PRE-REVIEW NOTE: If there are any random wanderers of the internet that have stumbled across this, there's a 99% chance that they can't fathom the idea of Modern Warfare 2 being bad and will think this review is biased. For the record, I have played to the point of having 100% completion of campaign, that means all intel and Veteran completion, have got over half the stars on Special Ops, and reached level 30 on multiplayer, which for me is about 7 hours of gameplay on competitive multiplayer. Happy? Probably not, whiny bellends.
After I rated Call of Duty 4 a less-than-generous 2/10 and have cursed the Call of Duty franchise on multiple times on my Rantings blog, one might wonder why I have so much as touched this game. Indeed I now wonder the same thing, but being me it is because I cannot stand to criticise something I have not fully experienced myself. So, I gave this game a rent, and it basically confirmed to me that the whole gaming world has lost its mind.
I shall begin with the... unflattering campaign. Unflattering in that it feels the need to treat the player as a child, strangely enough I think that is the best way to describe it. The storyline begins as follows, 'Call of Duty 4 has ended, the Russians are defeated... but now they're not, because of some guy called Makarov.' During the course it will throw at you your staple fighting-with-your-teammates-against-loads-of-enemies-missions, along with a huge variety of special operations missions in which you will clamber up ice-clad mountains, scramble through Brazilian slums and free hostages on a Russian oil rig. Variety? Isn't that a good thing? Absolutely. But despite Modern Warfare 2 placing you in countless different environments, some with very convincing environment-specific dynamics like blizzards reducing enemy soldiers' ability to see you, it always shamelessly returns to the same boring formula: loads of enemies, and you being able to effortlessly despatch them as if you were born with a gun in your hand. I'm not suggesting you should resemble a helpless baby as you do in Flashpoint, but for a game that prides itself so much in making the 'best modern warfare gaming experience', it tries to make you God far too much. It has you now using vehicles such as snowmobiles and speedboats in first person, and firing with one hand, but this also brings you straight out the action as not only do you move at roughly 200mph and making the whole thing look, as I have said many a time, like something like Time Crisis, but the ability to aim perfectly whilst doing so makes it seem like a really, REALLY stupid movie.
Infinity Ward HAVE upped the ante with some more advanced technology which CoD4 lacked; things such as thermal sights, heartbeat sensors and manually-guided Predator missiles. These are nice little additions, and I can't fault them much but what I can say is that it simply isn't enough. They're fun for a minute or two but they don't change the game from being just another mindless, and I mean mindless, FPS. The storyline is also nothing short of a joke. In the brutal, but stupid attempt at breaking moral boundaries, mission that is No Russian you are an American agent undercover with Makarov, and are forced to kill as many civilians as you can in an airport in an act of terrorism. Finding your body after Makarov betrays you, the Russians think Americans committed the act. So the Russians decide to invade America, which apparently takes about 5 minutes as before you know it you're fighting off hordes of Russian soldiers in Virginian suburbia, and in ruined Washington D.C in a mission resembling Fallout 3. The group of cliche gruff-voiced SAS tough guys are back and they take on many different stealth missions, which tend to not exceed mediocrity, where you are collecting information about Makarov. Various double-crossings and more attempts at moral messages follow until finish, and I don't want to ruin for anyone the glorious stupidity of the ending.
Of course, there's still the multiplayer to be judged. Usually I would be convinced that 'maybe there's some good in it' when everyone drools over it as the 'greatest multiplayer game of all time', but after CoD4 I went in with a cynical mind. To my surprise, I was genuinely impressed for the first few hours. In the lower levels you are rewarded in exactly the right intervals for the right amount of accomplishments, and I found myself thinking it may beat CoD WaW (the only CoD game I reserve today to have good multiplayer). However, it simply doesn't develop from there. A majority of the maps are incredibly poorly designed, in particular Sub Base and the lazily-made Wasteland, and after enough matches you realise the exact same things happen every time around, and without any strategy necessary due to instant respawns and a lot of overpowered weapons it becomes an endless fest of run/shoot/die/run/shoot/die in helpless monotony. Additional killstreak rewards, and ways to customise which ones you want and when to have them is an advantage, but you will find that because of this you can hardly set foot outside without a celestial AC-130 drilling bullets into your skull from the heavens, or a Predator missile coming out of nowhere, or there to constantly be a Harrier Jet hanging around in the sky killing whatever sees the light of day. Irritating in-your-face action which tries so hard to be fun that it's just chaotic.
I think it's safe to say that Infinity Ward made every possible mistake... all over again, and all in a bid to win the hearts of every moron out there, which they safely did. There are some mild improvements from the previous game but it's simply another game made for another buck or billion. 3/10.
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