Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
Modern Warfare 2 has to be probably the best game I have played in a very long time. This is the Gordon Ramsey of games: aggressive, confident, spectacular, sweary and garnished with essence of pure testosterone. You’ll have travelled a Bond-style tour around the world from the streets and caves of Afghanistan to the snowy wastes of Kazakhstan via the edge of Earth’s atmosphere, the sweaty favelas of Rio and even stomped mud across that famous eagle rug in the Oval Office.
So, to set down the mundane, need-to-know stuff. If you’ve played the first game, you know the score. 17 missions are played out on two fronts: from the perspective of the US Rangers and through the eyes of Task Force 141 – an elite squadron of special ops, mostly ex-SAS nut jobs. A Russian warlord called Makarov has filled the power vacuum left by your killing of Zakhaev at the end of the first game, and you counter his evil shenanigans down the iron sights, sniper scopes and electronic missile locks of various bad ass weapons. And a side arm. Only two weapons though, no more. The Ranger missions are mostly played out in the US, Task Force 141 does the globe-trotting in the more exotic locales. There are lots and lots and lots of bad guys between you and your various mission objectives, and they’d very much like to kill you, in the face.
But this string of words can’t come close to encapsulating the experience of Modern Warfare 2, which is of course why you’re laying down your 55-odd notes. And this experience is truly like few others. Whatever you may think of Infinity Ward, these chaps are very, very good at generating the kind of controlled pandemonium that is the yardstick for engrossing war games. And we can confidently stick a flag in the sand and proclaim that Modern Warfare sets new standards in molar compressing, bumhole squeezing, punch you in the eyes battlefield immersion. It’s a game where it could be prudent to slap up signs on either side of your monitor, one, in capitals saying: “BLINK!” and the other: “BREATHE!”
And make no mistake, this is an adult game. The already famously controversial scene in the Moscow airport, where you can pull the trigger on countless innocent civilians trying to flee in utter panic is probably the most uncomfortable five minutes of gaming we’ve ever experienced. You can choose to not pull the trigger if you want, but doesn’t that rather defeat the object? Even more disturbing is a stealth kill later in the game where the developers’ view has you staring intently and unflinchingly into the eyes of a slowly dying henchmen from the combat knife you’ve just slammed into his chest. Infinity Ward is unflinchingly staring down the barrel of a media shit-storm it knows is inevitable, but will certainly make this a game to remember. Could both of these incidents be played out as non-interactive cut-scenes without compromising artistic integrity? The easy answer here is absolutely yes, but this one’s isn’t going to go away any time soon. And will be discussed at length by people much more clever – and much, much dumber – than us.
So what didn’t we like? Well, with the right foot planted firmly on the gas pedal, there’s little or no time for this game to breathe and evolve like the first Modern Warfare, which is to its detriment. If you have ambitions to be treated like a blockbuster movie, you have to understand pacing. Also, bar the “No Russian” airport mission, which will stand out for all the wrong reasons, this game just doesn’t boast the set-pieces – the sniper level, the gunship level – that made the first game stand out so memorably. Targets can often be very confusing; maybe it’s our tired, old eyes but in the pandemonium, however entertaining, we often had immense difficulty in telling American special ops, camo-sporting soldiers from Russian special ops, camo-sporting soldiers. The result is an awful lot of collateral damage, most of which is sprayed out of your machine gun of choice. Also, take a moment to step away from the gung ho experience, and you’ll see that Infinity Ward spends a lot of time repeating tricks so successful in the first game – you’ll encounter a great deal of gaming deja vu on this journey, even if it’s artfully misdirected with the best and most cunning smoke and mirrors in the business.
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News
Activision Announce Modern Warfare 2 Downloadable Map Pack
Activision has announced that Modern Warfare 2’s first downloadable map pack will be called “Stimulus Package,” and is set to launch on Xbox Live on 30th March. You may recall that this new downloadable content will be available on Xbox Live only for the first 30 days of its existence, after...
Modern Warfare 2 First DLC Pack To Be Released in April
It has been reported that Modern Warfare 2’s first DLC pack will be release in early April. The official word from Activision on the add-on pack’s release – which will be an Xbox 360 timed exclusive – is that it’s planned for “spring”. There’s no word yet on what Modern Warfare...
Xbox 360 Receives 30-day Exclusive on New Modern Warfare 2 Maps
Microsoft has revealed just how much of a headstart Xbox 360 owners will have with the new downloadable content for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. “We have a 30-day timed exclusive on the Modern Warfare content packs,” a spokesperson told Eurogamer. “So it will be available on other platforms, but...
PC Modern Warfare 2 Gets Patched, PS3 and Xbox 360 Fixes Coming Soon
A patch has just been released for the PC version of Modern Warfare 2. Its available from Steam and it fixes two fairly major hacks: the one that zaps million of XP points from the unfortunate victim, and the one that makes everything in the game move at freakin’ hyperspeed. “But...
Modern Warfare 2 Has Surpassed over $1 Billion in Sales
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 hit another milestone as the best-selling video game has passed $1 billion in retail sales since its launch in November. Activision Blizzard’s record-breaking game is second only to James Cameron’s Avatar film, which also passed $1 billion and is on its way to passing up...Modern Warfare 2 – Starwars Mod Video
We all know that statisticly Modern Warfare 2 is most popular game of all of the times so it shouldn’t surprise anyone one bit that the mods are already out. As much as I like the idea of shooting it out in Mos Eisley, I do worry about them storm troopers, I...New Modern Warfare 2 Game Modes Revealed
Im not really too sure if this is real, but Kotaku and VG247 have both reported on this video and how it reveals some new multiplayer modes for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. There are three modes in total: VIP (just like Counter-Strike), Capture The Flag (with a single flag...
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 with $600 million in Sales in Five Days
A couple of days ago we reported on Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and their first day sales of $310 million. Now its been reported that the first five day sales were $600 million in revenues. The game was so popular that Xbox LIVE hit 2 million simultaneous players...Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 Sells $310 million in First 24 Hours
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 is the new game in the great Call of Duty series. It has just been announced that in the first 24 hours after release it sold more than 4.7 million copies, which grossed $310 million. This amount was only from sales in the United...Images
