High School or Lower

Modern Warfare 2

I’m very torn over the Call of Duty series.  I’m a big fan of the early games, but the newest ones are a little off to me.  Everyone always complains, “I’m sick of World War II games.” I don’t really know what to tell them.  There hasn’t been as many of them as people think.  In recent history, I can think of maybe 2 or 3 that I’ve played in the last two years.  But this isn’t about the WWII CoD games, this is about the new one.

Modern Warfare 2 is hard to review.  Obviously being the most anticipated game of the last year, I should just say everything is great and end this, but it’s not that simple.  I’m going to review it section by section of the game.

Campaign:

The campaign is strong.  It picks up five years after the first, and is full of plenty of action and crazy sights.  It’s definitely good, but there are a few things I didn’t like.  First of all, the loading screens.  They are almost all the same.  Just a bunch of soldiers talking about the mission.  Some of the things they say don’t even pertain to what you are doing, but are just said out of the blue.  Also, it looks the same, just a map of the world that examines different parts of the globe depending on what the mission is.  Also, in I believe two different missions, there are parts where the only way to get past is to run, as the enemies respawn forever.  That’s a bad move against people who would rather make their way slowly through the enemies than run past them.  The story isn’t bad, there are some plot holes but nothing major.  The length is pretty bad as well, only 4-5 hours.  I give the campaign a 7/10.

Spec Ops:

This is probably the best part of the game, spec ops are seperate missions that, while they contain some of the stuff you do in the campaign, are like a stand alone challenge meant for multiplayer.  You basically need to complete a goal, sometimes with a time limit, then you get 1,2, or 3 stars depending on how well you did.  It’s very fun, and very engaging, if you are bored of the campaign or don’t want to play straight up multiplayer.  I give the spec ops section of MW2 a 9/10, only detracting from the score because of the occasional impossible mission.

Multiplayer:

Well, the multiplayer, obviously the most appealing part of the game, was a disappointment.  First of all, the engine is the exact same as CoD4, with a few minute changes.  Personally, I don’t like this, and while most sequels do run on the same engine due to demand, something as big as this should have been reworked.  The rest of the multiplayer is extremely similar to CoD4, the classes have some new guns and attachments, the perks have been switched up, etc.  Some of the changes are fantastic, and some are more subjective.  For example, the addition of deathstreaks, which is where you die enough in a row and get a small boost to help you out, are absolutely fantastic, while some of the additions, like the tactical nuke, are god-awful.

Let me rant a bit about the tactical nuke and the 10+ killstreaks you now have available.  the killstreak system has always annoyed me, if you get enough in a row, it’s really just impossible to stop you.  I believe that once you have gotten enough kills to get something that you enter, such as a chopper gunner or an AC130, then there’s nothing stopping you from getting higher and higher.  The tactical nuke is rewarded to you if you get 25 kills in a row while you have it enabled.  That sounds unbelievably hard, but with the way the killstreak system works, it happens more often than you would think.  About one in five matches I enter have ended in a tactical nuke.  This nuke does exactly what it sounds like, a countdown timer appears and then everyone dies.

But, alas, the multiplayer is still a great fusion of RPG and FPS, but not as good as a game that has focused around it, a la Borderlands.  I give the multiplayer a 6/10.  The worst part of the game?  Yes, in my opinion.  But it’s also the longest lasting.

Overall, averaging out the scores, this game gets a 7.3/10.  Worth a buy if you’re a CoD fan, but if you’re looking for a new game to play that isn’t hyped to all hell, you should avoid this.

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Reviews, games by Max