Screenshots :.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
PC
Jay
12-11-2009
"Spoilt this bit in a trailer I saw...grrr"
"Making your way through one of the arse end parts of the world - out numbered and out gunned"
"Trapped in a car...one clip left...gulp"
"Weapons-a-plenty, the sniper rifles probably being some of the most satisfying"
"Undoubtedly one of the coolest parts in the game!"
"Always time to check if your team's ok, even when stealthing it to an oilrig underwater"
It's funny to go from one game where I'm talking about how namby-pamby games have become since my generation to then playing Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 that both attempts to glamorise war with all the usual testosterone fuelled, “I just watched Rambo ma' and I really want to be him” action and to shock the audience in such a way to remind you that it's ultimately a game still about all the niceties of war.
This in itself is nothing furthermore than a sequel to the first Modern Warfare cranked up a couple of notches. It still features a strong storyline driven single player and the multiplayer you've come to know and love, albeit more difficult for us PC gamers to hook up with buddies without the dedicated server support we were perhaps expecting and further rubbing salt in the wound by coming as standard on rival gaming platforms 360 and PS3. This time around, should you fancy, there are also some coop missions to complete.
You start off the usual rookie in a boot camp under the impression that you're going to be hand-picked for some special team that's being put together if you can show the right moves. Yes, it's the tutorial mission again where depending on how you perform, adjusts which difficulty the game recommends. I seemed to get “Hardened” more often than not so went with that, seeing as I went through the first Modern Warfare on the standard setting and found it just a little too easy. Not that I'm entirely convinced a section of repeatable gameplay is the best way to choose your difficulty setting seeing as you get used to it and therefore do ultimately better, but you can always adjust the difficulty setting as you go - so no worries there.
After you set off a series of events occur that result in you swapping from one role to another and accompany your squad into whatever the level chooses to throw you at. Great idea in my book as it means they can chop-and-change from one side of the world to another and vary the levels up a bit. Of course this also means they get to show off how pretty they've made the game and give you a variety of gameplay scenarios to keep you entertained – be that running through some back alley chasing down a terrorist to jet-skiing across a mountaintop or speed-boating your way down rapids.
They promised there would be no more continuously spawning enemies in this version, which even after completing I'm not entirely sure I believe and even if it is the case the pace of game has been increased meaning that regardless of whether they spawn on an ongoing basis it's going to feel like they do as you manically run from one situation to another; from cover to cover. I'd only say this was painful in a couple of levels through the entire game, so not too bad on the whole. At the end of the day it's more down to being able to see where the gunfire's coming from than how many enemies are about even with well place thermal image equipped guns or suddenly owning nightvision. You could say this perhaps ruins some of the immersion that they've set out to do with such a well constructed storyline if, as the ice cool marine, you die say 20 times in the same bit.
Unfortunately, a lot of that you could pin as my fault for not realising you could go prone (I swear I looked for that in the config...doh) but then it was never brought up in the tutorial as far as I recall. Like passing your driving test you never really start learning to drive until you're out there on your own, so the way I see it if I don't throw a grenade back in the allotted time – I'm going to die. You could say that seeing as I was on a higher difficulty setting and your entire team continually talk to each other and let you know when they spot enemies – there's only so much pampering Infinity Ward should do.
I'm not entirely sure why, but I got a real Metal Gear Solid vibe from MW2. I think perhaps that they wanted to create a storyline that was in one way as we think it should be and in the other hand try and put some twists in that we don't expect – so great are these twists though that by the time the third one happens you're so paranoid you're actually expecting what comes next. Both games are similarly veined in that regard, although MGS was a damn sight more long-winded about it.
I feel I digress somewhat, but then that tends to happen when I dive straight into the review after completing the game. Sometimes this at least leaves me with a fresh idea of the experience, but on the other hand I'm now feeling a bit “...buh!?” from how it's been left off – sequel? No sequel? Shrug...
Anyway, as far as this little FPS goes, it's pretty much just an FPS with a great storyline. The features that would make it stand out from the crowd of other FPS titles are numbered. You never really get the feeling you can use cover well, and spend more time admiring how your team-mates fan out into an area and getting shot yourself. Hell I could say “I got what I asked for” when in MW1 I really enjoyed the intro and felt there wasn't enough of that gameplay, which for those of you who don't know or have brain damage, was a set piece of stalking through a boat uber-marine style. This entire game is pretty much that now, more so than the last, and for that I would have to thank them – but as someone looking at the game with a critical eye I wanted that extra coat of polish on making my way around the environment.
As an example, you can throw grenades sure, but then so can your team and when they do it I've been hit in the back of the head a couple of times. I've had them run in front of my field of vision (which is strangely narrow) and then have a go at me for it and then of course the ultimate insult is their immortal arse hanging around not doing much as I'm getting ripped to shreds. I'd also like to lean and slide into cover please Infinity as without being able to use them, all these cover-to-cover moments are missing a trick.
Not that their going to listen but hey it's worth a shot right? I mean, I wouldn't if I had a multimillion dollar title...
MW2's set pieces are the thing I've loved from the first. I was happy to be part of a game where they'd wanted to continue the vibe by reintroducing characters from before and putting us in situations where we wanted to get the job done. Which is good in a military situation as running the other way is generally frowned upon. It was also nice of them to keep in some of the more familiar weapons, although this time forcing you to use your iron-sights instead of just crouch firing, and introducing one or two new toys to play with.
I was interested to see what was going to happen when upon loading the game you're greeted with a warning about whether you want to play the “controversial mission” or not. Of course, I had no problem doing this, but can certainly see what the fuss was all about. Again it's IW playing around with it's emotional see-saw but plonking an obese rhino on the side that says “screw the press we're doing what we want” - and in a way I'm glad they did. War has it's downsides obviously and so balancing that with actual gameplay rather than rolling around in the dirt clutching your guts and sobbing violently for an entire level must be pretty damn difficult for the writers.
They've obviously thrown more money at this than Clinton with hookers and so I doubt in a lot of respects they expect it to do badly and I very much doubt it will. The gameplay's solid enough, the storyline's excellent if perhaps a little confusing at times, they've got a well known voice actor (Lance Henriksen), a well known musician (Hans Zimmer: every film you've ever seen with big ochestral works and the largest drums in it he could get his mitts on – Gladiator, Pirates of the Caribbean, The Dark Knight etc) and an already strong franchise to build it on.
To summarise COD: Modern Warfare 2 is a game that grabs you by the balls, shouts in your face and doesn't particularly care what your mother thinks of it. It's controversial, brash and above all bloody good fun to play!
This in itself is nothing furthermore than a sequel to the first Modern Warfare cranked up a couple of notches. It still features a strong storyline driven single player and the multiplayer you've come to know and love, albeit more difficult for us PC gamers to hook up with buddies without the dedicated server support we were perhaps expecting and further rubbing salt in the wound by coming as standard on rival gaming platforms 360 and PS3. This time around, should you fancy, there are also some coop missions to complete.
You start off the usual rookie in a boot camp under the impression that you're going to be hand-picked for some special team that's being put together if you can show the right moves. Yes, it's the tutorial mission again where depending on how you perform, adjusts which difficulty the game recommends. I seemed to get “Hardened” more often than not so went with that, seeing as I went through the first Modern Warfare on the standard setting and found it just a little too easy. Not that I'm entirely convinced a section of repeatable gameplay is the best way to choose your difficulty setting seeing as you get used to it and therefore do ultimately better, but you can always adjust the difficulty setting as you go - so no worries there.
After you set off a series of events occur that result in you swapping from one role to another and accompany your squad into whatever the level chooses to throw you at. Great idea in my book as it means they can chop-and-change from one side of the world to another and vary the levels up a bit. Of course this also means they get to show off how pretty they've made the game and give you a variety of gameplay scenarios to keep you entertained – be that running through some back alley chasing down a terrorist to jet-skiing across a mountaintop or speed-boating your way down rapids.
They promised there would be no more continuously spawning enemies in this version, which even after completing I'm not entirely sure I believe and even if it is the case the pace of game has been increased meaning that regardless of whether they spawn on an ongoing basis it's going to feel like they do as you manically run from one situation to another; from cover to cover. I'd only say this was painful in a couple of levels through the entire game, so not too bad on the whole. At the end of the day it's more down to being able to see where the gunfire's coming from than how many enemies are about even with well place thermal image equipped guns or suddenly owning nightvision. You could say this perhaps ruins some of the immersion that they've set out to do with such a well constructed storyline if, as the ice cool marine, you die say 20 times in the same bit.
Unfortunately, a lot of that you could pin as my fault for not realising you could go prone (I swear I looked for that in the config...doh) but then it was never brought up in the tutorial as far as I recall. Like passing your driving test you never really start learning to drive until you're out there on your own, so the way I see it if I don't throw a grenade back in the allotted time – I'm going to die. You could say that seeing as I was on a higher difficulty setting and your entire team continually talk to each other and let you know when they spot enemies – there's only so much pampering Infinity Ward should do.
I'm not entirely sure why, but I got a real Metal Gear Solid vibe from MW2. I think perhaps that they wanted to create a storyline that was in one way as we think it should be and in the other hand try and put some twists in that we don't expect – so great are these twists though that by the time the third one happens you're so paranoid you're actually expecting what comes next. Both games are similarly veined in that regard, although MGS was a damn sight more long-winded about it.
I feel I digress somewhat, but then that tends to happen when I dive straight into the review after completing the game. Sometimes this at least leaves me with a fresh idea of the experience, but on the other hand I'm now feeling a bit “...buh!?” from how it's been left off – sequel? No sequel? Shrug...
Anyway, as far as this little FPS goes, it's pretty much just an FPS with a great storyline. The features that would make it stand out from the crowd of other FPS titles are numbered. You never really get the feeling you can use cover well, and spend more time admiring how your team-mates fan out into an area and getting shot yourself. Hell I could say “I got what I asked for” when in MW1 I really enjoyed the intro and felt there wasn't enough of that gameplay, which for those of you who don't know or have brain damage, was a set piece of stalking through a boat uber-marine style. This entire game is pretty much that now, more so than the last, and for that I would have to thank them – but as someone looking at the game with a critical eye I wanted that extra coat of polish on making my way around the environment.
As an example, you can throw grenades sure, but then so can your team and when they do it I've been hit in the back of the head a couple of times. I've had them run in front of my field of vision (which is strangely narrow) and then have a go at me for it and then of course the ultimate insult is their immortal arse hanging around not doing much as I'm getting ripped to shreds. I'd also like to lean and slide into cover please Infinity as without being able to use them, all these cover-to-cover moments are missing a trick.
Not that their going to listen but hey it's worth a shot right? I mean, I wouldn't if I had a multimillion dollar title...
MW2's set pieces are the thing I've loved from the first. I was happy to be part of a game where they'd wanted to continue the vibe by reintroducing characters from before and putting us in situations where we wanted to get the job done. Which is good in a military situation as running the other way is generally frowned upon. It was also nice of them to keep in some of the more familiar weapons, although this time forcing you to use your iron-sights instead of just crouch firing, and introducing one or two new toys to play with.
I was interested to see what was going to happen when upon loading the game you're greeted with a warning about whether you want to play the “controversial mission” or not. Of course, I had no problem doing this, but can certainly see what the fuss was all about. Again it's IW playing around with it's emotional see-saw but plonking an obese rhino on the side that says “screw the press we're doing what we want” - and in a way I'm glad they did. War has it's downsides obviously and so balancing that with actual gameplay rather than rolling around in the dirt clutching your guts and sobbing violently for an entire level must be pretty damn difficult for the writers.
They've obviously thrown more money at this than Clinton with hookers and so I doubt in a lot of respects they expect it to do badly and I very much doubt it will. The gameplay's solid enough, the storyline's excellent if perhaps a little confusing at times, they've got a well known voice actor (Lance Henriksen), a well known musician (Hans Zimmer: every film you've ever seen with big ochestral works and the largest drums in it he could get his mitts on – Gladiator, Pirates of the Caribbean, The Dark Knight etc) and an already strong franchise to build it on.
To summarise COD: Modern Warfare 2 is a game that grabs you by the balls, shouts in your face and doesn't particularly care what your mother thinks of it. It's controversial, brash and above all bloody good fun to play!
9/10