Review - PC
First-Person Shooter, Modern Combat
8
Graphics - 9.5
Sound Effects - 9
Music - 8
Gameplay - 8
Length - 7.5
Difficulty - 8
Stability - 10
Post-Release Support/Expansion - 4
Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 is hailed to some considerable degree as the second coming of gaming Christ. For a few reasons, it is not, but it is a genuinely intense and fun experience... if you can stomach the steep price tag.ProsStrong cinematic execution, good voice-over work, good graphical engine driving superb level design work, realistically challenging A.I., satisfying fire support assets, immersive, realistic, often insightful to non-military minds.
ConsLinear action accented by cues & prods which are manytimes unwelcome and partially insulting, recurring inability to execute fundamentally basic actions like climbing over a picket fence or smashing out & crawling through 'X' window, many unopenable doors, kevlar of the Gods, neutered shotguns, limited talk of post-sale expansion, ridiculous price - even for a boxless digital version, ridiculous price in the face of units sold, lowered to normal only later.
Argued by the publisher to be the biggest game launch of all time, Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 is definitely a Big production. There has always been talk of a convergence between film and game, and here is the most grown up of any such progeny. As has been the price, but more on that later. In a number of ways CoD: MW 2 is monumental, in a few detrimentally so, and in others familiarly.
South American cities are certainly home to Modern Warfare, too.
Things Technical
Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 has all the technical sophistication one would expect from a new triple A action title. Most graphical achievements are at pace with those of any other new fps, such as FEAR 2 or Call Of Juarez: Bound In Blood. Noteworthy is its renderview accomplishment - at considerable range its capacity to display all entities in view is laudable.
MW 2 is filled with a plethora of impressive sights, environs to behold, to be sure. These are due more to supremely talented level design/implementation than to any breakthrough in coding.
Audio is similarly excellent, with very satisfactory ballistic accompaniment in a post-CounterStrike world.
Steam provides all in Modern Warfare 2 multiplayer.
Cooperative urban combat in an American neighbourhood via the Spec Ops mode of play.
Dialogue is expertly delivered by some veteran actors, but the mixing of said dialogue can lack at times, the blend sometimes making certain speech in combat circumstances a little more impossible to discern. Realistic? Yes, absolutely. Theatrically effective, not always. This is interactive entertainment still, not entirely a battlefield simulation.
Fighting in the indestructible coniferous forests of Europe.
Things Genuine
To its considerable credit CoD: MW2 often imparts a sense of military sophistication. It is an engrossing and fascinating exploration of modern warfare. Jargon, equipment, routines and processes seem very authentic, and are of a nature that testifies as to MW 2`s development pedigree.
You know that many who contributed to its development do or did many things quite similar to what is portrayed.
A familiar defusing sequence for all CounterStrike players, to be sure.
Blood fills your screen when you are wounded, dissipating over time if you can find sanctuary from the combat.
Leading By The Nose
CoD Modern Warfare 2 is certainly intense at times, but in a way it is *not* intense. As per usual for either modern combat or historical era (i.e. World War II combat) shooters, CoD MW 2 rigidly controls game flow. The hallmark of this trait is the continual prodding and cueing by NPCs as to what is going on and what needs to be done next. If a tank arrives on-scene for example, NPCs always inform you that a tank has arrived, and that you need to take it out with an rpg weapon. You shouldn`t need to be told of such things, yet they do so as part of a linear adventure structure, a pre-determined flow that often frustrates a player when one realizes just how little freedom you have to act independently in environments that appear to be open.
Firing down-range, down-slope.
There are times for such control, but implemented all the time it is a detriment to the series. Medal Of Honor: Airborne got this right. One would hope that future incarnations in the series are more dynamic, and therefore friendlier to actual player play... .
The Campaign
The single player adventure in CoD MW2 is peculiarly intense and unlikely, enthralling yet aloof.
The primary plot event that shapes so much of what is Modern Combat 2 is brought about by unrealistic response to a single terrorist event, wherein all the terrorists speak english. "English?! It must be the Americans!" Given however the skill with which ensuing circumstances are executed, one is inclined to forgive this disbelief... the rule of theatrical suspension applying.
These are the people in your neighbourhood. The well-trained and well-armed people.
The capacity of this game to be independent of a player is at times disturbing. A strength as well in most cases, making the player a participant part of larger group actions has a definite way of divorcing you from immersion. This gets back to the leading by the nose feeling, though there is more to it than that. The snowmobile level, for example, features the capacity to fire your weapon at pursuers. Ultimately, this action or the lack thereof is completely immaterial to the scenario outcome - you could play through the whole without firing a single shot and it would matter not. Getting from A to B is the real game, everything else is just cosmetic dumb-do. Sometimes in particular levels you can feel like the entirety of your activity is in that category.
Modern Warfare 2 has the capacity to trivialize player action. Thankfully on balance MW2 works.
Unrivalled Greed
In an age when far less successful titles sell for lower price points, Activision`s demand for CoD: MW 2 has been a thing that can only be characterized as gouging. One can offer up the usual litany of production costs and such is still insufficient to excuse what have been exhorbitant charges for even a pure boxless digital version of the game.
As many copies as this best-selling title has sold, Activision`s subsequent lessening of the $pain$ is overdue and somehow insufficient. One has a bad taste left in one`s mouth from this.
Multiplayer Co-Op
With a renewed industry-wide emphasis on cooperative play versus A.I., it is with considerable welcome that one looks at Special Ops play in CoD: Modern Warfare 2.
At first one might be disappointed with what is only a two-player option. One would think that with the plethora of squad-oriented numbers we might enjoy particularly apt opportunities in Modern Warfare 2. Nonetheless the co-op experience can be very rewarding.
Setting claymores can save your life. BMW and other auto manufacturers are well-represented here, but for once they pay the proper price: substantial destructibility. As it should be.
Several short missions & scenarios are organized into categories of ascending difficulty, unlocked by excelling at earlier missions and earning stars. Selecting a higher difficulty level also changes the maximum number of stars obtainable in a given scenario. Some missions are timed contests, some reward/track kill counts, some are objective based. Most are tremendous fun. The occassional mission features a choice for the players: who will control fire support assets while the other plays the lone grunt on the ground. These are some of the best experiences - they definitely work, and are an exemplary additional asset for this series.
One cannot help but to wish for full-fledged four player or eight player squad play... seems like a wasted opportunity which the subject matter desperately screams to be executed.
Things Nonsensical
Regrettably and anachronistically - considering the realistic bent of the release - we do encounter a few unreasonable and unrealistic elements. These are sufficent to qualify as gameplay and therefore enjoyment detriments.
"... and Juggernauts..." is an utterance to which you shall cringe, marking such cooperative missions as undesirable & infuriating.
Body armour rules this battlefield. Short of explosives and rocket-propelled grenades, the full armour 'Juggernaut' enemies you come across cannot be taken down by small arms fire. They don`t even wince at the impacts of such ballistics. Of course, were body armours in reality that completely effective, ALL soldiers would be deployed wearing such. They are not. Luckily such entities are rarer than common.
Shotgun weapons seem not to have any discernible effect beyond alerting an enemy, if fired from ranges of 25 feet or more. None. Of course this too is absolutely silly. There is no excuse for this: CounterStrike Source, Crysis: Warhead, S.T.A.L.K.E.R., and Far Cry 2 handle them well enough. The suspect responsible for this implementation is multiplayer versus balance - somehow, somewhere, someone decried the effectiveness of shotgun weaponry. The developers responded by crippling the weaponry in this fashion, impinging upon the integrity of the whole once again for the sake of multiplayer-versus play, which to a considerable degree has become a corruptive scourge upon game design.
Detractive and with the latter even reprehensible.
Spontanaiety has it advantages.
Holding the laundry room - absolutely critical to the war effort.
Summation
Will Activision further reduce the price of their magnificent child? Will they commit to free DLC for it given their appreciable record-setting sales? Unknown. We have a couple of new multiplayer versus maps being released circa March 12th 2010, but that is fairly insignificant stuff.
Should first-person shooter fans sign up for this tour of duty? It is a definite experience. If their desire for intense linear ballistic adventure can offset the price tag, yes... something for each of us to ponder individually.Scott Hunter
