Review: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (X360)

As good as Uncharted 2? The simple answer to that question, away from all the hype, is a resounding no.

Modern Warfare 2 is a good entertaining and rather simplistic shooter that eschews many of today's gameplay innovations to focus on the intensity of war. It looks pretty, is very loud and peddles the kind of them-and-us politics that will go down well in the kind of places that still think Saddam Hussein had something to do with the 9/11 atrocity.

I felt a certain amount of unease playing through the incredibly short campaign. In-game quotes from Dick Cheney don't help, nor does that level that everyone's been talking about. Released a few days after Remembrance Sunday and the death of more British troops in Afghanistan it didn't feel quite right beginning the game in that country. The respect that marked out the first two Call of Duty games has long gone, this is Bobby Kotick's money making machine now, the Haliburton of the games industry.

And while the journey you embark on in Modern Warfare 2 just about succeeds in legitimising the earlier content by the time the closing credits arrive it's a close run thing. Many of the underage customers at a midnight opening I went to cover (with parents there to buy the game for them) were talking excitedly about that level and how much they were looking forward to it. For a few moments I actually thought slimy British MP Keith Vaz might be right about Modern Warfare 2.

44 Seconds

But let's pretend the politics don't matter for a while and take a look at the single player campaign. And what rollicking good fun it is too. Call of Duty has never bothered with the kind of features you'd expect in a modern shooter such as cover mechanics. Heck there's not even the ability to peer round walls. As ever you'll get to watch your beautifully animated AI squadmates carry out such moves, but these aren't for you soldier.

Much of the single player campaign is a blast. The intensity has been ramped up another notch from the last game yet at the same time the actual combat seems a little better balanced. The game is a little easier than recent CoD releases - but that's no bad thing. All too often World at War and Modern Warfare led you into ridiculous funnels of gunfire that would take tens of attempts to pass, and only then by luck.

Thankfully Infinity Ward has mostly removed infinite respawning enemies (or at least mostly succeeded in disguising them). There were some occasions where there were still hints of these. But at last the franchise allows you to play a steady game of finding cover and picking of enemies, rather than having to rush headlong towards an invisible trigger as the only way of progressing.

There are two issues that make the campaign less than perfect. First is the length. Given the price gouging Activision has embarked on with this release the centrepiece of the game is insultingly short. Played on normal you have one evening's play here for your 50 or so pounds.

Secondly the pace of the game is very one note. To me the campaign felt like watching an extended trailer for the real game. It's all very Michael Bay - crash, bang, explosion. This approach is certainly intense, but there's no light and shade, no dynamics, few shifts of pace. I felt like the game was rushing me along, impatient with itself. I also found the blood-spattered screen showing the player health state too over the top - making it hard to find the cover the game was prompting me to hide in.

Compared to the wonderful Uncharted 2 it felt rather lacking. Uncharted 2 doesn't have a particularly long campaign, but it felt positively generous compared to Modern Warfare 2. More importantly UC2 was better scripted, beautifully paced and more thoughtful by far. Uncharted's set pieces served as climaxes to beautifully crafted sequences that seemed to be earned by their build-up, Modern Warfare 2 is all climax and no-foreplay and often feels less satisfactory for that.

Still, if you enjoy shooting the frightening foreigners that threaten your happy white picket-fence suburban idyll then there's six or seven hours or rip-roaring fun here. And yes all reservations of the poor story and political content aside those few hours are usually good fun thanks to ever increasingly silly set-pieces, massive weapons and big explosions. There's plenty of variety in the missions and locations too. Those of you who worried the game may be full of unwelcome driving sections needn't worry. Infinity Ward knows the bits we like best and doesn't wander too far from the core gameplay too often, just providing enough variety (such as stealth-lite sections, bullet time moments etc.) to shake things up here or there.

This Day We Fight

Many of the people I've spoken to about Modern Warfare 2 are only going to play half of the game. Some aren't interested in the single player campaign, others won't be touching the multiplayer at all. I've spoken to surprisingly few who are interested in both sides of the game. Of the two sets, the multiplayer fans are going to be the ones who get more value for money - at least those playing the console versions.

Modern Warfare 2's multiplayer component is finely balanced and very well designed. There's been plenty of nods to the first game's community - the removal of annoying perks such as Juggernaut or Martyrdom being obvious examples. There are new killstreaks, good luck getting the award for 25, I never got close - but it promises to be explosive good fun if you achieve it.

And while this may be a frightening game mode for new players there are some ways the game will help you. New deathstreaks give players a stat boost upon being repeated cannon fodder. All in all the multiplayer component offers better value for money and is likely to be the backbone of the game's success.

Endgame

While the campaign is short, it is also pretty exciting and mostly good fun despite some unsettling moments. The multiplyer is Modern Warfare 2 resounding success. So if we have to pick one aspect of the game that doesn't quite cut it that is the new Spec-Ops mode.

Spec-Ops is a neat idea - offering short snappy excerpts from the campaign to play through solo, or in co-op mode. There's nothing particularly wrong with the action on offer - it's all good fun - but one feels that Infinity Ward hasn't got fully behind the game mode. One might have expected more stats and leadboards to make this a mode that becomes a popular method of skill comparison online, a worthy counterpart to the regular multiplayer offerings. Hopefully this is a mode that will be more fleshed out in the inevitable sequel.

Taken as a whole then Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 is a good scripted linear shooter. It doesn't really innovate and instead relies on tried and trusted gameplay - ramping up the action to the max and whisking the player though an adventure without stopping to look at the scenery. All three sections of the game offer good fun, albeit too small a slice of fun in the campaign. Those of you who may have recently completed Uncharted 2 who are now looking for another exciting adventure may be a little disappointed, the writing and voice work is not on a par with that PlayStation 3 epic, nor are the visuals, even though Modern Warfare 2 is often very pretty.

Reservations over the game's poor storytelling and that level aside my main beef with Modern Warfare 2 is that it's too short and too one-note. But that note is a good one and if you can afford the expensive outlay - or pick up the game from a discounting supermarket - you're bound to have a good time with the game. Just don't expect the game of the year. Instead expect a good fun entertaining but simplistic shooter, you won't be disappointed.