Modern Warfare 2 Review - Xbox 360

8.5

Gameplay: 9
Graphics: 8
Audio: 9
Multiplayer: 5
Innovation: 7

A worthy Game of the Year contender before it was even released, no BETA for the multiplayer, the biggest launch in gaming history, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 is upon us. With three huge gameplay modes that will keep you going for days on end, Infinity Ward has delivered an amazing sequel to the award winning Call of Duty: Modern Warfare.

Gameplay

Modern Warfare 2 is split up in to three main gameplay modes. The campaign, where you pit yourself against terrorists and a Russian empire with all the twists and turns that you expect in a Call of Duty story, Spec Ops, which reminds us of the good old days of Goldeneye 64, and usually require you (and a friend, if you want) to blitz or stealth through short missions as fast as possible to earn stars, and Multiplayer which makes up most of the game. All three modes are unique in their own way, and it’s up to you to choose which one you want to dive in to first.

When starting the campaign, you run The Pit, a training course that takes under a minute to complete. Once you run through it, the sergeant in charge advises you what difficulty you should play the game. You can run the course as many times as you want, and there’s an achievement for doing it in under 30 seconds (our fastest was 29.1). As soon as you accept a difficulty setting, you go to war. No questions, time to shoot. From there on, the game tells a story and tries to explain why you’re killing hundreds of people by yourself. Sometimes you’re in a squad, or with Captain Price, but most of the time you’re by yourself.

What’s great about the campaign is that the enemies don’t seem to respawn as frequently as they did in Modern Warfare. Also, there are no timed missions so you’re never pressured to get through areas quickly. There is a bit of stealth action required, mainly in the snow missions (which are fantastic, but don’t look as good as Uncharted 2 in the snow), and gamers will be glad to know that you can basically sprint indefinitely, making some of those hotspots easy to get out of. That being said, you can’t just sprint through an entire mission as you’ll get mowed down and swarmed by many enemies if you run ahead too far. There’s no award for finishing missions quickly either, so there’s no point charging through as in the end you’re missing a lot of the content.

One thing that must be discussed about the singleplayer campaign is the controversial airport mission. With little warning (apart from the option to skip it at the start of the game), you’re placed in an airport where your terrorist colleagues start mowing down civilians, security guards, and eventually the Russian police. You’re an undercover CIA agent, and there’s nothing you can do to stop the slaughter. It made mainstream news and was the headline for a few days ...