Loved
A Thrilling Single-player Campaign: Like Infinity Ward's previous Call of Duty, Modern Warfare 2 is an explosive roller coaster ride of an action game. It peaks with frenetic chases and bottoms out with slow, steady sniper mission and, with a campaign length on par with Call of Duty 4, never overstays its welcome. On my first playthrough on Hardened difficulty—one notch higher than standard challenge—it took me just over 7 hours to complete. That may be brief in comparison to Modern Warfare 2's peers, but the pacing is tight, with regular doses of hyper-violent spectacle. That said, the single-player campaign has its faults, mostly from a storytelling perspective.
Awesome Presentation: Modern Warfare 2's globe-spanning adventure features some awesome sights and sounds. From the game's amazing voice over work to its booming audio to its well-designed set pieces, the game's single-player levels—and the multiplayer maps built upon their foundation—feature impressive attention to detail. Levels set in the exotic favelas of Brazil and in familiar suburban streets present the player with locations they've likely never done battle in, a fine contrast to the bleak and barren environments of Afghanistan and Kazakhstan. The game doesn't waste much time expounding upon plot or reason, mostly barking orders at the player between missions as intel swoops by on a mostly black screen. It just does it with top notch voice talent. Character modeling has made an impressive leap, with character faces now having... character.
Spec Ops: If you're not quite ready to venture into the foulmouthed multiplayer noob-slaying frenzy that is Modern Warfare 2's multiplayer mode, the cooperative multiplayer Spec Ops mode offers a stellar two-player experience. Most missions can be played solo—not that you'd really want to—but a few require a buddy. And they're the best of the lot, putting one on the ground, the other in hovering aircraft—an AC-130 in one, an attack helicopter in the other—raining down gunfire upon swarms of computer-controlled foes as the ground-based player works his way across a map. Some of the later Spec Ops challenges can be painfully hard, particularly on Hardened or Veteran difficulty, but most of the challenges are a treat to play with a friend.
A Massive Multiplayer Buffet: Fourteen multiplayer modes may sounds like option overkill, but most of Modern Warfare 2's game types are variations on the familiar, including Capture The Flag, Team Deathmatch, the bomb-planting/bomb-defusing Demolition and the base-capturing Domination. The most enjoyable of these modes, personally, was the Headquarters Pro mode, which spawns capture points throughout the round, targets that teams must hold and defend. It's a mode that requires, for better or worse, active communication among teammates, making for a thrilling and sometimes frustrating experience. Layered on top of the broad game type offering are 16 multiplayer maps, dozens of unlockable weapons and attachments, per-weapon, per-perk and per-item Challenges (that will take dozens of hours to fully complete) and a level progression system that's incredibly addictive.
Streaks & Perks 2.0: Adding to the variety of Modern Warfare 2's multiplayer are expanded attribute enhancing Perks, which can be unlocked as players progress and the second-tier "Pro" versions of Perks that make players even better. For example, the Sleight Of Hand Perk, which lets players reload quicker, adds the ability to aim faster via scope or sight with Sleight Of Hand Pro. Also expanded are the rewards players can deploy from racking up kill streaks, which included UAV radar detectors, counter-UAV radar jammers and randomized, air-dropped care packages. At the higher, more ridiculous end of the kill streak reward scale are EMP blasts, stealth bomber strikes and game-ending tactical nukes. New to Modern Warfare are death streaks, which give players on the losing side an opportunity to level the playing field. Player-created custom classes let players define almost everything about their online personality and play style, letting you choose which perks, streaks, weapons, and equipment suit you best.
Its Zimmerific: It's not often that I'll take notice of a game's musical score to the point where it sticks with me, where upon revisiting a level I relish the musical accompaniment as I did with Modern Warfare 2. Beyond the pumped up fanfare, the game's soundtrack ranges from a brooding, disturbing drone to a sweet, somber ballad, the drama solidified by the musical efforts of Hans Zimmer and Infinity Ward's audio team.
Host Migration Is One Thing: Modern Warfare 2 brings with it a strong multiplayer backbone—at least on the console side—featuring ample game set up options and speedy entry into populated games. But it's the multiplayer mode's host migration that saves the game, keeping multiplayer matches going when a host bails. In our experience with host migration, upon losing a multiplayer match host, we were back into the action within seconds, not dumped into a lobby from which everyone quits. From our real-world experience, games have been mostly lag-free affairs, though some experiences were unmistakably spotty.
Hated
What Just Happened? Brush up on your Call of Duty 4 single-player if you care about the story-driven events of the sequel, because the delivery of Modern Warfare 2's plot assumes you know it well. The game's single-player campaign can be scattershot and confusing, mostly as a result of the game's hastily delivered orders via intermission and comm transmissions. At the end of the campaign, I was left wondering what the hell just went down and the key players of Modern Warfare 2 got wrapped up in this conflict. The game's campaign mode also suffers from treading on territory that feels familiar to the first, with some storytelling tricks feeling recycled or just plain overdone. Just how many times can we sprint to an escape helicopter anyway?
Makarov: Modern Warfare 2's antagonist Vladimir Makarov puts the player in a very uncomfortable, disturbingly violent situation that may offend or upset some players—probably a very tiny fraction of the blood-lustful Call of Duty playing population. This can be skipped from the get-go without punishing the player, but... who's going to do that? While in context the level that made me hate Makarov helps to justify the events of the game, it doesn't make it enjoyable.
Abandon All Hope Ye Noobs: Call of Duty fans new to the multiplayer landscape of Modern Warfare 2 may want to find some skilled, friendly teammates to play with. Public multiplayer matches can be a bloodbath for the low-ranking noob, a frustrating, sharp learning curve that's made more punishing by some of the game's killstreak rewards and higher-level unlocks. Spending much of a round being liquefied by AC-130 rounds, Predator missiles or Pave Low fire from above is not uncommon, something that may sour one's enjoyment while playing online. Players may be rightfully concerned about the balance of the game's killstreaks, which, if you're not well-versed in Modern Warfare multiplayer, can be intimidating. Fortunately, options for setting up private matches that disable killstreaks and perks, are easy to access. New users may find it similarly frustrating to not have total access to all of the game's multiplayer modes from the get-go
My flatmate went and fetched his today so I'll give it a bash tonight.
