Mirror's Edge

With but a small look around at the games on the shelves today, it's clear we're living in the age of the first person shooter. Left, right and centre we're blasting bad guys through the eyes of our protagonist but, enjoyable as they can be, it's hard to find games of the genre which actually push the boundaries, and give us more on the visual aspect than looking down your sights. That's where DICE's Mirror's Edge comes in.

It's interesting that a game which revolves around freerunning and parkour works in first person. To see exactly where your feet are going, what you're grabbing onto, it would be expected that it would be from a third person perspective, to give a whole view of your body. However, in a HUD-less first person view, with the ability to look down and see not just your feet but your whole torso and arms moving incredibly realistically, this is an immersing experience beyond the norm. I say this first and foremost because this will be the first thing that hits you, the player, as soon as you are put in the running shoes of Faith, a 'runner', tasked with delivering messages and information in an unnamed dystopian city. After a short introduction this is the environment you are thrown right into and shown the ropes of running, but it is perhaps not what you'd expect from a city under the grip of a police regime. Warm blue sky, gleaming white buildings with occasional drips of orange and yellow dotted around the concrete jungle; more a place of silenced resistance and forced smiles than one of gang violence and public execution. The visuals are really nothing short of stunning, with the Unreal Engine 3's lighting effects being pushed to their limit; white buildings with the sun shining directly on them will look dazzling, and when bursting outside from a shadowy building you will be momentarily blinded by the glare. My only real issue I had with the aesthetics would be the cutscenes, which were a halfway point between anime and later Disney cartoons like Mulan. These tend to take Faith out of her stern character, and are more often than not quite boring. It perhaps would have been a better idea to have made these cutscenes fully in first person and in real time.

With the gameplay, just like the lack of HUD, simplicity is key. Except for the odd occasion of flicking a switch or disarming an enemy, you will be using all four shoulder buttons. These, combined with each other or with forwards movement will perform downwards moves like crouching or sliding, jumps and vaults, punches or kicks, and a quick 180 degree spin. Chain these together in the right way and, as an example, you could pull off a wallrun, followed by a jump to an adjacent wall, a climb then a final jump to grab the edge. The potential for variety in this is huge and when you're not given the goal to freerun to a certain place, it will usually be to use your skills to solve a puzzle of reaching a high-up point in a large room or a tall roof. In this way, players may find a few similarities to Portal, not least because of the clinical and clean environment.

I think what players would ask for in this area is simply more. The campaign isn't long by any means and most players will be done within 4 or 5 hours, and throughout you don't learn any more skills. It feels great to link together a long set of moves and nail a very smooth trick, but there could perhaps have been some more high intensity moves for when the chases really get going. There could also have been a lot more freerunning sections in general, as about 50% of the campaign will, quite unfortunately, be spent indoors infiltrating buildings. Of course, these sections won't be walking around and there is some parkour to be done inside, but being indoors - and in particular the elevators - tends to kill the pace a little. The combat could also have done with a polish. Kicks, punches, and the incredibly cinematic disarm moves all look great and there are a few combos available, but there is still a lot of room here too for improvement. By the end of the game you'll probably have worked out a specific move chain which will beat any enemy and you might just rinse and repeat.

Once the campaign is done, you are given the options of two more game types: Time Trial and Speed Run. The latter is very simple and not exactly mindblowingly fun either, the task is literally to run through a campaign mission as quickly as possible. Time Trial, however, is another moment where Mirror's Edge shines. You are given a series of objectives to reach and a time to beat. Taking the most obvious choice would be to freerun to each as quickly as you can, but smart players will try to find shortcuts and faster moves to use. Your results are put on the online leaderboards and this can become very addictive and satisfying. Expect this to be a true freerunning experience.

Mirror's Edge is an incredibly original game and one which is perhaps underrated because of its brevity, but I can see that any FPS fan looking for something different will probably warm to it. With DICE's passion for improvement I can see Mirror's Edge 2 being even more spectacular than this little gem. 8/10.

Battlefield: Bad Company 2

It's been a long wait. Fans of Bad Company 1 and everyone who had heard of this 'Modern Warfare beater' were all in anticipation on the days leading up to March 2010, when the new multiplayer big kid on the block was to show up and, apparently, rock the online gaming world. I think it's safe to say that DICE's latest creation might as well make any other multiplayer game obsolete. 

Multiplayer is the clear focus of any Battlefield game, not least Bad Company 2, sporting the phrase 'Defining Online Warfare' on the cover, but I shall begin with the single player campaign. This features the return of the squad from Bad Company 1 (how they are back in the army after their gold-stealing escapade is unexplained, but it's no obstruction) who again go AWOL after they become separated from the US Army and instead receive a mission from the American Secret Service to venture into Russian-owned territory and find out whatever they can about an old, mysterious weapon the Russians are recovering which will apparently have the power to end the war entirely. This of course does not go wholly to plan and the squad will find themselves in tricky and sometimes ridiculous scenarios, but it must be noted that this is not a comedy-orientated game like the previous Bad Company. Haggard will still made the odd stupid remark, Sweetwater is still an embarrassing geek, and Redford an exhausted, strict veteran, but the obvious gags (such as driving golf carts or a gold-plated helicopter) are clearly avoided and replaced with a gripping, intense, and explosive - to put it VERY lightly - campaign. Twists and character development aren't particularly prominent but it definitely works very well in being a military shooter by using a balanced mix of realism and the necessary mad moments, in brilliantly realised environments, this time around usually based in Bolivian jungles and snowy mountain tops. Weapons now have a variety tripled in size, due to customisations such as scopes different ammo, and instead of having 'kits' in single player you may now carry two weapons of your choice, which tends to be a lot more convenient. This may be similar to a lot of FPSs of today, but with every weapon being quite so different and there being very few all-round guns it's both beneficial and enjoyable to be carrying two instead of just, say, an assault rifle and an attached grenade launcher.

When Bad Company showed up for the first time, apart from being 'the funny one' it was known to the Battlefield where stuff blows up. 'Tactical destruction', it was called. Fortunately, that worked well with walls nicely blowing up to remove cover, trees being crushed by tanks and bridges collapsing after taking enough stick from rockets and shells. It seems that this was just the tip of the iceberg with the Frostbite engine as this has been managed to be improved also, now more destructible wall and roof sections, entire buildings collapsing (and crushing everyone inside) and 'microdestruction', meaning small shards of fence or concrete can be broken off by firing any small arms weapons at them, instead of a wall being either completely together or entirely gone. By the end of a skirmish or multiplayer match, it'll be nearly impossible for the scenery to be anything less than annihilated and it is badass. The engine will also shine through with improved graphics, character models, animations, and best of all, draw distance. There are plenty of moments in the campaign where, clearly on purpose, you are given a huge vista to take in, such as a huge stretch of lush jungle, or a towering white mountain, and it will not fade into the distance or have rough edges but instead stare right back at you, almost photo-realistically. 

With just about all the basic boxes ticked, it leaves the bulk of Bad Company 2's appeal: the multiplayer. I was addicted to Bad Company 1's online play, but now trying to even describe the quality of multiplayer in Bad Company 2 makes me lost for words. Liked Gold Rush in BC1? It returns, now with the name rush. Liked Conquest in the DLC? That's packaged too. Combined with this is Squad Rush and Squad Deathmatch, where the named game type is played but in a free for all between squads, offering tight, tense and tactical matches aimed, for the most part, at the more hardcore of the fanbase. Regardless of what you're playing, however, you're guaranteed for some absolutely mindblowing fun. Stacks of weapons, attachments and upgrades to unlock, improved ranking system and squad play, sorted issues related to hit detection and weapon damage, great variety in vehicles including some fantastic additions - in particular the awesome Black Hawk helicopter - to name just a few. To say it challenges Modern Warfare's running and gunning/camping/grenade spamming/idiot fest with no teamwork incentive is one of the great understatements in recent gaming journalism. Given you have a good squad of friends to play with, you will almost certainly become addicted to this within a week; you have been warned.

What else is there to say? Criticisms, on the rare occasions they show up, are small and insignificant, and usually in the form of some maps allowing for a little too much frustration with snipers sitting on the sidelines. However, with the help of the new deathcam, it doesn't remain a problem and barely distracts from the overall experience. In summary, this is going to be one of the best multiplayer games you'll ever play, at least of this generation. It seems DICE know how to spot errors and slip ups in their former games and simply improve every time around, eventually and inevitably building up to a stellar title such as this. 10/10.

Army of Two: The 40th Day

It's good that in this day and age we can get another properly co-operative shooter, at a time where split screen and co-operative modes are being pushed aside to be replaced by online play and competitive game modes. The sequel to Army of Two improves upon many of the mistakes of the first game, and will be an enjoyable and visceral two-player experience, though perhaps with too many errors to become a classic.

It's hard to properly describe the context of the game as, while it does not hugely diminish the gaming experience, the 40th Day has the most non-existent storyline in any game I've played since Mario Bros. The two mercenaries, Tyson Rios and Elliot Salem, are working in Shanghai when, all of a sudden, it begins to blow up. This blowing-up will continue throughout the game, and as you progress through areas they will blow up around you, buildings will blow up and collapse, and you genuinely wonder how Rios and Salem survive the whole game without being... blown up. So the real objective is to work your way out of Shanghai to safety whilst  fighting off hordes of private military groups who apparently are responsible for the mass attacks on the city. It will bear a lot of visual resemblances to rail shooters like Time Crisis, in the way that you are two bustly American football players who soak up bullets better than a concrete wall and face up against some of the most ridiculous looking bosses in a shooter that takes itself quite seriously. However this tends to show that the emphasis is on fun and teamwork, rather than being an immersing, realistic experience. 

Speaking of shooting, there's something in the 40th Day which is done better than in any other game of today, and that is the weapon customisation, and this is the true highlight of the game. As you play you earn money, and this is spent on buying weapons and upgrading them to be some of the most awesome (or ridiculous) looking guns you'll ever see. Want a fully-automatic shotgun? Good. Add a huge metal plate to it to act as a shield. And gold-plate it for good measure. This sort of customisation can be done on almost every weapon and it's great to know that the gun you're firing is uniquely yours and built for your style of play. This has a big effect on the 'aggro' system which returns from the predecessor to bring in the most tactical element of play. One player runs around guns blazing, usually using brightly coloured guns with muzzle enhancers and huge attachments, to attract the attention of the enemies, who will begin to return fire as the aggro-meter indicates towards that player's name. At the same time, the other player, using camouflaged weapons with silencers will sneak around the back and snipe or flank. As such, it is better to assign one player as the 'aggro guy' and one as the 'sneaky guy' at the beginning of the campaign, and customise all future weapons accordingly. EA also made an effort to distinguish what type of players you and your friend are by including 'moral choice' sections, where you have an interactive cutscene of which you can choose the end. These don't really have a lasting effect on the game, and the rewards for each choice are usually either money or guns, accompanied by a comic-book short describing the effect of your choice, but it's a nice addition.

This 6-8 hour campaign is definitely a blast with a friend, and the co-op aspect as been done very well indeed. Unfortunately, this is a point where the game really only has one leg to stand on - without playing it on co-op just about all fun is gone. The AI isn't horrendous but without being able to talk tactics with a team-mate and generally share the experience it feels like another average shooter. Some of the environments are quite good but on the whole this won't give you as many thrills as many other third person shooters will. 

The multiplayer is another is another part of the game where it tends to fall flat on its face. The maps are fairly underwhelming ports of campaign missions, the game types could be used to be a lot more co-op friendly (as you play online with a partner) and it has to be said that the health system works fine in campaign, but not as well online and every enemy seems a little too tough, bolstered by unfortunately unbalanced weapons. The multiplayer is also the most affected by one of the critical flaws of the 40th Day, and that is the technical side. Most commonly you'll get lag and being split up with your partner in the lobby, but other glitches I encountered included bad textures, enemies disappearing and, worst of all, shamelessly not coughing up the achievement for completing the game on the hardest difficulty. The cover system could also have been hugely brushed up on, as although it does a good effort at replicating Gears of War's perfect system, without an actual 'cover button' it's far too unreliable and I've been shot and killed plenty of times due to Rios refusing to protect himself.

I think it's safe to say you should only really buy Army of Two: The 40th Day on two conditions: that you're not shelling out the full price as it simply isn't that replayable, and that you have someone to play with, either split-screen or online co-op. Great weapon customisation and teamwork elements complemented by Rios and Salem's badassery make it a good runthrough, but without a decent multiplayer function and single player mode it's not something to be picked up more than once or twice. 7/10.

Halo 3: ODST

I'll start this review with a very minor spoiler. Remember back in the day when this game was still going to be called Halo 3: Recon, and Bungie said that Master Chief 'might' be seen at some point during the storyline? It's a lie. The old hero of the Halo franchise is neither present nor spoken of. Disappointment. It would have given ODST the kick up the backside that it needs.

I think it's a harsh but fair statement to say that Halo fans and newcomers alike will be disappointed in the storyline. Judging by Bungie's past reputation for a strong central story, and by the fact that the game has Halo 3's tag in the name, one might have expected perhaps not a blistering epic tale, but at least an exciting military campaign intertwined with some character development on the part of the Rookie, the silent ODST soldier you play as, and maybe some involvement with the Halo 3 storyline. However, the most part of the game is spent trudging around the desolate city of New Mombasa, now in wreckage, to find clues of your squad's location - which will then trigger a flashback mission which is more likely to see you some action. While these help build a sense of loneliness and desertion, you can't help but feel you have to walk around in the dark killing the odd brute simply as filler between the real missions. Because the Rookie never talks, it's very difficult for the storyline to get anywhere without being on an actual mission, and perhaps Bungie should have taken this into consideration. However not much can be said for other characters either; while other ODSTs act in the light-hearted way that marines always have in the Halo series, and it is a comforting sound, what usually plagues them is that your contact with them is always limited. A few ODSTs in the squad you will see not much more than twice, and when you do, you haven't seen them enough to tell them apart.

So while Halo has fallen down in one of the things it has done best, there are some things it still has to be credited for. Graphics haven't improved as such (though there were already rich in great textures, character models and a VERY steady framerate) but visuals on the whole are sometimes incredible during the campaign, such as looking over a 2-mile stretch of burning city and wreckage, or seeing a giant Covenant cruiser approaching the heights of New Mombasa preparing to raze it to the ground. The soundtrack, of course, has also to be noted as Marty O'Donnell returns for another piano-led accompaniment which still blows most other game music out of the water. It's not as bouncy as that of Halo 3's, and don't expect to hear any signature tunes from the previous games, but nonetheless this is still a soundtrack that will beat most movies' and games' scores outright. 

Multiplayer is what kept Halo 3 flying off the shelves for years after its release, so naturally it is to be expected that ODST makes it just as addictive yet 'all in good fun' as 3. Unfortunately, there is very little new in terms of multiplayer and I think it is right for many to question the full price for the game because of this. On the multiplayer disc it will include normal Halo 3 matchmaking with all maps, but now with an extra 3 Mythic maps. Good stuff, but no new weapons or vehicles? No matchmaking playing as an ODST? A lowly addition of 3 maps makes the 'Halo 3' in the title seems an excuse to add very little indeed. On the main campaign disc is the other multiplayer type: Firefight. This is the wave mode that a lot of games are latching onto these days, and there are some good maps to be playing on with Firefight against the classic hierarchy of Halo enemies with a bunch of friends, but it seems to be flawed in some basic areas. For example, you'd expect the first few waves to be easy and get harder as you progress with tougher and bigger enemies, but instead they seem to throw everything at you in a fairly random order. 

Apart from that, a very general problem with the game is a lack of weaponry. This isn't to say there are no new weapons (though there are only two...), but the range of guns you'll be using is minute. A silenced SMG which does a pathetic amount of damage and a surprisingly powerful and accurate pistol is what you spawn with, but it's an uncommon occurance to be able to find anything better. You can carry three grenades of each type which is an improvement, but you'd expect shock troopers to be a lot more well-equipped, and at least carry some shock weapons. 

It's a shame that Bungie have lost some momentum here. We can hope good things for Halo: Reach and perhaps for good reason, but Halo 3:ODST at the moment seems to be the runt of the pack. A disappointingly mediocre campaign and a few feeble additions to multiplayer isn't the standard we should expect from the makers of one of the great FPSs of our time. 6/10.

GTA IV: The Ballad of Gay Tony

A year and a half from Grand Theft Auto IV's huge release, and expansion numero deux comes out for Xbox 360, downloadable or on an 'Episodes from Liberty City' disk. And despite the title and surface-level looks at the game, it's not just about nightclubs and dripping homosexuality. In this you'll be getting not just more great GTA:IV action, but everything else they SHOULD have put in.

The story starts with a very clever intro that describes how the new protagonist Luis Lopez is not actually someone new; but someone you've been staring at the whole time. He was not just a bystander at the Liberty Bank robbery as the opening cutscene directly shows, but the man in white who ambushes the Museum of History-Jewish Mafia diamonds deal, and the one accompanying Gay Tony when Gracie is handed back. Accompanying Gay Tony is, not surprisingly, what you are doing for most of the game as you are his assistant manager - and NOTHING MORE as it never fails to emphasise - in his nightclub businesses, however his drug addiction and dangerous friends lead him down a dangerous blood-fueled path that you have no choice but to follow him through. Make no mistake as I do not understate 'blood-fueled' path; there are around ten new weapons to add to the armoury including a M249 light machine gun, a .50 calibre sniper rifle and a grenade launcher, brutally over-the-top vehicles with the golden Little Bird military helicopter mainly in mind (not so much the frankly disappointing APC) and some satirically silly yet exhilarating missions which often make you laugh as much as your heart pound. 

So while the storyline and general missions are definitely set for a whole lot of city-rampaging fun, Rockstar have kindly thrown into the melting-pot a lot of extra things which will both please older GTA fans and take the action up a notch. For instance, you may remember in GTA:IV that the fabled Infernus or, as it is meant to be, Lamborghini, will almost never be seen out of multiplayer. It is given to you by Bernie as a gift, but should you lose it, it's likely to be lost for the rest of the game. Well as if as a reward to shelling out 1600msp on the Ballad, Rockstar have kindly given players the ability to find a growling supercar roaming the streets a lot more frequently, and you're almost certain to find an Infernus in particular from 5 minutes searching in the right areas. In addition to this, there are two new supercars up for grabs, an Aston Martin Vanquish (though very similar to the DB9 in the original game) and a Bullet GT making a comeback from previous GTAs. However don't just expect new cars, as the highlight of 'awesome extras' is undoubtedly the parachute, used to make a lot of adrenaline-pumped missions as well as Base Jumping side missions and some brilliantly ridiculous messing around. 

While the character of Luis could have been improved and given depth of Niko Bellic standard, this has to be one of the only small areas in which the Ballad falters. Rockstar have made mistakes and success in many of their previous games, but it seems in this 10-hour-or-so story they've encapsulated everything they do well. I would strongly recommend any owner of Grand Theft Auto IV to purchase this as soon as possible, as this is arguably the 'true' experience. Easily worth the 1600msp or the money paid for the disk, and definitely one of the best things on the Marketplace. 10/10.

Left 4 Dead 2

And in only just over a year, Valve are back with the sequel to the multiplayer masterpiece Left 4 Dead, and inevitably, the game is bigger and better in just about every way, with four new characters, twice as many guns, brutal melee weapons to hack away with, more Zombies and a distinctly improved set of campaigns. Might as well throw away your old Left 4 Dead, because this has all you need, and more.

Fans of the first Left 4 Dead will surely have good memories of the four campaigns. They were great, it's safe to say, and it was one of *the* multiplayer greats. But while this was a lot of fun provided you had some buddies to play with, there was always room for more. You started with an SMG or a Shotgun, and later you could upgrade to an M-16, an auto shottie, or a hunting rifle. Course this will do, and it gets you through the mission, but it's not spectacular. There's no real variation, and you'll find on average two of the survivors blasting away with the shotgun and the other two mowing down with an automatic rifle. Storyline is also completely absent, each of the campaigns is entirely standalone and requires no prologue or epilogue which is fine as the focus is on the survival, but wouldn't it be good to show some continous journey, and maybe some character development? These are all things Valve saw, picked up on, and did something about and the result is visibly what Left 4 Dead not only should have been, but was meant to have been.

For a start, Valve HAVE decided to make a skeletal storyline this time around. It's not Metal Gear Solid, but it at least connects the campaigns together into one big escape plan across Southern USA to a military safe zone and, since the start where all the characters give brief introductions of themselves to each other in an elevator between gasps for breath, they noticeably begin to know each other a lot more and communication becomes slick and natural through the course of the story (though I must add, like Half-Life 2, it is worth putting subs on as some voices come out fairly quietly). The environments in each campaign are not just different from each other but this time are very original in their own right; Dark Carnival particularly in mind. It has to be one of the most hilarious and downright trippy campaigns/missions I've played since the hallucinations in Fallout 3: Point Lookout. For any fans of Zombieland there are a few clear references in the game and the zombie clowns in Dark Carnival are undoubtedly one of them.

The formula of the campaigns are also mixed up nicely. Each section doesn't have your standard witch/tank/alert horde but instead will differ entirely based on where you are. This is helped along its way by an improved selection of Special Infected, which now includes Spitters, Jockeys and Chargers, and the finale of each campaign always being not just different but usually very tongue-in-cheek and ridiculous.

Of course, because of the way the multiplayer is so well wrapped together with the single player, the experienced is improved online (or split screen, but it's not nearly as good) drastically too. Versus as the Infected became often dull on the previous game as there was only a selection of three creatures, all with irritating flaws and a painful respawn time, but now with double that number, a decent balance of strengths and weaknesses and a slightly shortened respawn time Versus is as fun as it should be. The classic 4-player co-op is a heck of a lot of fun still, obviously made better by the improved campaigns, and while I was let down by Survival having barely changed, Scavenge is what stood out to me. It is based on the finale of the first campaign in which you have to collect gas cans and load as much of the petrol into an escape vehicle before the time is up. You take turns as the survivors and Infected and this can get incredibly tense and there is plenty of room for some very amusing Left 4 Dead moments, and gleeful satisfaction as the Infected, pulling off a successful ambush on the survivors and foiling their plans. 

For whatever you're playing, on top of that you're given a selection of weapons that puts Rambo to shame. The original weapons are still featured but now there's also a SPAS-12, a SCAR-H, an AK-47, a G3, a Desert Eagle and more. Not enough? Good. Because there is a horde of melee weapons at your disposal which aren't just effective, they're incredibly satisfying. Ranging from crowbars to chainsaws, you'll find yourself using these time and again, and there's nothing in Left 4 Dead 2 that feels as good as taking a Zombie head off with the heavy end of a guitar. Yes, a guitar.

Left 4 Dead 2 could have brushed up on Survival and maybe a couple of other minor details, but everything else is nothing short of outstanding. You don't have to be a fan of Left 4 Dead 1, or even of zombie games/movies; this is a groundbreaking survival shooter and probably the greatest FPS of 2009. 9/10.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2

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.