Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 – Story Mode - Early Impressions

Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2

Xbox 360
PS3
PC





Ok, the truth is this game doesn’t need a review it’s going to sell like hot cakes at a fatty convention regardless… Already it has sold around five million copies and is only out a few days. So the short review is ’It’s great, get it!’. This is exactly what we all did I recon but for the odd one of you out there still on the fence, here is a our early impression on playing through the story mode…

Visually this game is as beautiful as its predecessor and then-some, it puts all other current FPS games recently released to shame and shows how the life span of the current generation of gaming machines should stay as is, while the game development improves instead. Infinity ward have tried their best to immerse you into the story and have done a fine job. There are many locations to play in and every one of them feels like a scene from a movie or TV show. Production values in general are top of the line, great sound and a talented celebrity list of voice actors drops you even deeper into the pit of war.

The weapons are very realistic and have great weight and feel. Like a NRA meeting at Charlton Heston’s house it seems that everywhere you go there are guns and weapons lying around, and with a wide variety to choose from its difficult to stick with just one type. There is also the big weapons you access at certain point in the game, like the predator drone that you can control fully, it rains a fiery death on mass groups of evil anti western baddies and there’s the numerous fixed gun placements for maximum carnage and the list goes on, each one bringing a nice ‘Holy Shit – that’s cool!’ type of feeling.

The NPC’s in the game are convincing and even humorous at times and you really feel like just another grunt in the big battles and fight alongside your band of brothers as opposed to the lone ranger style of play. Some situations are truly breath taking, don’t worry, no spoilers, but when you’re fighting in a parking lot of fast food joints as baddies drop from the sky and you then have to secure a rooftop while surrounded by enemies, you will see what I mean. Later missions like the snow base combine stealth and vehicle action so perfectly it feels like a bond movie and then there’s the controversial ‘Terrorist’ mission… This you can choose to skip playing but let’s be honest, everyone is going to try it, when you do it is down to your own judgement how to participate and I personally found it all a bit boring after I capped a few civilians, bit like shooting fish in a barrel, so I then began shooting up the shops instead which was a bit more fun. Yeah, sure, the idea of killing innocent people in an airport has shock value and is shocking for the first few seconds but like I have said already, everything in this game is like a scene out of a movie or TV show, it’s not that different to a bank robbery sequence or an episode of ‘24’. Ultimately I can see why it is in the game as it is a primary plot factor to the chaos that follows, it really grabs you by the balls and pulls you into the story… and remember it is a game not reality, an adult rated 18’s title, not for kiddies and the truth of it is that the concept is far more sinister sounding than the actual playing, critics should keep that in mind.
Now with that little rant out of the way I can tell you that the level is not all about putting holes into innocent people, there are cops and Riot teams to tackle and this up’s the excitement and challenge. There are many world locations from a place in the sun to the depths of the sea, blinding storms to the vacuum of space, they are all here and all beautifully to behold, war has never been so pretty.

The single player experience so far is fantastic and a must for any gamer, I recommend ‘Veteran’ difficulty for the experienced player as I personally find this instalment much easier than COD4. We will bring a Multi player and Spec ops breakdown as soon as we have play tested more but I can say that both are of great enjoyment. So far COD MW2 is one of the first games in a long time that deserves the hype, just buy it before all the fatty’s get all the cakes!