Given the anticipation over the release of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 – red carpet ceremonies and queues for stores opening at midnight on launch day – has the wait been worth it? Well, in a reversal of the “never mind the quality feel the width” dictum, the single-player campaign, although superbly executed, is short; very short.
The storyline is well trodden: in the wake of global military strife, the Spec Op pawn boys are used up and thrown away like man-size tissues by nefarious trough-snorting bosses with more important things on their greedy minds. In terms of realism, the game is more Bond than Basra. It is certainly good to see some elite British grunts taking centre stage with some fantastic fire-fights and sniper levels to yomp through in bloody encounters spanning the globe, be it clinging for dear-life on the icy face of snow-capped mountains in Kazakhstan, or the bombed out battlefield that is the wreck of the White House. The shoot out in the slums of Rio is frenetic fun, especially the “who let the dogs out?” moment. Breaking the neck of a patrolling Alsatian might not get the approval of the RSPCA but proves slightly more PC than the now infamous (job done) Russian airport level where terrorists slaughter innocent screaming civilians.
Firing from the massive array of weaponry (either provided at load level or picked up across the gunmetal-strewn combat zones) can make you forget that this is no open, free-roaming environment, but your AI squad-mates for the most part lead the way, indicating your options for stealthy finesse or guns-blazing bullishness throughout. Meanwhile, the targeting of enemy tanks or gun emplacements with Predator missiles in the midst of the carnage, courtesy of remote laptop control, makes a hugely satisfying mess on the ground. The extended farewell to health packs in FPS, in favour of hide-and-heal, although allowing for game flow, loses something in game challenge and only speeds up the all too fleeting charge through the Single Player Campaign.
Let’s be honest: the single-player campaign is partly a shopfront for the multiplayer, the enormous following for which, in the original Modern Warfare, hadn’t been seen in a shooter since Counter Strike. Along with the local or online new Spec Ops co-op gameplay mode, it’s the multiplayer which is creating insomniacs the world over all over again.
The visuals have been overhauled, as stunning as single player in their busy attention to detail; the maps unfurled with a scope more epic than before; the gaming engine physics enhanced, providing a greater range of exploding, smoke-choked environments; the class systems adjusted; the familiar weaponry bolstered with the new; the improved customisable killstreak rewards allowing gamers to unlock EMP blasts, stealth bomber runs and ultimately, an apocalyptic killstreak nuke to end the game in a mushroom cloud.
With a dedicated development team addressing the multiplayer content, Modern Warfare 2 online means that even a virtual novice can find a place in the game without instantly being decried as a hated NOOB. Buy the game for single player alone and, despite the quality, at around the 6-hour mark and with a garbled plotline, you will feel short changed. But with its Spec Ops and multiplayer options, this latest offering in the CoD franchise opens out into a vast expanse of superb ongoing gameplay.
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