, bloated campaign could be fixed with the addition of a couple of hours worth of gameplay. They could've hired a writer who had a decent sense of narrative flow and actual structure (this a BILLION DOLLAR franchise, for funk sakes! YOU CAN AT LEAST AFFORD A GOOD SCRIPT!). Multiplayer, as said before, could be fixed with player support and balancing. Instead, Activision is content to leave their finger firmly in arse, and force their developers to churn out new (read strangely reminiscent) titles every year. Kinda sucks, really.

VERDICT

A fun, yet uneven blockbuster. The video game equivalent to a schlocky summer action movie. Nothing special.