Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 Review

Modern Warfare 2, quite possibly the most anticipated shooter of all time. Everyone is talking about it and playing it. I have played it, now it’s my turn to talk about it.

Call of Duty 4 Modern Warfare was one of the biggest titles to hit the gaming world so I am sure everyone was expecting Modern Warfare 2 to be bigger and better. Let's see if Infinity Ward delivered.

Modern Warfare 2 is set five years after Call of Duty 4. Even with the joined efforts of the SAS and the US Marines and the death of Zakhaev, the Ultranationalists managed to take Russia and they declared Zakhaev a hero. Now, Makarov the shadow of Zakhaev has started attacking Europe with acts of terrorism.

When you finally jump in, you are in Afghanistan controlling PFC Joseph Allen of the U.S Army Rangers. You help your squad and the rest of the Rangers take back an Afghan city from the militants, an impressed General Shepherd recruits you for a special mission and re-assigns you as a CIA operative. You join Makarov’sorganization undercover for the CIA. Meanwhile, Captain Soap MacTavish and Sgt Gary “Roach” Sanderson are infiltrating an airbase in Kazakhstan, they are there to recover an ACS module. They are eventually found out and must make there escape, and I must say the snowmobile sequence in the mission is amazing.

Your missions take place in such settings as, Afghanistan, Brazil and one which was a big surprise, America.

Just like the old Call of Duty games, you play as different characters throughout the game. In this game you take control of, PFC Joseph Allen, Pvt. James Ramirez,
Sgt. Gary Sanderson and Capt. Soap MacTavish. The HUD system is very similar to Call of Duty 4 and the way your objectives are pretty much the same as well. Infinity Ward have decided to include collecting the enemy intel again, on Call of Duty 4 I never bothered with this and I don’t think I will this time.

Co-op play has been introduced into Infinity Ward’s part of the Call of Duty series, I must say they have pulled it off brilliantly. The game mode is called Special Ops and it is divided into five groups of missions. Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta and Echo, each one contains 5 missions except Echo which only has 3. You can up to 3 stars on each Mission with a total of 69 stars altogether. Difficulty levels: regular, hardened and veteran. At the end of each game it shows how long it took you and how many kills you got and some other stats.

Now I have loved multiplayer on all the Call of Duty games and Modern Warfare 2 has joined that list. Everything about it is perfect except one minor thing. There is a little bit too much air support, if they took away 2 of the air supports then it would make it more even and much more fun for players who are new. There are a few new perks and one of my favourites has to be “Bling”, this perk allows two attachments on your gun. This was a most wanted for MW2 and it seems Infinity Ward have delivered. There is now an inclusion of death streaks, so if you die 3-4 times in a row you get a little help to get some kills. The new kill streak awards are very good, such as after 5 kills you get a predator missile or if you get 11 kills you can control an AC130 and rack up a massive amount of kills.

The new weapons are very good; my favourite at the moment is the ACR. I am glad they just didn’t copy all the old weapons over and add a few new ones. Granted, there are some CoD4 weapons in there such as the M16 and the AK47. Now one great thing they have done is “host migration” which when the host leaves instead of just ending the game, it gives the host to the person with the best connection so people can play on and not lose all the points they have gained. When playing online, there are only certain game modes which you can now party chat in. I myself am not that annoyed about it but many others are, Infinity Ward are taking all this feedback and are now planning there next move with what to do with the party chat.

New game modes include Demolition, Capture the Flag and 3^rd Person mode. Firstly Demolition is basically Search and Destroy but you all have bombs when attacking and there are respawns in this mode. Capture the Flag is basically self explanatory and is very welcomed back to the Call of Duty series. Now, 3^rd person mode, this is played over the shoulder like Gears of War. This has been done well by IW but to be fair, if they took it off the playlists tomorrow I wouldn’t care but fair play to them trying out new areas.


The music of the game was provided by the award winning composer Hans Zimmer and I am very impressed with the music, it is one of the those soundtracks that just fits with the game perfectly. The world famous rapper 50 Cent provided some voice work for Special Ops and multiplayer modes. Bill Murray, did the voice for Captain Price just like on Call of Duty 4 and Kevin McKidd took up the role of Soap MacTavish and provided the voice we all wanted to hear in Call of Duty 4.

Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 really has upped the mark on all shooters in the market and it will take a lot to top it. I am enjoying every minute of it and though the campaign was short, I would rather play short story and remember it than play a long one and try to remember what mission I loved the most. I am truly impressed by Infinity Ward and how they have delivered this new Call of Duty in the best series of shooters of all time. I really can’t wait for the next instalment.

JD's Score - 97%